Sharon Jones
“MISS SHARON JONES!” My rating: B
93 minutes | No MPAA rating
Barbara Kopple made her reputation with hard-hitting, left-leaning documentaries like “Harlan County, U.S.A.” and “American Dream.”
But she also has a long history of music-themed films, including “Wild Man Blues” (Woody Allen’s Dixieland jazz band), “Shut Up & Sing” (the post-9/11 Dixie Chicks) and “Woodstock: Now & Then.”
“Miss Sharon Jones!” is about a musician, but it’s really not about music. Rather, Kopple uses her cameras to record singer Sharon Jones’ battle with pancreatic cancer.
Jones, who was once told by a recording exec that she was “too old, too fat, too short, and too black,” has recorded several albums, one of them Grammy-nominated. But her career rests on her heavy tour schedule with the Dap-Kings, her nine-member interracial backup band.
For Sharon Jones in action is a sight to behold. She swaggers, she sways, she gets funky, she dances, and she has a voice that absolutely shreds r&b and soul numbers. (more…)
Butler's Cinema Scene 