A few months back I reviewed the James Brown biopic, Get On Up, which was great if you want to hear some good music and see Chadwick Boseman do a fantastic James Brown impression, not so great if you actually want to know anything about James Brown beyond the usual biopic framing devices. But as he did with Lance Armstrong, documentarian Alex Gibney (Gonzo, Taxi To The Dark Side, Catching Hell) is doing the Lord’s work, complementing the James Brown biopic with a James Brown documentary. Mick Jagger was a producer on both. It premieres tonight at 9 pm on HBO.
In addition to interviews with all the heavy hitters, like Jagger, Maceo Parker, Bootsy Collins, and… uh… Al Sharpton, the doc will include some rare and never-before-seen James Brown footage provided by his estate.
…the filmmakers found footage from the opening of Brown’s televised Boston concert following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, which producer Blair Foster said no one had seen since the show was broadcast.
Other rare footage featured in the doc includes Brown’s appearance on the local cable-access show Black Dignity and Brown’s concerts at the Olympia in Paris, which Gibney says they “showcased in a way that hadn’t really been done before.” [THR]
I’m not going to lie, I’ll be watching half for James Brown’s music, and half to find out if that story about him brandishing a loaded shotgun because someone used his shitter is true. I’m with him on that one. No one wants to find a warm seat when you’re trying to get up and do your thing. Bowel movin, doin, it, you know. Like a sex machine.
If the documentary is half as entertaining as a James Brown image search, it’s going to be amazing.