anyone see the horrible miles davis movie?

clevelandjazz

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Sep 28, 2016, 6:31:05 PM9/28/16

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I lasted about 15 minutes...

Don Cheadle is a hack and should stick to iron man movies. Cluesless about jazz and perfectly willing to ruin Miles' memory with a fictional buddy-movie.

I wonder if we'll ever get a Wes movie? His grandson (Anthongy Montgomery) was going to play him in a movie and he and I used to correspond but the last few times I emailed him about the status of the movie he didn't respond. I assume the project was called off.

I guess they couldn't find a part for Justin Timerlake or Kanye West.

Gerry

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Sep 28, 2016, 8:03:15 PM9/28/16

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On 2016-09-28 22:30:51 +0000, clevelandjazz said:

> I lasted about 15 minutes...
>
> Don Cheadle is a hack and should stick to iron man movies. Cluesless
> about jazz and perfectly willing to ruin Miles' memory with a fictional
> buddy-movie.

I didn't see it, but then wouldn't expect much from a movie about a
musician. I rarely even hear discussions about musicians in the larger
culture that have any value.

Cheadle is a great actor, was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for
Hotel Rwanda, but it isn't about jazz personalities. He's received 90
nominations for various awards and received 33 wins:

http://tinyurl.com/zqsa5lv

Gerry

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Sep 28, 2016, 8:06:24 PM9/28/16

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I see this was his directorial debut. Sadly, he also wrote it and plays
the lead role: A deadly combination for almost any film, say I. When I
see writer/director/producer I'm uncomfortable: It essentially says the
brains of the outfit may well hear no dissenting viewpoint with a stack
in the movie.

clevelandjazz

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Sep 28, 2016, 8:17:59 PM9/28/16

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regardless of how many times cheadle was nominated, who acted or directed it, he agreed to a fictional storyline involving a white guy in a buddy role, none of which ever happened.

And nominations for awards don't mean anything. If they did, it would solidify taylor swift's and kanye's hold on greatness.

I love dick gregory's take on the miles movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C35wSqHBzbk

Gerry

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Sep 28, 2016, 8:24:32 PM9/28/16

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On 2016-09-29 00:17:56 +0000, clevelandjazz said:

> regardless of how many times cheadle was nominated, who acted or
> directed it, he agreed to a fictional storyline involving a white guy
> in a buddy role, none of which ever happened.

Check the bios of every damn movie about musicians: Benny Goodman, Red
Nichols, Charlie Parker, Edith Piaf; they all fictionalize what they
feel necessary to make a "movie narrative" and scrub what they don't
like. Their intent is not to make a documentary.

> And nominations for awards don't mean anything. If they did, it would
> solidify taylor swift's and kanye's hold on greatness.
>
> I love dick gregory's take on the miles movie:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C35wSqHBzbk

All that may be true, but one crummy movie doesn't a "hack actor" make.
Just like a guitarist can make an album that sucks without his status
as a player becoming "hack". But carry on; the idea of moderating one
of your carp sessions is a pointless exercise.

Oscar Levant

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Sep 29, 2016, 12:19:47 AM9/29/16

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Clint Eastwood should have taken the project. He did a good job with Bird.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---

John Galich

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Sep 29, 2016, 2:53:54 PM9/29/16

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In this interview, Cheadle said that they needed a white co-star to get the movie financed:

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/don-cheadle-why-i-had-to-make-a-miles-davis-biopic-20160314

John Galich

Message has been deleted

Tim McNamara

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Oct 1, 2016, 6:55:36 PM10/1/16

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On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 15:30:51 -0700 (PDT), clevelandjazz
<jackz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I lasted about 15 minutes...
>
> Don Cheadle is a hack and should stick to iron man movies. Cluesless
> about jazz and perfectly willing to ruin Miles' memory with a
> fictional buddy-movie.

Not having seen the movie I can't comment on it, but Don Cheadle is an
outstanding actor. You may not have seen him in the right things. He
did an outstanding recurrent guest role on ER of a resident with
Parkinson's, among other things. Hotel Rwanda is worth watching.

As for the movie, the main impetus behind it was some of Miles's family.
They specifically wanted Cheadle to play Miles. He learned trumpet for
the role, FWIW.

Tim McNamara

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Oct 1, 2016, 6:59:58 PM10/1/16

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On Wed, 28 Sep 2016 17:17:56 -0700 (PDT), clevelandjazz
<jackz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> regardless of how many times cheadle was nominated, who acted or
> directed it, he agreed to a fictional storyline involving a white guy
> in a buddy role, none of which ever happened.

According to interviews with Cheadle and other principals, without the
white main character, they could not get funding for the movie.
Seriously. That's why he's there- without him, no money, no studio, no
movie. Add a white main character and get some crowdfunding, problem
solved.

Hollywood's a racist place. Or maybe it's a brutally realistic place.
I dunno which...

Tim McNamara

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Oct 1, 2016, 7:03:30 PM10/1/16

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On Thu, 29 Sep 2016 14:39:57 -0700 (PDT), 339 <mrattn...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> Miles had such an interesting life; I don't understand why they
> couldn't have done something a little closer to the real deal.

In an interview with Cheadle, he said that so much of Miles's life was
well documented that the mystery was in the years of seclusion and
retirement. That's why they put the movie there.

van

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Oct 3, 2016, 2:07:02 AM10/3/16

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Kind of ironic that Dick Gregory gets so upset about a POS movie about a major jazz musician with a white buddy. He starred in a fictional one about Bird (his character's nickname is 'Eagle')back in 1967:
http://www.blaxploitationpride.org/2013/03/sweet-love-bitter-1967.html

paul

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Oct 6, 2016, 1:02:27 PM10/6/16

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I also hated this movie. I really, really wanted to like it. I love Don Cheadle, his performance in Hotel Rwanda made me cry on multiple occasions. He co-wrote and directed the movie, and by all accounts it was a total labor of love for him to make it.

No doubt Don has been in some low quality movies (who hasn't?), but his best stuff is fantastic IMO. He's amazing in Hotel Rwanda, Boogie Nights, and Crash. and I don't know much about acting, but to me he always gives 100% in every movie, which I really respect.

--paul

Gerry

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Oct 6, 2016, 6:08:08 PM10/6/16

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On 2016-10-06 17:02:24 +0000, paul said:

> No doubt Don has been in some low quality movies (who hasn't?), but his
> best stuff is fantastic IMO. He's amazing in Hotel Rwanda, Boogie
> Nights, and Crash. and I don't know much about acting, but to me he
> always gives 100% in every movie, which I really respect.

I first saw Cheadle in "Boogie Nights". For many of the following
years, whenever we'd see him in secondary roles we'd both say "Buck!".
Similarly, for much of his life I always called Philip Seymour Hoffman
"Scotty".

Russ Letson

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Oct 15, 2016, 6:40:10 PM10/15/16

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I haven't seen the movie either but if it was focused on his isolation era, I would say without reservation that Bill Evans (sax - not piano) would qualify as close to a "white buddy" as anyone I can think of...

Was the buddy in question a muso?

Like I said, I haven't seen the movie and to be very clear, I find the insistence that the script include a "white buddy" in order to bankroll it reprehensible.

Tim McNamara

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Oct 17, 2016, 6:17:17 PM10/17/16

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On Sat, 15 Oct 2016 15:40:08 -0700 (PDT), Russ Letson
<russ.b...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I haven't seen the movie either but if it was focused on his
> isolation era, I would say without reservation that Bill Evans (sax -
> not piano) would qualify as close to a "white buddy" as anyone I can
> think of...

Miles has referred to Gil Evans as his best friend in his autobiography.

> Was the buddy in question a muso?

No, a made-up character played by Ewan McGregor. A journalist, maybe
from Rolling Stone or something like that.

> Like I said, I haven't seen the movie and to be very clear, I find the
> insistence that the script include a "white buddy" in order to
> bankroll it reprehensible.

The belief seems to be that black people will go to see "white" movies
but many if not most white people won't go to see a "black" movie
(although whites will go to see blacks in starring roles, which is
somehow different from a "black" movie). Once they had a white
character, they had studio interest.

This attitude could be true or not true, I really don't know. I don't
go see most "white" movies either, so I'm not knowledgeable. I probably
go to less than one movie a year in a theater, on average. For a long
time TV has had better character development and more interesting story
lines. And with Netflix, etc., there's less reason to go. Hmm, not
unlike what happened to live music with radio, TV, records, CDs, tapes
and digital...

For what it's worth, Don Cheadle is an excellent actor. His talent is
wasted in the movies that have gotten the most people to see him
(Avengers, Iron Man). I found his role in ER to be the best character
of that season and he was pretty riveting in Hotel Rwanda. I haven't
had the chance to see Miles Ahead yet as the local theater that had it
showed it at screwy times (1:00 PM and 9:00 PM on weekdays and like
that. It was weird).

339

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Oct 19, 2016, 11:06:17 AM10/19/16

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with the kind of money that's at stake in movie making you know there has to be a lot of politics involved, racial and otherwise. Cheadle was the writer, lead actor and director of this project. The movie was his baby. To blame the failure of the movie on racism in casting a supporting role is a cop out. The project was flawed all the way around and casting the buddy as a different race wouldn't have changed anything.