Get On Up

Efforts to make this rock and roll biopic different from the others succeed, as much as possible. Chadwick Boseman looks nothing like James Brown, but he sounds JUST like him and when he stops to talk to the camera you can feel an intimacy that differs this from Ray, et al. Performances are great here, and the pace is fast and funky. It’s important, too, that the movie doesn’t white-wash James Brown’s drug use and abuse of women. He may have been talented, but he was also sometimes an asshole.