They were the bass guitars in “My Girl”, they were the pianos in “Cool Jerk” and “You’ve Really Got a hold on me”, and they were the drums in “Ain’t too Proud to Beg” and “Heatwave”, they were “The Funk Brothers”, the most under-appreciated band in music who had more number one hits than the Beatles, Elvis, and the Rolling Stones combined, the people who Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder loved to hang around and learn from as the modern artists featured in the documentary do. Not only does this pay tribute to the artists but it gives them a spotlight of glory that they were never given. The Funk Brothers were a group of men who were a mixture of talented jazz, soul, and club musicians whom were assembled by Motown founder Berry Gordy to play the music to his artists songs, and though some came from different cities and were of different races they became brothers nonetheless.
Tag Archives: History
The Grey Zone (2001)
“If you understand what happened in the camps, you have a much better understanding of what we’re all about as human beings” says Tim Blake Nelson, director and writer of “The Grey Zone”. But will we ever be able to understand the holocaust? Will we ever be able to understand why we as humans would destroy others like us? Why we would kill Children, and elderly people who were treated like worthless animals? Why one man ordered the destruction of the Jewish race nearly wiping out the entire population of Polish Jews? Based on the play by Tim Blake Nelson and Miklos Nyiszli’s book “Auschwitz: a Doctor’s Eyewitness Account”, “The Grey Zone” dares to explore that question but never gives an answer. There is no answer good enough to explain why the holocaust even happened in the first place.
An American Rhapsody (2001)
The movie is actually very tense in the beginning as we start in black and white bringing the feel of “Schindler’s List” as we watch the young couple attempting to escape the country of Hungary. I love the emphasis on each of the characters; Tony Goldwyn is great and has great chemistry with Nastassja Kinski. We then go to color where we see the two attempting to adjust to fifties American suburban life, and they slowly do. When they get their daughter Suzanne back, it’s all the more interesting, because she not only must adjust to a new country, but to a new life and family she never knew.