99% 20 Feet From Stardom

All Critics (69) | Top Critics (26) | Fresh (67) | Rotten (1)

The movie takes its cues from Standing in the Shadows of Motown, another act of pop-culture revisionism that tried to give musical credit where it was due.

Just about everything in this movie is right. And anybody who gives a rip about unsung heroines of popular music and giving credit when credit's overdue had better come up with a good excuse not to see it.

You may never hear the Rolling Stones's Gimme Shelter the same way again after hearing Jagger's and Clayton's separate accounts of the recording of the song.

The enthusiasm and love of music on display is just unavoidable. "20 Feet" may not get the whole story, but it gets some good ones.

Music documentarian Morgan Neville uses a mix of live interviews and archival footage to let the singers, and their music, tell their stories of vocal triumph and thwarted ambition.

You know all those doo-doo-doos and whoa-whoas-whoas you hear in pop hits? Without them, supplied by the likes of Darlene Love and Merry Clayton, you likely wouldn't be singing along to the songs you hear on your car radio.

Although a few white and male backup singers appear, the film becomes a de facto chronicle of the experiences of many African-American women in show business, who -- like their counterparts in less high-profile jobs -- often are undervalued and exploited.

In a way, critics are the backup singers of film.

20 Feet From Stardom will be highly entertaining to anyone who ever let a needle drop into a '70s-era groove.

Neville does a good job of highlighting songs that are especially characterized by backup singers, like Lou Reed's 'Walk on the Wild Side,' and introducing us to some of the 'unsung' talent that made those hits possible.

This fantastic glimpse into the lives of background singers, old and new, directed by Morgan Neville, is completely mesmerizing.

It is a total pleasure, a rare treat, to listen and watch old footage of these indispensable performers belt out their melodies and harmonies. They are truly pioneers that helped shape the world of music for generations to come.

This is a fascinating doc for pop, soul, R&B and rock fans, for it peels back the often unfair layers of the music business like the skins on an onion. Sometimes, it'll make you cry to witness how terribly these talents were treated.

It's important to finally put names and faces to the voices of these women because, without them, countless songs would sound horrible.

Neville's greatest strength is as a historian, able to sort through a wealth of details to find the pieces he needs to tell one clear, compelling story.

Salutes songs that wouldn't work without the back-ups and, in effect, turn us all into back-up singers.

Not the deepest documentary you're likely to come across this year -- in fact, it's not deep at all -- but it may well be the most enjoyable one.

The transcendent joy and agonizing heartbreak of making music - and trying to make it in music - have seldom been captured as vividly as in "20 Feet from Stardom."

If music has the power to connect, "Twenty Feet From Stardom" shows it's those backup voices making the connection.

Lovers of classic R&B and rock will never get tired of revisiting this movie and its bonanza of performance footage.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/20_feet_from_stardom/

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