1) 20 Feet from Stardom, director Morgan Neville’s documentary about talented people who sing in the shadows of superstars like Sting, Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, focuses on the individual stories of several significant singers. While the film’s lack of a narrative could be a bit off-putting, it has such heart and features so many terrific concert performances, the absence of structure isn’t a real deterrent. In the film’s final sequence, artists like Sting and Mick Jagger suggest the art of the backing singer is a lost one in this day and age of auto-tuned vocals and electronic sampling. The rousing vintage performances we see make us wish this wasn’t the case. The film is showing at the Cedar-Lee Theatre. (Jeff Niesel)
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2013.
Thank you for putting the Lone Ranger on this list! It’s a fun summer movie and it’s getting trashed by the “critics”, I hope people ignore them and go see it.