Religiosity isn’t a particularly good look lately, at least as it’s being performed by politicians. Artists, though — especially one the caliber of Jamaica’s Samory-Tour Frazer, a.k.a. Samory I — can still conjure the unifying power, beauty and healing that religion sometimes brings. Samory made this clear on Black Gold, his promising 2017 debut, with its Rastafarian calling card “Rasta Nuh Gangsta,” a policy brief to a local cop book-ended by Nyabinghi drumming and a potent dub breakdown. And his new album Strength is, even more so, a...
- 11/17/2023
- by Will Hermes
- Rollingstone.com
If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.
After a successful awards season, “Triangle of Sadness” is one of several films being added to The Criterion Collection this month.
Directed by the irreverent Swedish satirist Ruben Östlund, the film follows two supermodels on a doomed luxury cruise that leaves the pair stranded on a deserted island along with some of their fellow passengers and a Marxist captain. The film was last year’s Palme d’Or winner and went on to receive nods for best picture, best director and best original screenplay at the 2023 Oscars.
“The thing about Östlund is that he makes you laugh, but he also makes you think,” Variety film critic Peter DeBruge wrote in his review. “There’s a meticulous precision to the way he constructs, blocks and executes scenes — a kind of agonizing unease,...
After a successful awards season, “Triangle of Sadness” is one of several films being added to The Criterion Collection this month.
Directed by the irreverent Swedish satirist Ruben Östlund, the film follows two supermodels on a doomed luxury cruise that leaves the pair stranded on a deserted island along with some of their fellow passengers and a Marxist captain. The film was last year’s Palme d’Or winner and went on to receive nods for best picture, best director and best original screenplay at the 2023 Oscars.
“The thing about Östlund is that he makes you laugh, but he also makes you think,” Variety film critic Peter DeBruge wrote in his review. “There’s a meticulous precision to the way he constructs, blocks and executes scenes — a kind of agonizing unease,...
- 4/3/2023
- by Anna Tingley
- Variety Film + TV
Ryuichi Sakamoto, keyboardist for the pioneering Japanese electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra and Oscar-winning composer of films like The Last Emperor and The Revenant, has died at the age of 71.
Sakamoto’s Twitter announced his death Sunday, noting that the influential artist died on Tuesday, March 28; while no cause of death was provided, Sakamoto battled two forms of cancer over the past decade, and announced in 2021 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 rectal cancer.
pic.twitter.com/mYLMEN6HrZ
— ryuichi sakamoto (@ryuichisakamoto) April 2, 2023
Commmons, the record label Sakamoto founded,...
Sakamoto’s Twitter announced his death Sunday, noting that the influential artist died on Tuesday, March 28; while no cause of death was provided, Sakamoto battled two forms of cancer over the past decade, and announced in 2021 that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 rectal cancer.
pic.twitter.com/mYLMEN6HrZ
— ryuichi sakamoto (@ryuichisakamoto) April 2, 2023
Commmons, the record label Sakamoto founded,...
- 4/2/2023
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Spoon have enlisted the services of British dub specialist Adrian Sherwood to transform their most recent album, Lucifer on the Sofa, into a new dub remix album, Lucifer on the Moon, out Nov. 4 via Matador.
Spoon and Sherwood first teased their collaboration back in June with the latter’s “reconstruction” of “My Babe.” The official announcement of the full remix album was accompanied by a new version of “On the Radio,” which arrives with a music video directed by Spoon frontman Britt Daniel.
Though ostensibly an out-there project for an indie rock band,...
Spoon and Sherwood first teased their collaboration back in June with the latter’s “reconstruction” of “My Babe.” The official announcement of the full remix album was accompanied by a new version of “On the Radio,” which arrives with a music video directed by Spoon frontman Britt Daniel.
Though ostensibly an out-there project for an indie rock band,...
- 9/21/2022
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
Don Letts with music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman on Singers & Players War of Words (99-002 LP) and Adrian Sherwood’s label: “I mean all the early On-u stuff is absolutely essential.”
In There And Black Again: The Autobiography Of Don Letts (Omnibus Press) we learn the fate of a screenplay (“inspired by Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Five Nights of Bleeding”) bought by the adventurous producer Michael White (Gracie Otto’s The Last Impresario) and its connection to Franco Rosso’s Babylon, co-written with Martin Stellman, starring Brinsley Forde, and a soundtrack put together by Dennis Bovell (The Slits Cut producer). Martin Scorsese, The Punk Rock Movie, Robert De Niro, The King of Comedy, Jerry Lewis, and The Clash shows at Bonds also have a link to Don Letts.
Music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman met Don Letts at The Roxy 45 years ago and was invited by Bernie Rhodes...
In There And Black Again: The Autobiography Of Don Letts (Omnibus Press) we learn the fate of a screenplay (“inspired by Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Five Nights of Bleeding”) bought by the adventurous producer Michael White (Gracie Otto’s The Last Impresario) and its connection to Franco Rosso’s Babylon, co-written with Martin Stellman, starring Brinsley Forde, and a soundtrack put together by Dennis Bovell (The Slits Cut producer). Martin Scorsese, The Punk Rock Movie, Robert De Niro, The King of Comedy, Jerry Lewis, and The Clash shows at Bonds also have a link to Don Letts.
Music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman met Don Letts at The Roxy 45 years ago and was invited by Bernie Rhodes...
- 8/9/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
William E. Badgley’s Rebel Dread protagonist Don Letts with The Slits' Ari Up
Bill Badgley’s (aka William E Badgley) Here To Be Heard: The Story Of The Slits (associate producer Guy Maddin), with Tessa Pollitt as our guide, features on-camera interviews with former band members Viv Albertine (author of Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys and star opposite Liam Gillick in Joanna Hogg's Exhibition), Paloma Romero, Neneh Cherry, Budgie, Bruce Smith, and Steve Beresford, Cut LP producer Dennis Bovell, 99 Records recording artist Vivien Goldman (author of Revenge of the She-Punks), Adrian Sherwood (On-u Sound Records founder and producer of 99 Records Singers & Players War of Words LP which has Ari Up on keyboards, engineered by...
Bill Badgley’s (aka William E Badgley) Here To Be Heard: The Story Of The Slits (associate producer Guy Maddin), with Tessa Pollitt as our guide, features on-camera interviews with former band members Viv Albertine (author of Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys and star opposite Liam Gillick in Joanna Hogg's Exhibition), Paloma Romero, Neneh Cherry, Budgie, Bruce Smith, and Steve Beresford, Cut LP producer Dennis Bovell, 99 Records recording artist Vivien Goldman (author of Revenge of the She-Punks), Adrian Sherwood (On-u Sound Records founder and producer of 99 Records Singers & Players War of Words LP which has Ari Up on keyboards, engineered by...
- 3/1/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
It is often hard enough to conjure the right mood for one installment of an anthology series, but what if your task is five times that? Music supervisor Ed Bailie was tasked by Academy Award-nominated director Steve McQueen to do just that for “Small Axe,” a quintet of period-specific films about Black life in England ranging from the 1960s to the 1980s, touching on social topics from police brutality to the failings of the education system to a raging house party’s effect on young lives. “We used about 80 or 90 songs in the course of ‘Small Axe,'” says Bailie, “and each film had different music illustrated in the scripts, so every part carved their own identities throughout”.
For “Mangrove,” the lengthiest and arguably most-charged entry that opens “Axe,” Bailie took his cue from the Trinidadian-settled Notting Hill of the late 1960s — far removed from the gentrified neighborhood seen years...
For “Mangrove,” the lengthiest and arguably most-charged entry that opens “Axe,” Bailie took his cue from the Trinidadian-settled Notting Hill of the late 1960s — far removed from the gentrified neighborhood seen years...
- 6/14/2021
- by Jason Clark
- The Wrap
Amazon Prime just won a couple of Oscars for their film “Sound of Metal,” and now the streaming service is jumping right into Emmy season with “Beyond the Screen” virtual events and a “Prime Video Presents” podcast to promote their slate of programs from May 1 through June 10. Their events can be found on the Emmys FYC calendar.
Among the programs being promoted by Amazon this season include the sci-fi dramas “The Boys” and “The Expanse”; the Barry Jenkins limited series “The Underground Railroad”; the telefilms “Uncle Frank,” “Yearly Departed,” and “Sylvie’s Love”; the documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy“; the anthologies “Solos” and “Them”; and the theatrical special “What the Constitution Means to Me.”
Seersvp now for May 10: TV documentary directors for ‘Framing Britney Spears,’ ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ ‘High on the Hog,’ ‘Seduced,’ ‘The Year Earth Changed’ join Gold Derby’s Meet the Experts series
“Beyond the Screen” kicked...
Among the programs being promoted by Amazon this season include the sci-fi dramas “The Boys” and “The Expanse”; the Barry Jenkins limited series “The Underground Railroad”; the telefilms “Uncle Frank,” “Yearly Departed,” and “Sylvie’s Love”; the documentary “All In: The Fight for Democracy“; the anthologies “Solos” and “Them”; and the theatrical special “What the Constitution Means to Me.”
Seersvp now for May 10: TV documentary directors for ‘Framing Britney Spears,’ ‘Heaven’s Gate,’ ‘High on the Hog,’ ‘Seduced,’ ‘The Year Earth Changed’ join Gold Derby’s Meet the Experts series
“Beyond the Screen” kicked...
- 5/3/2021
- by Daniel Montgomery
- Gold Derby
Amazon Prime Video has once again put a pause on its annual in-person Emmy FYC pop-up events space due to the pandemic. But in its place, the streamer has curated a virtual experience, dubbed “Beyond the Screen,” that kicks off this weekend with an evening devoted to the stars, crafts and music of Steve McQueen’s anthology series “Small Axe.”
Variety has the exclusive roundup of the Emmy FYC panels, screenings, podcasts and performances that will kick off Amazon Studios and Prime Video’s campaign starting May 1, and continuing through June 10.
Talent populating the panels, set to be streamed for Television Academy members, include McQueen and John Boyega (“Small Axe”); Barry Jenkins and Joel Edgerton (“The Underground Railroad”), and Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Aya Cash and Jack Quaid (“The Boys”). Other contenders participating include “Solos,” “Sylvie’s Love,” “The Expanse,” “Them,” “Uncle Frank,” “What The Constitution Means To Me” and “Yearly Departed.
Variety has the exclusive roundup of the Emmy FYC panels, screenings, podcasts and performances that will kick off Amazon Studios and Prime Video’s campaign starting May 1, and continuing through June 10.
Talent populating the panels, set to be streamed for Television Academy members, include McQueen and John Boyega (“Small Axe”); Barry Jenkins and Joel Edgerton (“The Underground Railroad”), and Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Aya Cash and Jack Quaid (“The Boys”). Other contenders participating include “Solos,” “Sylvie’s Love,” “The Expanse,” “Them,” “Uncle Frank,” “What The Constitution Means To Me” and “Yearly Departed.
- 4/30/2021
- by Michael Schneider
- Variety Film + TV
A version of this story first appeared in the Documentaries issue of TheWrap’s Oscar magazine.
The past is ravishingly alive in “Small Axe,” a five-film anthology directed by Steve McQueen. Originally scheduled to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival (which was cancelled due to Covid-19), three of the films in the series eventually screened to raves at the virtual and drive-in New York Film Festival in September, prior to debuting on Amazon Prime.
Though not eligible for next April’s Academy Awards, the anthology has won awards from major critics’ organizations in New York, for Best Cinematography, and Los Angeles, for Best Picture(s).
Set between 1968 and the mid-’80s in London’s West Indian community, the movies include a real-life courtroom drama (“Mangrove”), a quasi-musical (“Lovers Rock”), and a police exposé, all pulsating with McQueen’s primal themes of justice, injustice and love. The filmmaker spoke to TheWrap...
The past is ravishingly alive in “Small Axe,” a five-film anthology directed by Steve McQueen. Originally scheduled to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival (which was cancelled due to Covid-19), three of the films in the series eventually screened to raves at the virtual and drive-in New York Film Festival in September, prior to debuting on Amazon Prime.
Though not eligible for next April’s Academy Awards, the anthology has won awards from major critics’ organizations in New York, for Best Cinematography, and Los Angeles, for Best Picture(s).
Set between 1968 and the mid-’80s in London’s West Indian community, the movies include a real-life courtroom drama (“Mangrove”), a quasi-musical (“Lovers Rock”), and a police exposé, all pulsating with McQueen’s primal themes of justice, injustice and love. The filmmaker spoke to TheWrap...
- 12/24/2020
- by Joe McGovern
- The Wrap
Steve McQueen’s Alex Wheatle, co-written with Alastair Siddons, shot by Shabier Kirchner with costumes by Jacqueline Durran is episode 4 of his Small Axe anthology. The title character ((Sheyi Cole) is brought to a prison cell where a foul smell awaits him, courtesy of his bunkmate Simeon (Robbie Gee). Remember how Peter Morgan in the very first scene of the first episode of season one of The Crown, directed by Stephen Daldry, repels us with the blood-spitting King George VI (Jared Harris), only to pull us in even more soon after? McQueen is equally good at provoking visceral reactions from the audience. Franco Rosso’s 1980 Babylon, starring Brinsley Forde with music by Dennis Bovell...
- 12/1/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Variety is pleased to announce that Mary J. Blige and Marcus Mumford will be keynote speakers at its Music for Screens Week, airing Nov. 30-Dec. 3.
Expanded for the first time over four days in this all-digital installment, Variety’s Music for Screens Summit 2020 will celebrate excellence in musical artistry and storytelling for film, TV, digital media, brands and more.
Blige will speak about her original song “See What You’ve Done” for the documentary “Belly of the Beast,” which looks at women who have been abused in the criminal justice system. Mumford, of the band Mumford and Sons, will speak to his experiences scoring his first TV series, Apple TV Plus’ “Ted Lasso,” a comedy about an American football coach hired to lead an English football club.
Music for Screens Week will also feature a State of Scoring composers panel presented by ASCAP, including Amanda Jones; Germaine Franco; Amelia Warner...
Expanded for the first time over four days in this all-digital installment, Variety’s Music for Screens Summit 2020 will celebrate excellence in musical artistry and storytelling for film, TV, digital media, brands and more.
Blige will speak about her original song “See What You’ve Done” for the documentary “Belly of the Beast,” which looks at women who have been abused in the criminal justice system. Mumford, of the band Mumford and Sons, will speak to his experiences scoring his first TV series, Apple TV Plus’ “Ted Lasso,” a comedy about an American football coach hired to lead an English football club.
Music for Screens Week will also feature a State of Scoring composers panel presented by ASCAP, including Amanda Jones; Germaine Franco; Amelia Warner...
- 11/19/2020
- by Ellise Shafer
- Variety Film + TV
Two films capture the volatile climate with race relations in Great Britain during the mid-Seventies into the early Eighties: Franco Rosso’s 1980 feature Babylon, starring Brinsley Forde with a score by Dennis Bovell, and Rubika Shah's ever more urgent White Riot (2019 London documentary winner). The latter focuses on the evolution of Rock Against Racism in 1976, which led to the 1978 Victoria Park concert, featuring Steel Pulse, The Clash, Tom Robinson, Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, and Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex.
Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, co-written with Alastair Siddons, starring Shaun Parkes, Letitia Wright, and Malachi Kirby, and shot by Shabier Kirchner, is neither of the period, nor a documentary, (as are the respective films mentioned above) and yet, it manages to convey a vivid sense of time, place, and community, plus the critical...
Steve McQueen’s Mangrove, co-written with Alastair Siddons, starring Shaun Parkes, Letitia Wright, and Malachi Kirby, and shot by Shabier Kirchner, is neither of the period, nor a documentary, (as are the respective films mentioned above) and yet, it manages to convey a vivid sense of time, place, and community, plus the critical...
- 9/26/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Music legend Dennis Bovell is Milton in Steve McQueen’s Lovers Rock Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the New York Film Festival press conference, held on Zoom this morning for Lovers Rock, the Opening Night selection, my question on Jacqueline Durran’s (Greta Gerwig’s Little Women) costumes to director/screenwriter Steve McQueen and the stars of his film, Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and Micheal Ward, was posed to them by Film at Lincoln Center’s host Dennis Lim, Director of Programming for the festival. Lovers Rock is part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, co-written by Courttia Newland. The film is a fictional account that takes place in London's West Indian community at a sound system house party in the early 1980s. Music legend Dennis Bovell is in a memorable scene during an extended a cappella rendition of Janet Kay’s Silly Games.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Jacqueline Durran’s costumes are...
At the New York Film Festival press conference, held on Zoom this morning for Lovers Rock, the Opening Night selection, my question on Jacqueline Durran’s (Greta Gerwig’s Little Women) costumes to director/screenwriter Steve McQueen and the stars of his film, Amarah-Jae St. Aubyn and Micheal Ward, was posed to them by Film at Lincoln Center’s host Dennis Lim, Director of Programming for the festival. Lovers Rock is part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology, co-written by Courttia Newland. The film is a fictional account that takes place in London's West Indian community at a sound system house party in the early 1980s. Music legend Dennis Bovell is in a memorable scene during an extended a cappella rendition of Janet Kay’s Silly Games.
Anne-Katrin Titze: Jacqueline Durran’s costumes are...
- 9/17/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Franco Rosso's Babylon star Brinsley Forde with Ed Bahlman and Dennis Bovell at Bam: "Let's be honest, a film like that had never been done before. We had The Harder They Come, the films from Jamaica, but nothing from the UK." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the Brooklyn Academy of Music before the Us theatrical première of Babylon at BAMcinématek, Brinsley Forde spoke with me about the cast, which includes Trevor Laird, Brian Bovell, Archie Pool, Victor Romero Evans, Stefan Kalipha, Cosmo Laidlaw, Cynthia Powell, T. Bone Wilson, David N. Haynes, Mark Monero, Karl Howman, and Jah Shaka, and the film "presenting a life that the people who were in the movie, extras and all, were totally aware of."
Franco Rosso's powerful feature, with the camerawork of Chris Menges and a score by Dennis Bovell, takes you upfront into a world of survival that remains relevant today. Brinsley brings...
At the Brooklyn Academy of Music before the Us theatrical première of Babylon at BAMcinématek, Brinsley Forde spoke with me about the cast, which includes Trevor Laird, Brian Bovell, Archie Pool, Victor Romero Evans, Stefan Kalipha, Cosmo Laidlaw, Cynthia Powell, T. Bone Wilson, David N. Haynes, Mark Monero, Karl Howman, and Jah Shaka, and the film "presenting a life that the people who were in the movie, extras and all, were totally aware of."
Franco Rosso's powerful feature, with the camerawork of Chris Menges and a score by Dennis Bovell, takes you upfront into a world of survival that remains relevant today. Brinsley brings...
- 3/16/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Frank Rosso's Babylon (1980) is showing February 25 – March 26, 2019 on Mubi in the United Kingdom.Impressions of Franco Rosso’s Babylon (1980) extend past the boundaries of its 95-minute running time. Like the dub remixes its London characters’ lives revolve around, the movie plays with re-establishing identity and our experience of time. A narrative document of young, working class male Jamaican-British Londoners, Babylon doles out atmospheric city scenes of their place in the community: sons, brothers, boyfriends, small-time crooks, laborers, music lovers and producers. Privileging viewers with immersion into an insulated, under-documented immigrant community, the film provides a window into their daily lives. We are thrown into conversations and situations, intimately experiencing their patois their interactions with friends, their constant victimization by a dominantly racist white society, and the massive sound system parties they congregate to. A corrective to the British ignorance and fear of Jamaican immigrants, the film’s emphasis is on...
- 3/13/2019
- MUBI
Music legends Dennis Bovell and Ed Bahlman unite before the preview of Franco Rosso's powerful Babylon with Brinsley Forde at BAMcinématek Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
When I arrived with Ed Bahlman (99 Records) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for my conversations with Brinsley Forde and Dennis Bovell, two key figures for Franco Rosso's Babylon, co-written with Martin Stellman, produced by Gavrik Losey, and shot by two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges (for Roland Joffé's The Killing Fields and The Mission), Brinsley, Dennis, and Seventy-Seven founder Gabriele Caroti were standing in the lobby. Ed greeted Dennis and they immediately reconnected by sharing memories of The Slits, Viv Albertine's memoir, Chris Blackwell, Adrian Sherwood, Pop Group, Mark Stewart, Public Image Ltd, Bruce Smith, Neneh Cherry, Linton Kwesi Johnson, the Reggae Lounge, and of course, Ari Up and the making of Cut.
Brinsley Forde shines in Franco Rosso's Babylon Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze...
When I arrived with Ed Bahlman (99 Records) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for my conversations with Brinsley Forde and Dennis Bovell, two key figures for Franco Rosso's Babylon, co-written with Martin Stellman, produced by Gavrik Losey, and shot by two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges (for Roland Joffé's The Killing Fields and The Mission), Brinsley, Dennis, and Seventy-Seven founder Gabriele Caroti were standing in the lobby. Ed greeted Dennis and they immediately reconnected by sharing memories of The Slits, Viv Albertine's memoir, Chris Blackwell, Adrian Sherwood, Pop Group, Mark Stewart, Public Image Ltd, Bruce Smith, Neneh Cherry, Linton Kwesi Johnson, the Reggae Lounge, and of course, Ari Up and the making of Cut.
Brinsley Forde shines in Franco Rosso's Babylon Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze...
- 3/10/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
There’s a scene in Babylon, the 1980 cult classic considered by many to be the great U.K. reggae movie, where a bunch of Brixton residents gather together in a rehearsal space. It’s the meeting place for their up-and-coming sound system, named Ital Lion; one of them has just procured a new dub from a shady record-store owner, who claims to have received the track “straight from the J.” (That’d be Jamaica.) The “harder than steel” tune is going to be their secret weapon when the Lion crew...
- 3/8/2019
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Exclusive: UK sales outfit boards doc about all-women punk band and Australian adventure movie.
UK sales outfit Moviehouse has added two films to its slate ahead of the Efm in Berlin.
Currently in post-production and readying for an autumn 2017 completion is documentary Here To Be Heard: The Story of the Slits,about the world’s first all-female punk band formed in 1976 London.
Contemporaries of The Clash and The Sex Pistols, the film tells the story of the Slits and the lives of the women involved, from the bands inception to its end in 2010 with the death of lead vocalist Ari Up.
The film Includes interviews with Slits band member Viv Albertine, The Sex Pistols’ Paul Cook, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Don Letts, Dennis Bovell, Adrian Sherwood and previously unseen footage and recordings of the band.
Moviehouse Entertainment’s Mark Vennis is producing with director-producer William Badgley.
Also new to the slate is recently completed Australian title Rough Stuff...
UK sales outfit Moviehouse has added two films to its slate ahead of the Efm in Berlin.
Currently in post-production and readying for an autumn 2017 completion is documentary Here To Be Heard: The Story of the Slits,about the world’s first all-female punk band formed in 1976 London.
Contemporaries of The Clash and The Sex Pistols, the film tells the story of the Slits and the lives of the women involved, from the bands inception to its end in 2010 with the death of lead vocalist Ari Up.
The film Includes interviews with Slits band member Viv Albertine, The Sex Pistols’ Paul Cook, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Don Letts, Dennis Bovell, Adrian Sherwood and previously unseen footage and recordings of the band.
Moviehouse Entertainment’s Mark Vennis is producing with director-producer William Badgley.
Also new to the slate is recently completed Australian title Rough Stuff...
- 1/17/2017
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
From Kingston to Lewisham, here are five other must-see reggae movies
The Harder They Come (Dir. Perry Henzell, Jamaica, 1972)
Jamaica's first feature, and the one against which others are measured. The plot – poor country boy seeks fortune in city – is archetypal, but Henzell cleverly turns our admiration for hero Ivan (Jimmy Cliff in incendiary form) into revulsion, as the film shifts through melodrama, comedy and musical into tragedy. Immortal movie moments – "You think the hero can be dead before the last reel?" scoffs Ivan at one point – and a stunning soundtrack led by Cliff's title song make this a five-star classic.
Rockers (Dir. Ted Bafaloukos, Jamaica, 1979)
A "Dreadsploitation" flick that's now a vibrant time capsule of reggae's halcyon days. Drummer Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace plays a hapless muso caught up in Kingston's music wars. The plot's paper thin, but there's a gallery of great cameo appearances – Jacob Miller and Gregory Isaacs...
The Harder They Come (Dir. Perry Henzell, Jamaica, 1972)
Jamaica's first feature, and the one against which others are measured. The plot – poor country boy seeks fortune in city – is archetypal, but Henzell cleverly turns our admiration for hero Ivan (Jimmy Cliff in incendiary form) into revulsion, as the film shifts through melodrama, comedy and musical into tragedy. Immortal movie moments – "You think the hero can be dead before the last reel?" scoffs Ivan at one point – and a stunning soundtrack led by Cliff's title song make this a five-star classic.
Rockers (Dir. Ted Bafaloukos, Jamaica, 1979)
A "Dreadsploitation" flick that's now a vibrant time capsule of reggae's halcyon days. Drummer Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace plays a hapless muso caught up in Kingston's music wars. The plot's paper thin, but there's a gallery of great cameo appearances – Jacob Miller and Gregory Isaacs...
- 4/23/2012
- by Neil Spencer
- The Guardian - Film News
Junior Byles – Beat Down Babylon (B), Label: Upsetter, Released: 1971. This is the record that Lord Koos, a local sound system operator, played when police raided a sound clash at the Carib night club in Cricklewood Broadway in the infamous ‘Battle of Burtons’ in 1974. Dennis Bovell, the UK reggae punk legend was also playing that night and later remembered, in Lloyd Bradley’s book Bass Culture: “[The police were] all wearing coats so you can’t see their numbers, and there was two on each step all the way down...they beat the shit out of the clientele as they were going down. They arrested forty-two people, and all those who didn’t have visible bruises they let go.”...
- 11/11/2010
- The Independent - Film
Junior Byles – Beat Down Babylon (B), Label: Upsetter, Released: 1971. This is the record that Lord Koos, a local sound system operator, played when police raided a sound clash at the Carib night club in Cricklewood Broadway in the infamous ‘Battle of Burtons’ in 1974. Dennis Bovell, the UK reggae punk legend was also playing that night and later remembered, in Lloyd Bradley’s book Bass Culture: “[The police were] all wearing coats so you can’t see their numbers, and there was two on each step all the way down...they beat the shit out of the clientele as they were going down. They arrested forty-two people, and all those who didn’t have visible bruises they let go.”...
- 11/11/2010
- The Independent - Film
Junior Byles – Beat Down Babylon (B), Label: Upsetter, Released: 1971. This is the record that Lord Koos, a local sound system operator, played when police raided a sound clash at the Carib night club in Cricklewood Broadway in the infamous ‘Battle of Burtons’ in 1974. Dennis Bovell, the UK reggae punk legend was also playing that night and later remembered, in Lloyd Bradley’s book Bass Culture: “[The police were] all wearing coats so you can’t see their numbers, and there was two on each step all the way down...they beat the shit out of the clientele as they were going down. They arrested forty-two people, and all those who didn’t have visible bruises they let go.”...
- 11/11/2010
- The Independent - Film
One of the most highly regarded cult British films of the 1980s, Babylon comes to DVD for the first time ever in the UK this October courtesy of Icon Home Entertainment, boasting fully restored and remastered image and audio (personally overseen by Chris Menges) plus Audio Commentaries, Interviews and feature on the restoration.
Directed by Franco Rosso (Dread Beat an' Blood), co-written (with Rosso) by Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia; Defence Of The Realm; For Queen And Country), photographed by two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges (The Mission; The Killing Fields) and starring celebrated reggae star and Aswad frontman Brinsley Forde (Here Come The Double Deckers), Karl Howman (Brush Strokes; Mulberry) and Trevor Laird (Doctor Who; Quadrophenia), Babylon is a raw and incendiary film employing an effective mix of music and social commentary to recount the everyday experiences of a small group of working class black youths living in South London in the early 1980s.
Directed by Franco Rosso (Dread Beat an' Blood), co-written (with Rosso) by Martin Stellman (Quadrophenia; Defence Of The Realm; For Queen And Country), photographed by two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges (The Mission; The Killing Fields) and starring celebrated reggae star and Aswad frontman Brinsley Forde (Here Come The Double Deckers), Karl Howman (Brush Strokes; Mulberry) and Trevor Laird (Doctor Who; Quadrophenia), Babylon is a raw and incendiary film employing an effective mix of music and social commentary to recount the everyday experiences of a small group of working class black youths living in South London in the early 1980s.
- 10/4/2008
- by Leigh
- Latemag.com/film
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