Posts Tagged ‘Bob Marley’

CTVNEWS.CA: RICHARD INTERVIEWS ZIGGY MARLEY ON “BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE”

I sit down with Ziggy Marley to chat about the biopic “Bob Marley: One Love,” number one at the box office for two weeks!

The film is the story of how reggae icon Bob Marley overcame adversity, and the journey behind his revolutionary music. It was produced by Marley’s widow Rita, daughter Cedella and son Ziggy. In this interview Ziggy Marley talks about his father as an icon, a father and a musician.
Watch the whole thing HERE!

IHEARTRADIO: REINALDO MARCUS GREEN + ZIGGY MARLEY + CHRIS HADFIELD

On the Saturday February 17, 2024 edition of The Richard Crouse Show, get to know Reinaldo Marcus Green, director of the Oscar winning film “King Richard.” He returns to theatres this weekend with “Bob Marley: One Love,” a story of how reggae icon Bob Marley overcame adversity, and the journey behind his revolutionary music. We talk about why Bob Marley’s influence still resonates today, when his life was cut short in 1981, when he was aged just 36.

Then we’ll hear from Bob Marley’s son Ziggy Marley who talks about his father as an icon, a father and a musician.

Rik Emmett also joins me. He left Triumph in 1988 to pursue a solo career, and released records in a variety of styles, including rock, blues, jazz, classical, bluegrass, and flamenco. He’s he won the Canadian Smooth Jazz Award for Guitarist of the Year and now has written a book called “Lay It On the Line: A Backstage Pass to Rock Star Adventure, Conflict and Triumph,” available now wherever you buy fine books.

Finally, Chris Hadfield joins the show. He is an astronaut, engineer, singer, fighter pilot and author of many books, including the one we’ll talk about today, “The Defector.”

Listen to the whole thing HERE!

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Each week on the nationally syndicated Richard Crouse Show, Canada’s most recognized movie critic brings together some of the most interesting and opinionated people from the movies, television and music to put a fresh spin on news from the world of lifestyle and pop-culture. Tune into this show to hear in-depth interviews with actors and directors, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of your favourite shows and movies and get a new take on current trends. Recent guests include Chris Pratt, Elvis Costello, Baz Luhrmann, Martin Freeman, David Cronenberg, Mayim Bialik, The Kids in the Hall and many more!

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BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE: 3 ½ STARS. “an entertaining reminder of Marley’s impact.”

“Bob Marley: One Love,” a new biopic starring “Peaky Blinders” actor Kingsley Ben-Adir, and now playing in theatres, places the iconic reggae musician’s songs in the personal and political context in which they were written.

By and large the story takes place in the two years after the 1976 assassination attempt on reggae icon Bob Marley (Ben-Adir) at his home compound in Kingston, Jamaica. A decade-and-a-half after the island country declared independence from Great Britain, civil war looms.

After agreeing to perform at Smile Jamaica, a concert intended to counter political violence, Marley found himself caught in the conflict between supporters of Prime Minister Michael Manley’s left-wing People’s National Party (PNP) and the pro-US opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Two days before the concert, armed gunmen broke into Marley’s home, shooting the musician, wife Rita (Lashana Lynch) and manager Don Taylor (Anthony Welsh).

To ensure the safety of his family, Rita and their children are sent to stay with relatives in America, while Marley and his band, The Wailers, decamp to London. While there, work begins on his career defining “Exodus” album.

Add to that, flashbacks to Marley’s childhood, burgeoning relationship with Rita and a truly wonderful recollection of The Wailing Wailers audition for the Studio One label.

Produced by Marley’s widow Rita, daughter Cedella and son Ziggy, “Bob Marley: One Love” documents how Bob Marley became more than a music star, it’s about how he became a symbol of peace and unity.

“King Richard” director Reinaldo Marcus Green falls prey the usual music bio traps as Marley grapples with his meteoric rise to fame, the expectations of a record company looking for hits and the personal toll from the heat of the increased spotlight, but it is buoyed by the performances and, most of all, the music.

The movie is wall-to-wall with classic Marley tunes, but two performances stand out. The first, a nervous audition at a record label, sees Marley and The Wailing Wailers rip it up with an enthusiastic version of “Simmer Down.” It’s filled with youthful energy, swagger and raw talent.

Later, in London, the adult Marley is struck with the inspiration for one of his best-known songs when he overhears a band mate listening to Ernest Gold and the Sinfonia of London’s soundtrack for the 1960 film “Exodus.” It’s a typical music bio struck-by-inspiration scene, but the experience of watching the song come together, beat by beat, note by note, in the unassuming living room of a London flat is exhilarating.

“Bob Marley: One Love” may not be the in-depth, definitive story of the reggae icon’s life and impact, but it is an entertaining reminder of the mark made by the incredible music Marley left behind.

Alan Cumming: Kids can deal with more darkness than we think

strange-magic-07-636-380By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Strange Magic, a new animated jukebox musical fantasy from George Lucas, follows in the footsteps of Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. All are musicals, all are for kids and all feature a villain geared to make young pulses race.

“I do think we underestimate how much darkness kids can deal with,” says Alan Cumming, who plays the film’s chief baddie, the Bog King,

Inspired by A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Strange Magic is set in a fairy world where you can never judge a book by its cover.

Cumming’s character, with his glowing eyes and a skeleton that is more exo than endo, certainly embodies the movie’s message that beauty is only skin deep.

“All these kinds of films are based on a tradition that goes way, way back to the Grimm Brothers,” says Cumming.

“In a way, the reason these stories are told is to teach kids some sort of moral lesson. You have to scare people but ultimately show that he has a nicer side to him.”

Lucas, who has a ‘story by’ and producer credit on the film says, “with the Bog King we did tone him down a bit because it is a delicate balance. We’ve shown it to a lot of kids and most of them aren’t affected by it at all. My daughter, who is only 18 months, saw the trailer with the Bog King in it on a screen, not on a TV and she wasn’t moved by it at all. But of course 18-month-olds aren’t afraid of anything yet.

“Kids are not as fragile as you think they are. All the stuff, that it warps their brains, I’m not sure about that,” he said.

“There is a certain reality to imitative violence, which is monkey see, monkey do, and that is dangerous, but at the same time a well brought up kid doesn’t fall into that.”

Lucas, who has been working on this project on and off for 15 years — “I liked to do it in between working on Star Wars and writing scripts and things”— says there are only three moments in the movie that are “bothersome.”

“It has been my experience with my kids that if you sense something coming up you just put your hand over their eyes and usually they’re faster at doing it than you are.”

STRANGE MAGIC: 3 ½ STARS. “an animated jukebox musical set in a fairy world.”

Everyone knows the children of George Lucas, Han, Luke and Leia, will be closing out the year with the December release of “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens.” What is perhaps less well known is that another Lucas fantasy kicks off 2015.

Lucas was inspired by “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” to create the story for “Strange Magic,” an animated jukebox musical set in a fairy world where you can never judge a book by its cover.

Evan Rachel Wood stars as the voice of Marianne, a tough Pat Benatar-type fairy with colourful wings, leather lungs and an attitude. She wasn’t always like that, once she was a gentle fairy princess engaged to the handsome Roland (Sam Palladio) but his unfaithfulness broke her belief in love and now she is alone.

Over in the Dark Forest the Bog King (Alan Cumming), a bad-tempered cockroach looking creatures whose skeleton is more exo than endo, has also lost faith in love. “Love destroys order,” he says, “and without order there is chaos.” To make sure love does not taint his kingdom he imprisons the Sugar Plum Fairy (Kristin Chenoweth), maker of love potions.

The fairy and dark forests collide when a bootleg batch of Sugar Plum’s potion leads to kidnapping and a showdown—and sing-off—between Marianne, the Bog King and their followers.

“Strange Magic’s” story is old fashioned. It’s “Beauty and the Beast” banged together with some Shakespearean farce and even a hint of “The Dark Crystal,” but there is nothing old fashioned about the presentation. The lush animation will blow the retinas off your eyeballs. The creature design owes a debt to Jim Henson and movies like “Labyrinth,” but they are marvelously realized with state of the art CGI and inventive voice work.

Director Gary Rydstrom fills the screen with memorable images, from Marianne splayed across a bed made of a rose bud to the wild kaleidoscope psychedelia of the film’s finale.

Your eyeballs will dance, and with a wall-to-wall musical score made of pop hits from the past fifty years, you might expect your feet to follow, but it’s here the movie doesn’t always deliver. It’s all well and good to transform “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” into a Broadway style belter but the abominable Muzak version of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” would have been better left in the vault. The soundtrack plays like a K-Tel album of love songs—everyone from Elvis and Bob Marley to Heart and Lady Gaga are represented—has a Moulin Rouge-ish feel but isn’t quite as effective as Baz Luhrmann’s megamix.

“Strange Magic” takes some simple ideas—beauty is only skin deep and love conquers all—and sprinkles them with fairy dust to create a musical that plays like “Moulin Rouge” for kids.