A good movie

Since I really loved ‘Summer of Soul’(in fact, it is still my favorite movie released in 2021), I was really eager to check this new documentary from Questlove. Well, to be honest, even though I had heard about Sly Stone, I wasn’t really familiar with his work so I can’t say I was a fan but it was pretty neat to get acquainted with his legacy. Well, to be honest, even if it was an interesting watch, it didn’t turn out to be as fascinating as ‘Summer of Soul’ was. The main issue I had was the way they tackled this subject. I don’t want to be mean or disrespectful but, even though Sly Stone was apparently indeed super talented, he and his band were actually really successful only for 4 years and then he pretty much wasted the following 5 decades as a major junkie. In fact, they really spend like 2 mins focusing on the last 40 years of his life and I was actually surprised to discover that he was still alive when they were making this movie (he eventually died 6 months after it was released). I mean, basically, they made a movie about this guy without his participation whatsoever when he was in fact still around which was rather weird to me. To be fair, if Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix didn’t die so soon, there was a fair chance that their lives would have ended up the same way (Morrison was a major rock star for only 6 years and then died, Hendrix was like Stone really successful for 4 years only and then died as well). To me, it felt like watching a major junkie who once used to be a music prodigy but it’s not at all how they handled this material. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn’t really blow me away, it was still a decent watch though and it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in this artist. 

7/10