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Shine a Light (2008)

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33 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
a must for every Stones fan, 22 February 2008

Author: mraukui from Germany

Scorsese has made another fabulous concert movie using all modern techniques available. Scorsese had the Stones rehearsing their stage show for some days so he was able to choreograph his cameras. Shot with 16 cameras he is able to be always on the right image to the music. But yet it is not senselessly hectic like a bad music clip but allows you instead to watch the musicians and get a feeling for them. The Stones are at their best, delivering one hit after the other. There are some surprises like a duet by Mick Jagger and Jack White III. Buddy Guy and Christina Aguilera also blend in perfectly with the rhythm of the Stones. In between there are some short clips of old Stones interviews which are quite funny and also some Behind-the-Scenes-Footage.

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17 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Stones Hit, Scorsese Misses, 6 April 2008

Author: mutanto from United States

I saw the Rolling Stones live last year for the first time and I was blown away. I've been a Stones fan for decades but have never had any interest in stadium rock concerts with their huge crowds and tiny stars on stage. The few stadium shows I've attended were always mediocre experiences. But the Stones' Bigger Bang tour changed my mind.

For one, the enormous video screens make every seat great. Beyond that, it was the Rolling Stones that won me over. Rocking songs, incredible performances, unbelievable energy, and every one in the crowd dancing and singing the whole show. And these guys are in their sixties! Watching 'Shine a Light' on IMAX at times made me feel like I was actually at a live Stones concert, but then I kept feeling that something key was missing. And it was.

Martin Scorsese covered the two explosive shows at the Beacon Theater in New York with 18 cameras but he somehow missed getting the band. As expected, lead singer and ringmaster, Mick Jagger, gets the most screen time, with guitarist, Keith Richards, coming in a not too distant second. And then there's Ron Wood, the second guitarist, and some might argue, the better soloist, He has juicy moments on screen, but is shockingly absent time and again when soloing, the camera instead lingering on a prancing Jagger or posing Richards.

And where is drummer Charlie Watts? Watching 'Shine a Light' one might think the Stones had backing tracks instead of a live drummer. Watts is the quiet one (who doesn't dye his hair) but he's the backbone of their sound, keeping time, holding it down while the boys jump around. I kept wanting to see shots of Watts, not only for the variety of imagery and the visual reinforcement that there really is a live drummer hitting the cowbell on 'Honky Tonk Women,' but also because he's an original Rolling Stone. Sadly, there are only a handful of very brief clips featuring Watts, and just as few wide shots of the whole band on stage. And Watts is not the only one nearly absent from the movie.

Although the original members are Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood (Wood joined in 1974 so he's not actually an original Stone), they tour with a number of key support musicians, including bass player, Daryl Jones (who's worked with them since 1994), a keyboardist, a horn section and three back-up singers. However, except for some brief interplay between Jagger and the back-up singers, the other musicians are absent from the film. It's not so unusual to relegate non-member, support players to minor roles in concert movies, but to avoid them altogether is baffling and frustrating.

The support musicians may not be Rolling Stones but they are a part of the band. They are playing the music and adding to the sights and sounds on stage. But 'Shine a Light' mostly kept them in the dark. This isn't how a real concert is experienced. In concert the other players are seen and often featured in the spotlight as soloists. But time and again in 'Shine a Light', we hear a piano riff, a sax solo, a horn section blast, a bass run, but we never actually see who's playing. We neither get full nor medium shots, nor even close-ups of hands playing. We don't even get quick cuts of the support players, as one might see interspersed regularly throughout most filmed live concerts today. Instead, we see lingering shots of Jagger and Richards, sometimes so close you can see the brown behind Jagger's teeth, while a saxophone or some other player wails somewhere off-camera. The Stones sound is some much more than guitar, bass, drums and vocals. A concert is so much more than the starring players, but you don't get that from this film. It's as if the film makers had tin ears.

This is baffling because they had 18-camera shooting the action. So the film makers either didn't get the coverage, or they decided in the editing room not to include the other players. Bad decision. This gives the movie, the Stones concert experience, a frustrating myopic feel. I kept wanting to see what I was hearing, but couldn't. I kept wanting to get a visual of the focal point in the song and on stage, but it was not delivered. Even one of the few times Jaggar plays harmonica is off-camera. This left me feeling short-changed.

Ultimately, 'Shine a Light' is slightly claustrophobic, with all its medium and close shots. It rarely opens up to show the entire band on stage. The film suffers as a result, as wide shots would have provided much needed breathing room, offering a more open perspective, and also providing the myriad tight shots with context. We do see the interplay between Jagger and Richards, or between Richards and Wood, but we don't see the whole band working together as a unit. And ultimately that's what a live Stones show, or any live rock show is all about--a group of individuals performing together as a band. Even if Scorsese decided that the film was all about the four Stones, he could have easily divided the enormous screen into quads, now and again, so we could see the four Stones working their magic simultaneously in a multi-screen format. This is common place today and highly effective.

It's baffling that with all the resources at hand and experience behind him, Scorsese didn't quite deliver the goods. It's as if his infatuation with the visages of Jagger and Richards blinded him from showing us the Rolling Stones. 'Shine a Light' is enjoyable for sure, but suffers from a limited vision.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
aka: 'Some Country for Old Men', 4 April 2008

Author: Filmjack3 from United States

Shine a Light displays, thrillingly and with the bombastic POP of a revisited 'happy place', why many love the Rolling Stones and many love the style of Martin Scorsese. It's mostly a concert movie shot over a period of two mights at the Beacon theater (as if doing a workhorse revival of thirty years ago, while Scorsese was busy shooting New York, New York in 76 and doing the Last Waltz concurrently, this time he shot the concert while finishing up the Departed), with some choice documentary footage interspersed in between some songs. On both fronts, however minor the (all archival) interview footage is, it's a big success, visually and musically, as good old rock and roll performance art (well, almost art, but I like it), and as visual virtuosity made incarnate.

It might be easy to adulate the Stones, as well as Scorsese. They've been around for so long, doing what they do, with each side rumored here and there to quit doing what they do (for the Stones it's every tour, much to their grinning bemusement, and for Scorsese it was a point in the 80s when he thought he'd have to leave Hollywood and make documentaries on saints). They're always acclaimed, usually big money-makers, and they've acquired a kind of nether-region between 'cult' audience and full-blown mainstream mayhem. It's this that is, in a way, the subtext for Shine a Light. While Scorsese stays mostly behind the scenes, the Stones are up and front and in center of a marvelous performance, and showcasing the energy and level of pizazz that quiets the naysayers. They sold out, and it doesn't get to them a single bit.

After some funny early footage of Scorsese (shot usually in black and white DV by Albert Maysles, who also appears here and there) getting into a minor tizzy about what the set-list is going to be, and getting some downtime with Bill Clinton, the show starts up like any good Stones show should- Jumpin' Jack Flash. Then onward come some given numbers (Shattered, Brown Sugar, Tumbling Dice), the masterpieces (Sympathy for the Devil, Loving Cup, featuring an awesome Jack White, and Champagne and Reefer with an equally awesome Buddy Guy), and a lot of unexpected tracks too (Live with Me with showy Aguilera, As Tears go By, some country song, and a kick-ass She Was Hot). For fans it's an amazing mix, and it allows for those who are just casual admirers to get their money's worth, primarily in IMAX. This is not just because of the quality of the music and the performances- which is, at its best, revelatory of what this band can do, at any age- but because of Scorsese's cameras, moving around in epic and roving fashion, edited with efficiency to not go all over the place or too slow, and, chiefly, to make it intimate like how many remember the Last Waltz to be (lots of neatly defined close-ups, lingering on to capture these hardened rockers).

And at the end, what is the point? Is it just another blah-blah Stones concert movie? Not necessarily. It doesn't have the heavy sociological context of Gimme Shelter, however it's not a little sloppy like Let's Spend the Night Together. Shine a Light celebrates its heroes, but it doesn't go completely overboard. Scorsese knows, as he did with Bob Dylan, not to get too cocky with these fogies. It's important to throw in those bits with the Stones getting interviewed, candid and without much overbearing ego present, and by the end you know there's still a place for them, firmly, in the public consciousness. They sold out in the most ironically good way in rock music history, with Scorsese now wonderfully in tow. A+

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7 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
If only all concert films were like this, 7 April 2008

Author: AdnanZ from Canada

"Shine a Light" is Martin Scorsese's second real concert film after 1978's "The Last Waltz", which by now is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece and is my favorite film by the director. I really hope we will see more concert films from Scorsese in the future, because "Shine a Light" is further excellence from him. If all, or even a significant number of concert films were filmed with such skill and exuded such energy, there would be far more of them made and far more released theatrically.

"Shine a Light" is a concert film. I'm not sure I'd call it a documentary on the Rolling Stones so much as a filming (a brilliant filming) of an especially good concert they played recently. Scorsese is smart enough, however, to use interviews and clips from all stages of the Stones' career for purposes of humor and even commentary on various aspects of music and the music business, as well as the band itself.

Your average Rolling Stones fan waiting to see a Rolling Stones concert and who isn't a fan of film probably will be bored during the film's opening scenes, but for those interested in film, they provide a fascinating glimpse into the marriage of live music and film-making, which doesn't happen as much as it should. It's also quite an intimate look at the Stones as a bunch of people, exposing them in the same sort of way the non-concert scenes in "Gimme Shelter" did. Then again, how much of it is real and how much is an act is really the essential question that we will forever be asking about this band.

"Shine a Light" isn't a document of an important historical event like Scorsese's "The Last Waltz" or the Maysles Bros' "Gimme Shelter" was as a Rolling Stones film, so one shouldn't expect that sort of greatness from "Shine a Light". What one should expect is a great concert, filmed with great skill, tasteful guest appearances that do nothing but add to the music, and a gorgeous film interspersed tastefully with archive footage chosen carefully and played at just the right moments.

The Stones and Scorsese are on top form here, making this a memorable and exciting concert film and the sort of marriage of film-making and live music that really should happen more often.

8.5/10

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Extraordinary To Witness Them At The Top Of Their Game, 13 April 2008
Author: ociopia from United States

Regrets - I've never seen the Stones live. Now I can live with that because no matter when or where, I'd have never seen them with the extraordinary advantage of mega-cameras inches away. This is the Stones revealed, every wrinkle and ropey-veined arm, taut-muscled Mick and melting-faced Keith, and there you are right in the midst of an incredible jam when Buddy Guy joins them and they huddle in an exhilarating moment of pure bliss.

Mick is the King, the energizer bunny of rock, at the pinnacle of his love/sex affair game with his audience. OMG. Thrilling to watch this consummate performer build himself up with each song, letting himself go further and further to the edge of union with the energy of the music and his fans.

Lyrics so clear and clever, ironic and insightful. The humor rounds every nuance. The playlist is wonderful.

Keith's dreamy smile as he plays, exuding pure joy with his slow, sexy gentleness is such a counterpoint to Mick's sharp, clever, edgy energy.

I'd only seen the Stones on videos, where Mick seemed to be a caricature of himself. Now I realize without the adoration and energy of an audience, he is not inspired to receive and give that energy which is not unlike Janis Joplin's - totally out there and free - just diggin' in and groovin'. Yet you know he is in complete control.

Shine A Light will probably be nominated for an academy award for film editing. It is genius. Hundreds of intimate shots that define "a picture is worth a thousand words" - Keith's caressing smile as he plays or tosses a cigarette - Mick's lips and nose in silhouette - Ron Woods looking like he's still in Faces, the list is endless and meaningful to each individual fan. Scorceses' use of the cameras is inspired - absolutely the best.

If you love the Stones, you will writhe with energy and joy and want to jump up and shout - Start Me Up!

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
The Rolling Stones are still rollin', 10 April 2008

Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

The Rolling Stones are still rollin'.

That is the primary message of Martin Scorsese's well crafted if conventional rock and roll movie, 'Shine a Light,' based on two concerts played at the Beacon Theater in New York City in late 2006. Mick Jagger was always considered a phenomenon, the sexiest, most hyperactive white soul dancer in the world. He's almost freakish now, as exhilarating and kinetic at 62 as he was at 20. But 62!

Mick has the same tiny butt and slim body and an astonishingly flat, smooth stomach, But he like Keith Richards and Ron Wood has the ravaged face of a Bowery bum. These Dorian Grays bear the marks of their dissipation--or simply their intense living--in the visage. Only Charlie Watts, the perennial Stones drummer, just looks like an ordinary, healthy old man. Four or five years ago Wood was downing a bottle and a half of vodka a day and smoking a pack and a half a day. Keith Richards' indulgences are legendary, including his own claim, later retracted, that he once snorted up his father's ashes in a line of coke.

Watts, the drummer, has always maintained a Buddha-like silence together with a Cheshire cat grin. Richards is notable for often kneeling on the stage, and draping his wrist over a mike, or one of his cohorts. Ron Wood is constantly mobile and smiling, and has that standard aging rocker look: big seventies mop of dyed or otherwise assisted hair, ravaged face, stick-thin limbs. Mick of course is the front man of the band, its voice, its dynamo, its flame. He has as many moves as Michael Jackson, and you may wonder who influenced who of that pair.

Ups and downs they have had, and changes of personnel, with Wood coming in after Mick Taylor, who replaced the drowned Brian Jones, left the band, Daryl Jones replacing Bill Wyman as bassist, and so on. But the Stones have an exceptionally solid history nonetheless, with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, who met at the age of four or five in Kent, still after 45 years together not only the creative center but the center of enthusiasm and joy of performance.

The aggregation Scorsese records here is typically excellent. The Stones not only have an unrivaled set of songs but still deliver extremely classy musical backup as well as all the old style in their renditions. It's just hard to get on the stage as an equal with a band this tight and this strong. But since the newest song they do is from twenty-five years ago in the film, the occasional fresh partner provides welcome variety. Success varies. The cute, smiley Jack White is a charmer when he joins Mick with guitar and voice for "Loving Cup," but his performance is so good natured it's more a sweet sing-along than the exciting duel it might have been. Christina Aguilera does a blistering rendition, with Mick, of "Live with Me," but she tries too hard and almost wails out of control. Best of these assistants, not an assistant at all but a fully equal partner, is the blues great Buddy Guy along for a song Mick says he first heard Muddy Waters perform, "Champagne & Reefer." That one is a true duel--and it's astonishing to see the youth of Guy's face, alongside the deep creases in Jagger's, given that he's nine years older than Mick.

As an album, Shine a Light unquestionably works. It doesn't include all my faves, but it does have exciting, risk-taking performances of "Satisfaction" and "Sympathy for the Devil." not to mention "All Down The Line," "Start Me Up," "Brown Sugar," "Shattered," and "Jumpin' Jack Flash" Mick imparts all his old swagger to "Some Girls" and "Tumbling Dice" and makes "As Tears Go By" and "Faraway Eyes" touching and (tongue-in-cheek) sincere. It's simply awesome that all these songs can still come across so intensely and musically; but that's what being great performers and the greatest rock and roll band is about. Scorsese shows them up too close though, and shows too many wrinkles.

Scorsese used so many photographers and so much light it made the Stones nervous ahead of time. The result is technically impeccable, but for a director who made the classic musical summing up 'The Last Waltz' and just recently the penetrating Dylan documentary 'No Direction Home', and for a band famously recorded in the shocking Maysle brothers 'Gimme Shelter' not to mention dozens of inventive song videos, the tame technique used here is a bit disappointing. One thing that's missing is any long looks at members of the audience, though glimpses show that they're of all ages. It doesn't add too much to have footage showing Marty's control freak nerves before the shoot (he could never accept that he didn't know exactly what songs were coming and in what order), nor is it hugely exciting to have Bill and Hillary present, though they have to be, because there they were, and Bill said a few words to the crowd before the concert began. Not earthshaking either are a few clips of early Stones interviews, though it's inevitable to show the one where Dick Cavett asks Mick at 24 if he can imagine doing concerts when he's sixty, and he replies, "Yeah, easily. Yeah." He was playing for laughs at the time, but truer words were never spoken. There is a recording of the concert by itself, including a few extra songs. I'd like to see the whole film again in IMAX. The sound system wasn't cranked up quite enough in the screening I saw. This is a remarkable experience. It confirms the excellence of the band. But to see them in their prime, better the 1974 concert film, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones, when Mick's face was smoother and his costumes more immodest--though that one is hard to come by.

Are the Stones still getting their rocks off? "Yeah, easily. Yeah."

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Enlightment, 14 April 2008

Author: stensson from Stockholm, Sweden

Sometimes you might feel that the rock concert movie genre hasn't moved much since "Woodstock". Which doesn't mean Scorsese doesn't manage the tradition in a very proper way.

You certainly have the concert feeling here. But Stones have made it both better and worse. There are ups and downs in this performance, with an absolute peak from the blues man Buddy Guy entering stage.

The clips from old Stones interviews are entertaining, but what's the purpose of having them there? If they are supposed to be included, they should have taken a bigger place, telling something more of this band, which in itself forms essentials of rock history. Anyway, good work by Scorsese, although traditional.

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
A 'sell-out' concert?, 11 April 2008

Author: Chris Docker (eyeforfilm) from Scotland, United Kingdom

Take some lyrics:

1. "May the good lord shine a light on you Make every song your favourite tune"

2. "You call yourself a Christian, I call you a hypocrite. You call yourself a patriot, well I think you're full of sh*t."

Both are recent songs by the Rolling Stones. A 1960s rock and roll group. (Band members are now in their sixties.)

Verse 2 is from an anti-Bush song called Sweet Neo Con. An interesting point from which to start a movie perhaps. Veteran director Scorsese even chooses a concert at which democrat Bill Clinton is in attendance. But the song, even though part of the tour, is missing. This film has no hidden agenda or meaning. Sweetness and Light. Shine a Light.

If you are a current fan of the Stones, such details matter little. This is a concert film (at the New York Beacon Theatre) to die for. Production values are far better than any comparable TV live event. A concert to enjoy in surround sound, in a comfortable theatre, with every detail up close on a big screen (or even IMAX). Not a film about lyrics. Not a documentary of these extraordinary long careers. Just a big, brilliant concert.

It rather feels as if the Stones hired the best filmmaker in the business. Who in turn hires the best cinematographers. Who in turn capture every dramatic gesture. Every Mick Jagger mince. Every crowd-pleasing wave. Each impressive guitar riff. Each colourful stage contrast. Each theatrical burst of light. Everything. Except film fans may struggle and ask, "But isn't this supposed to be a Martin Scorsese film?"

When Scorsese did Bob Dylan (No Direction Home), his achievement was in the insights into a complex man. His film resolved the eternal conflict between Dylan's public personas. Shine a Light, on the other hand, offers no such insight into the stars concerned beyond the current state of their stage performance (impressive though it is).

There are some nice cinematic touches. It is fun watching Scorsese in front of the camera in the opening scenes. He worries about getting a specific playlist, so he knows whether to be ready for a guitar solo or singer acrobatics. It helps us understand the complexity of filming a live event. The question of the band's age, instead of being disguised, is cleverly made a feature. Scorsese intersperses Beacon Theatre sets with vintage black and white footage of frequent interview questions relating to age. "Can you imagine doing this when you're 60?" and so on. I wince. I had qualms about watching these pensioners prance about on stage. A fan of their early music, I instinctively feel rock stars should die (or at least retire) before they get old. But blues singers look cool old. Why not the Rolling Stones? Keith Richards looks positively cadaverous. A Munster with a mean guitar. And the Rolling Stones are considered chic both by baby boomers and trendy young well-to-dos. Long gone are the days when buying a Stones album was an act of defiance.

But in spite of the unused Neo Con lyrics and Jagger's single use of the f word in the whole concert, fans seem more concerned that Richards actually smokes a cigarette. A girl in the audience points disapprovingly. The Stones are mainstream. Bill Clinton hails their green credentials. Everyone is lovey-dovey. Much of the concert features impressive showmanship and a high level of professionalism. Jagger never misses a note. The guitar-work is beautiful. And as a role model for pensioners, Jagger's routine is more energetic than any step class. But where was the angst? The blinding energy that seared itself into the brains of the 60s youth? This was a very a different band. I try to forget the old one. I enjoy the toothless new more than I like to admit.

Shine a Light is a time capsule. The latter years of the most famous rock and roll band in the world. A great British institution preserved for posterity. (It releases the day after Gordon Brown's jovial and equally polished tele-appeal on American Idol. New Labour. New Stones.)

Well-chosen guest artists spring into sets. Jack White produces a perfect blend of young and old as he duets with Jagger. Christina Aguilera looks stunning in high heels and tights. How could she not fire up the old man? Jagger hugs her bum as they dance to Live With Me. He has new fire in him as he continues with Start Me Up. By the time he sings Brown Sugar, there is a passion to it. The audience wave and cheer in time. When Satisfaction ricochets through the hall it is like watching the legend. The Mick Jagger of old. I'm almost a convert.

Would it be cynical to say Sympathy for the Devil looked more like a Born-Again pageant? Unappreciative perhaps. The film lover in me would rather have Jean-Luc Godard's film of that title for a sense of the 'real' Rolling Stones. But why should audiences dictate that pop stars – or film directors for that matter – conform to expectation? Accept Shine a Light for the awesome concert film that it is. Miserable old sentimentalists go back to your vinyl. Your 'creative' cinema. There's not much of it here.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Out Of Their Heads: Scorsese Captures England's Oldest Hitmakers, 27 April 2008
Author: Ralph Moffettone (dialrralph) from United States

We see footage from 1973 of Mick Jagger, donning a get-up of satanic majesty, sitting atop a crudely colored couch before a show. Laughs escape his signature lips as he verbally disorients the questions of his interviewer. "Do you see yourself doing this sort of thing when you're sixty?" asks the man. Jagger's face turns serious, and without missing a beat answers: "Yeah. Easily." The man is surprised –and he should be, because who would've thought? The stamina and consistency of The Rolling Stones is the greatest of all rock 'n' roll acts, and this is confirmed in Martin Scorsese's "Shine a Light"; possibly the most intimate and revealing music-film ever shot. The show plays not as a nostalgia-soaked sendoff for The Stones, but as a powerful reminder of how great they remain to be.

The film, which one would assume to be a pleasure-seeking detour for the world's greatest director, is actually surprisingly unique and significant for The Stones. The band has been in about half dozen films before (Sympathy For The Devil, Gimme Shelter); but no one makes a rock-doc like Scorsese. The director has made two rockumentaries prior to this one: The Last Waltz, his schmaltzy farewell concert for The Band, and No Direction Home, his fascinating portrait of Bob Dylan –and here he takes elements from both of those approaches, but is mainly focused with giving us an up-close night with The Greatest Rock 'N' Roll Band in the World.

Scorsese made the right choice in filming the show in a small venue; here we get to see the band function; we see how they read each other and how much they love what they do. The Stones remain to be the most physically engaging and expressive of all bands, making use of every inch of their modest setting. Jagger scurries about the stage with the velocity of a performer a quarter of his age –he absorbs the vibrations of his bandmates and uses the energy to conduct his audience; responding to the music with monkey-mannish ferocity. Keith Richards puffs smoke amongst the spotlight and flicks picks into the crowd not simply for doing so, but to fantastically cinematic effect. Watts wears his grimace while punishing the drums as Ronnie Wood swaggers about the platform, complimenting his peers' every spasm. Even in their sixties The Stones make new bands on TV (both mainstream and your precious "indie" alike) look like petrified marsupials. They perform with such nature and grace, yet with so much spontaneity and animalism.

The set list is a continuing surprise, with the band digging up gems as old as "As Tears Go by" and "Connection". Many of the tunes were never performed live before, including the Muddy Waters' song "Cocaine and Reefer" –a number that turns into a blues-soaked duel between Buddy Guy and Jagger. Other guests include Jack White who helps in "Loving Cup" and Christina Aguilera who sings opposite Jagger on "Live With Me".

Like all Scorsese stories, there is a tragic hero, and this films finds its with Richards. The guitarist has been recently quoted as saying he regrets his unfathomable bodily abuse, and here we see old interviews where a younger version of Keith tries to explain how he's made this far: "… I guess my luck hasn't run out yet." We later see footage from a recent interview, where the rocker is asked where his mind goes when he performs; he coolly responds: "I don't think when I'm on stage. I feel." How The Stones have made it this far on a diet of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll is a question without an answer –and how it is that they remain so good is another. "Shine a Light" presents the growth and inner workings of The Rolling Stones like no film before, and at the same time puts on a damn good rock show. The Stones are still very much around and have no plans of stopping –and they shouldn't. The film is a brilliant union of sound and imagery, cut with masterful immediacy. You already know how great the songs are, so I guess all that's left for me to say for you to enjoy their use is this film.

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The guys can still put on a show, 3 May 2008

Author: bandw from Boulder, CO

I hadn't seen anything of the Stones since the 1991 IMAX "At the Max" and I was afraid that perhaps by this time the band had overstayed its welcome. But I was pleased to see that no, they are still very much accomplished performers.

This is a an up close and personal film. Most of the footage is of a performance filmed at a smallish New York theater, but there are a few clips of old interviews and some initial shots of a frustrated Scorsese trying to work out the logistics.

Using multiple cameras in the hands of skillful cameramen puts you on stage, or in the first row, at all times during the concert. The lighting and colors are used to great effect. Credit for the successes goes to all involved, but perhaps most deserving of praise goes to the editing which adds greatly to the rhythm of the music.

As an understatement I would say that Mick Jagger is not your typical grandfather. His face shows the lines of a life lived fully, but he has the movements and body build of the Jagger of forty years ago. And Kieth Richards is a testament to the resiliency of the human body. At one point he turns to the audience and says, "It's good to see you all. In fact it's good to see anybody." It's fun to see that Richards really gets into it. In an interview he says that he does not think at all when performing and his total involvement shows. Ron Wood and Charlie Watts are still up to the task, but it's Jagger who is the magic behind the Stones - the few sets he was not in lacked the spark that he supplies.

The Stones have come a long way from being the bad boys of rock to being introduced by Bill Clinton and having Jagger be Sir Mick - humorous when you think about it. Be that as it may, they still give you your money's worth.

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