Amy Winehouse documentary gets UK release date

Had ticket in Sept 2007 for the Nutini tour that was cancelled. Coachella 2009 had her on the bill but she bailed even thought she could get her work visa in time.

She only had about 70% lung capacity/power just before she died.

 

Pneumonia or just the effects of smoking (cigarettes and worse)?

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...y-winehouse-emphysema-father-article-1.294545
Not sure any regular crack cocaine users ever kept their voices. Whitney, Winehouse, probably Sly Stone and maybe Boy George.

 

Well there is a track on Hidden treasures called Like Smoke, which has a rap by Nas, and is an amazing track. If this is what she meant, there was a lot to look forward to.

 

Great article on the film, Amy and Daptone Records and Binky Griptite. I got into daptone and Sharon jones when I read they backed up Amy's album and have been in love with the label since then.

http://www.villagevoice.com/music/h...house-documentarys-cutting-room-floor-7387387

 

I just saw this tonight and thought it was great. My girlfriend wanted a copy of Back To Black back in 2007 so I bought it for her and really liked it myself, her voice, the songs and the retro yet modern production values.

But the thing that really impressed me was seeing her on the Palladia channel at a Leo Fender tribute concert. I didn't know she played guitar, and she sang and played, I think solo, and she was great.

I guess I sort of knew she wrote her own songs but this movie really made me appreciate her as a singer/songwriter. And the device of showing her lyrics on the screen as she sang really makes it clear that her writing was very personal and very great.

In the movie, Tony Bennett says that she was one of the all-time great jazz singers, and I'm not going to argue with him. The movie did a great job of simultaneously showcasing her immense talent while telling the story of her personal struggles.

Thumbs up! A must see if you're a music fan, I think.

 

I saw the movie yesterday and found it devastatingly sad. It's made up almost entirely of footage of Amy -- no talking heads -- and you watch as her personality, talent, and spirit are crushed, first by her own demons and then by the relentless tabloid scrutiny. I wouldn't even say she seemed like a particularly likeable person -- I think trouble was going to find her one way or another -- yet it was chilling to watch someone's self disintegrate before your eyes. (It's also a reminder that there was a real person there, not just a staggering cartoon with a beehive.) The movie is haunting me.

 

Me too. I've seen it twice so far. I was never a huge Amy Winehouse fan outside of playing the hits off "Back To Black" from time to time. She had such a horrible reputation hear in the U.S. during her short career. She was known mainly for her drug addiction. Even her biggest hit "Rehab" just reminded people she was a drug addict headed toward an inevitable early death.

However, seeing the film made me realize what an amazing singer and songwriter she was. And what a tragic life she led.
I've gone back and revisited her three albums and all the B sides and overall it's stellar. Most of what she was released was pure gold. I agree with Tony Bennett that Amy was one of the best jazz singer or all time on par with Ella Fitzgerald.

The film is excellent. One of the best documentaries about a famous musician I've ever seen. That being said it's tough to watch. It's almost like viewing a True Crime documentary. Amy has herself to blame for her early death from drug addiction and alcoholism. However, in the film you see she didn't get much support or encouragement to get clean and sober. The relentless paparrazi, equally addicted husband, opportunistic father, greedy promoter/manager, etc... all come across horribly here. Becoming famous killed Amy Winehouse and brought out the worse in those people around her.

Another bummer is that after "Back To Black" Amy didn't write much and pretty much stayed out of the recording studio. There's one song "You Only Hurt The Ones You Love" that is haunting. A brief snippet of the demo is played in the film. Shows the direction she might have headed in for her 3rd album. Unfortunately, I get the feeling that by 2011, Amy was terrified of music and fame. She told a friend that she'd gladly give up being a great singer if she could walk down the street without being harassed. What a sad statement about the evil paparrazi and celebrity obsessed culture we live in.

 

The director talks in this interview about the somewhat different perceptions of Amy in the U.K. and the U.S.

http://www.vogue.com/13279716/amy-winehouse-documentary-director-asif-kapadia/

Americans mostly became aware of her with Back to Black and had no other sense of her beyond the outsize image she projected at that time and the substance abuse issues that were already affecting her, while in Britain, although she didn't become hugely famous there until Back to Black either, there was more of an awareness of what she had been like before that. Not that made them any more sympathetic to her.

 

We didn't get it where I'm from. Gonna have to wait until it goes to rental. Bummer!

 

Saw it today. Very sad, like a car wreck you can't take your eyes off. Quite an indictment of Blake.

 

Brilliant documentary.

I knew the story about Blake but her father...man...I couldn't believe my eyes when he showed up with a camera crew in St. Lucia during a period when
she was incredibly vulnerable. She just wanted to see her Dad and her Dad only saw it as an opportunity to make money.

 

It aired tonight on UK Channel 4.
Agree largely with the comments above. Essential viewing, so painful towards the end.
She had so much talent, it was too much...

 

I watched it on channel 4 there. Really liked it. The father is a strange one and that Blake guy, just bad news.
All of her influences had either drug and or drink problems. Bad marriages, bad people around them and it seemed to me she wilfully pursued these things, ticking off the boxes.

 

Finally watched this on a plane yesterday. Man is this ever a cautionary tale of our celebrity addicted society. So incredibly sad. I don't feel for loss of talent as much as the fact that this was a real person. You really get that from the film.

 

I watched it the other day. Really good stuff. After seeing it and how she loved jazz I ordered the vinyl collection. I was only familiar with the hit songs so looking forward to discovering all the rest.

 

I am usually a big Oscars fan but this year I have little interest. But I am curious about the Best Documentary Feature category. I think Amy will probably win but the Nina Simone documentary What Happened, Miss Simone. I hear is excellent as well.

 

Great documentary, completely sad. Being a junkie isn't unique , but seeing how her life spiraled as the media attention exploded was crazy. The Grammy scenes and the Tony Bennett scenes were heartbreaking, someone trying to be clean and unable to enjoy the success.

 

I finally watched this -- it was one of those things I both wanted to watch and was avoiding. First, I caught onto Amy Winehouse a bit earlier than most in North America, either thanks to British relatives or just coming across some mentions in the press. I think she was very talented, of all the musicians in my collection likely the one who I most wish was still her making new music, or after seeing this wish she was just alive and happy.

I knew she had a cast of bad characters around her, plus a lot of pressure to keep the money machine rolling. I think the documentary did a good job at also showing there were people around her who did love and support her, but there was a lot of willing self-destruction.

The documentary did a better job for me at putting together the timeline. I vividly remember seeing clips from that final concert at the time, and thinking this was not going to end and wondering how could her management allow it. Seeing this, there is still a lot of blame to be placed there, but it was an interesting take that she was also willingly self-destructing, likely not to the point where she was thinking of death but possibly her career.

I always found the reaction of her band to be odd during those clips, they're sort of smiling and try and get a song going twice. I think in part it's confusion, in reading other accounts she was in OK shape that late afternoon and it was a surprise for all when she hit the stage in that state. From the documentary, I understood she was being unwilling pulled back into that Back to Black world -- really after not making music for an extended period of time and by all accounts gaining some semblance of health -- any maybe this was a bit of a "screw you" to that machine. (Her father did the same showing up with the documentary crew).

Of course, all compounded by a history of addictions, likely anxiety, depression, stage fright...but it this positioning helped me reconcile what I saw from the band on stage, where maybe they're recognizing her attempt to exit a musical business she did not want to be a part of. On the flipside of all this -- I just wished she could have stayed with Tony Bennett for a few more hours. His respect for her talent and support was the kind of thing she needed.