20140513: Documentary Review--Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 85 minutes, music, documentary.
2. IMDB: 7.0/10.0 from 626 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 50% on the meter; 73% liked it from 273 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.8/5.0 from 35,485 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Stephen C. Mitchell.
6. Starring: Caleb, Jared, Nathan, Matthew Followill.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The Followills are family: deeply religious, poor, with musical traditions in the church.  Their relatives are interviewed.  There are extensive snapshots of the band on its way up, coupled with footage of the reactions from within the family during that process.


2. Segments of the film compare and contrast: the family's poverty versus the successful band's enormous wealth; the stern religion of many of the family versus the drug use, sexual freedom, and foul language of the band; the political conservatism of the family versus the relatively PC outlook of the band.


3. These disparities have all sorts of fallout, as one sees throughout the film.  Many of the family are happy for the band; some worry for their welfare.  Much of the white hot energy of the band's music and lyrics come from these harsh differences.  Some of the band members deal with these issues consciously, and the process seems not to be over.


4. In the long run, how well will the band's members keep dealing with the family issues?  If they reach resolution, will the band still have the same level of fire and creativity?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Documentary of the roots of Kings of Leon.
2. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10 Varies quite a bit.  Most of it is fairly bad.  It was nice to see some of Oklahoma again.


2. Sound: 6/10 I expect hugely wonderful sound on a movie about a successful rock group.  Compared to the sound in Metallica: Through the Never, this is just week-old porridge.  In addition, there is very little music actually played from the Kings of Leon: two partial songs at the end, which was only a little redemption.


3. Acting: z/10 Documentary; this does not apply.


4. Screenplay: 7/10 To my mind, there were too many cuts and joins.  The same points could have been made with three examples instead of twenty. On the whole, though, the exposition was still effective, just redundant.