Tag: The Roots

Oscar Predictions: Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius)

Questlove, from the hip hop group The Roots and bandleader on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, took Sundance by storm four years ago with Summer of Soul. That documentary focused on 1969’s Harlem Cultural Festival won the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize for its genre at the Utah event. Over a year later, it would emerge as Best Documentary Feature at the 94th Academy Awards.

The filmmaker’s follow-up is Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) and it too has kicked off in Park City. Centered on the life and career of the enigmatic Sly Stone of Sly and the Family Stone, it’s slated for a Hulu streaming bow in February.

Word-of-mouth is encouraging though some critics are not as effusive as they were with Soul. Academy voters may take that into consideration when evaluating whether to take Sly higher into the awards convo next year. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…

Oscar Watch: Summer of Soul

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson has had a sterling career with his rap group The Roots and as Jimmy’s Fallon’s Tonight Show bandleader over the years. He can now add acclaimed documentary filmmaker to his resume with Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The film focuses on the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts featuring the likes of Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Sly and the Family Stone that took place in the summer of 1989. That also happened to be the season of another festival named Woodstock.

Soul premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to massive acclaim and ended up taking that festival’s Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize. The doc hits theaters and Hulu streaming this Friday. More reviews have come in and it stands at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Will the Sundance love translate to Oscar voters? Every time I write about documentaries in these posts, I must point out the Academy’s branch in that category is notoriously unpredictable. Oftentimes, the most hailed and popular docs don’t make the cut. I suspect distributor Fox Searchlight will give this a major push and that could put it over the edge. That said, projecting the pics of this genre which make it in is always a tricky proposition. My Oscar Watch posts will continue…