Shine a Light (2008)

Can somebody who has seen this film and loves The Rolling Stones, please discuss it with me.

I feel like this film would have been much more enjoyable and closer to perfection if I had an adoration for their music.

The film itself has no flaws, but it still managed to take me two and a half weeks to muster the energy to finish watching this.  I have never done that to a film.  But, had it not been a Scorsese film. I would have quit after the first latency (33 minutes in), or even after the second (4 songs short of the end) and that speaks volumes.

I selected this film on the belief that I had enjoyed The Last Waltz (1978) immensely without having even a slight notion or remembrance of the The Band's canon, and that spoke to the beauty and the raw appeal of the music and the film itself. 

Here, that feeling falls pathetically short, so that even when the songs become readily recognizable (the last 3 songs found me tapping along, alas) they were still not awe inspiring, or breathtaking, or remarkable, or anything other than complacently acceptable, and it wasn't until the final shot that I found something worth paying close attention to, wanting to rewind the film and study it, but by then I was too exhausted to care.

As a side note, Keith Richards is awesome in this film, better than in his swashbuckling adventures.  He is charming, and fun, and enjoyable, and ever so entrancing.  Which says something for a man that looks like a shaved Wookie carcase left out to jerky.

Between this film not appealing and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) critique on hiatus until I can get to a movie theater, the sabbatical from writing has been too long, and I'm itching to return to it, but this film does this enthusiasm no justice. 

I cannot find any notes to strengthen this critique or to serve my cinematic icon idol justice, but I guess that's ultimately his fault, although I feel like maybe it had more to do with the music choice in the first half of the film, and less to his Directing which still seemed well manicured and thought out.

If you're a Stones fan, then buy this film on Blu-ray, the cinematography is stunning, although I fear you already have a couple of copies of this.  Otherwise, catch it on-demand or online, or go watch a better film.