Jimi: All Is by My Side (2013)

My biggest issue with Jimi: All Is Beside Me is that it's full of scenes that simply don't work and would have been cut from a better movie. In fact, the movie's structure and style completely fail to pull the audience into the story. It's off-putting overall.

Imagine walking into a room with someone holding an interesting phone conversation. You've missed the first part of the conversation, you're only hearing one side of the rest of it, and you want to hear more. You kind of get the idea, but nobody will tell you anything more. You feel excluded.

That's how I felt in the theater. Not enough backstory, incomplete and uninformative situations and dialog, no emotional core, no heart. Just an assemblage of vignettes that don't add to the story and give us no insight of any depth into Jimi's psyche and inner life. I felt excluded, and judging by the whispered comments of other people in the theater, I wasn't the only one.

To make things worse, there isn't even one single great scene. Every good movie needs at least one great scene. The James Brown biopic, Get on Up, had several great scenes (especially the electrifying musical performances.) I kept hoping for a big moment, but it never happened.

There are plenty of other issues with editing, cinematography, and writing. For example: freeze-framing to introduce characters and locations, film-schoolish camera work, occasional terribly written dialog including something to the effect of "I'm the manager of the Rolling Stones ... you're the girlfriend of Keith Richards" even after the freeze-frames with character names.

And not enough, you know, MUSIC. There was plenty of beautiful guitar on the soundtrack, but I wanted more rehearsal and concert scenes. Hendrix was one of the greatest guitarists out planet has ever produced. The film didn't show enough of his creative process or virtuosity.

Now for the good parts: very good performances by all the actors, and art direction that totally nails the '60s look and feel. Unfortunately the acting and art department weren't enough to save it for me (not even with my huge crush on Hayley Atwell.)

Fmovies: I'm a big fan of Jimi Hendrix and his music. I have read many books and watched about every film-bit I have found about him, so I had to really tell myself to take it for what it is, only a movie about a small part of his life.

But seriously? After about an hour into the movie it hit me that many people will maybe only see this film and think that this is how he was.

PLEASE do not take this film seriously. Please, go search for and watch documentaries and read books, this is just too bad to be taken seriously and I see it as a insult, not just to Jimi Hendrix, but to all of the involved artists and other people that was involved in his life.

@uberificbrownie In fact the women featured as Hendrix' friend and lover have come out publicly to declare the film is very inaccurate in several ways. You can read for yourself on the real Linda E.'s web site. She said that Ridley took bits of events that she wrote about in her autobiography and turned them around to fit his modern-day vision. I think she's right in some ways, certainly if you look at Atwell in the movie she's portrayed as being rather common and juxtaposed against Poots' character who is a posh intellectual/romantic.

You see what he's doing right off; Linda E. is the "old" Jimi who played juke joints with few noticing, Linda K helps him find the new Jimi who will be remembered forever. His process going from a back-up blues man to a legend was very likely a lot more complicated than that, and took more than a few notes from a friend to make him what he became.

But that's the Hollywood formula biopic, it encourages simplification of complexities. And sometimes, unfortunately when it comes to observing African American figures, the script may often have a White hand leading the Black hand along (see also 12 YEARS).

The other thing to note is that Ridley does seem to be a political conservative. They tend to observe black and white (not talking about race) more than grey.

It isn't hard to get things right like Hendrix' tone of voice (yes he was soft spoken) or his clothing and hair. Getting the rest "right" is likely harder.

Jimi: All Is by My Side fmovies. I agree with Kathy: This film is absolutely laughable... Not worthy of the man, his music, his life and his legacy... I hope that the Hendrix family/estate take whoever made this tripe to the cleaners. Not a story of Jimi the musical pioneer, or even Jimi the man. This is a crass caricature: A hatchet job that plays up to the cliché of the 'wild man of rock' as the 'Badass Troubleman' and all that crap. Wild man of rock he may have been (everybody liked to party in those days), but that doesn't make him a monster. Because Jimi certainly wasn't.

Also the idea that Linda Keith gave Jimi a guitar owned by Keith Richards: and that this 'started Jimi off' is absurd... Richards says himself in his autobiography that he and Linda split long before she met Hendrix (she didn't even leave Keef for Jimi. There were others before him). The guitar credit claim is ludicrous: Every Hendrix fan knows Jimi played guitar long before he came to England. Jimi played his guitar when he was in the army (ask Billy Cox!). Jimi was a guitarist before he knew Ms. Keith existed...

This pile of complete nonsense is disrespectful to Jimi and those who lived with him and loved him... This film about Jimi is similar to Albert Goldman'sbook about John Lennon: Cheap,nasty and attempting to make money out of flinging dirt around. For me this film gets nothing (and I mean nothing!). But seen as there is no zero mark, it will have to be a very reluctant 1...

As for Andre 3000 as Hendrix, It should have marketed as a comedy. What's next? Justin Bieber as Elvis Presley?

The movie was OK. Nor a masterpiece by any means, but a solid entry that shows part of the Hendrix life. I'm not good in writing reviews, in fact I believe that they are pointless, and everyone should base their opinion by seeing a movie. Nevertheless I had to make an entry because of that ignorant 'garbage' and 'racist' review. Do not get me wrong, you are entitled to think about any movie as garbage, and I'm fine with that. But when someone shows his/hers ignorance and calls historic facts racist... That's just sad. Shall we rewrite history? Please read Hendrix biography. If it wasn't for that lady, that was sleeping with Richards, Hendrix would not made a contact with a manager, that helped him develop his career. Sames go with so many (white if that matters - for me not, and if that matters for you, you are the racist... I'd like to remind, that it works both ways..) other people that helped him along the way, e.g. if it was not for McCartney he would _never_ play at the Monterrey Festival... That festival made him well known in the USA, because earlier his hit from Britain did not even enter top 100 in the USA... Similarly with the violence - quite well documented. The guy just couldn't handle alcohol, and changed after it, as so many people do. To sum up - Hendrix would always be a Hendrix (even changing name to Jimi was suggested by a white guy, oops). Great talent, great naivety, and bad life decisions. The point I'm making is, that at that time, without the help of white people, he would not become so famous. Sometimes skills are just not enough, you have to have luck, and met the right people. Do not try to rewrite history... You know also what? These people were so much better than the mindless PC obsessed masses. They didn't care about the skin color, just the talent, the music, the person. Who he was. An that was the late 60s I want to remind you. Not an easy time for people of color (less in Europe, but still). So, people, please watch the movie, read Hendrix biography (or if you are lazy, his Wikipedia page), and stop with this racists BS.

Man, I don't know what drugs some of these other reviewers are on. One person seems to be under the impression that the movie claims Jimi didn't play guitar before he came to England. WTF? Another person claims the film is racist because it accurately portrays white people helping Jimi move to London and start his own band. Yet another person claims Eric Clapton didn't walk off the stage when Jimi sat in with Cream because Clapton doesn't mention it when he's interviewed, but plenty of others remember it that way, and Clapton isn't going to go out of his way to bring up something that makes him look bad. Which brings us to Ms. Etchingham. You know, every time you watch a documentary about Hendrix there's an interview with a different woman whose only claim to fame in life is that she slept with Jimi, and they all seem to be self-appointed guardians of his legacy, every one of them was the real true love of his life, and none of them have a single negative word to say about him. But Hendrix was a famous womanizer—how he juggled jealous women is part of the focus of the film—and it is well known that he became angry and violent when he drank. So maybe Jimi beat her and maybe he didn't, but if he did I wouldn't really expect Ms. Etchingham to admit it, and if he didn't it doesn't really bother me that much because the episode can be viewed as a metaphor for a darker side of his personality that really did exist and wouldn't have been explored in the film without that scene.

Artistically I thought the film was a triumph and one of the best rock biopics I've seen. Andre Benjamin NAILS Jimi. He deserves an Oscar nomination for his performance. He obviously spent a lot of time listening to audio of Jimi speaking because he captured the rhythm and inflections of Jimi's speech perfectly. And acting-wise Benjamin was excellent, I thought he got inside Jimi's character even more than Jamie Foxx did in Ray. As an actor he was remarkably in the moment and very subtle. And the female leads are with him all the way, especially Imogen Poots as Linda Keith, she's soooo good. The reviewer who said that the "crazy cuts and directing style" gave him a headache would undoubtedly get a cerebral hemorrhage from a Godard film, the editing was artistically innovative and miles ahead of standard Hollywood flicks like Get On Up and Ray.

As for the lack of original Hendrix songs, in the end it didn't bother me much. In a way it might have worked to the film's advantage, because it forced the director to concentrate more on creating a character study based on dialogue and narrative instead of recreating one performance clip after another, as in Get On Up. And anyhow, two-thirds of the movie takes place before Jimi put together the Experience and started writing songs. I did wonder why they didn't use "Hey Joe" since Jimi didn't write it and he was playing it onstage when Chas Chandler saw him for the first time. But overall, I loved the movie and thought it rocked hard.