Crossfire Hurricane

The film's very good in representing the bands early and mid term journey with all it's successes, failures, drugs, drink etc with candid interviews and good musical snippets. The footage is great but my biggest disappointment with the film is that basically very little is mentioned of the bands musical output post Let It Bleed. Sticky Fingers get a brief snippet, Exile on Main Street has a little more but post that almost nothing. A brief interlude of 'Angie' and how great Ronnie Wood has fit into the band - and he sure has if only they'd give him a bit more freedom to work with. But, and it's a big but, nothing - a great big zilch of their musical output through the late 70's and beyond, much of which was/has been critically underwhelming.

It would also have been nice to see the involvement with the band of Ian 'Stu' Stewart and Bobby Keys recognised.

In short, the film's an unpolished diamond, well worth a look to the Stones fan

The ultimate Rolling Stones documentary. Captures very vividly their live performances through the years, as well as what making an album was like, plus their private lives. However, don't expect the usual micro- detail stuff, eg no "Mick Jagger was born on..." or the names of their albums and when they were released. In fact, there is very little references to dates.

No, the main idea is to get a feel for the chain of events that was the career of the Rolling Stones, and what it was like being the members of the great band.

For these reasons, it probably helps being a fan with a decent knowledge of the Stones' albums and songs. Not essential though - one can always fill in the gaps by reading Wikipedia.

The live stuff is great, and some of it is quite rare. The behind-the- scenes stuff contains some particularly rare footage.

A must-see for any fan of rock 'n roll.

Half a century of the Rolling Stones gets the full treatment in Brett Morgan's "Crossfire Hurricane". The documentary actually focuses more on the group's first decade, as they developed a reputation as the anti-Beatles, went through some drug busts, and even fled England to avoid the taxes. There are number of scenes in which interviewers (obviously from the older generation) are asking the band members ridiculous questions, and one gets the feeling that Mick, Keith, Charlie and the rest don't like having to answer.

But of course the best part is the music. We get to hear most of the famous songs, often getting footage of the recordings. It just goes to show that the '60s will never die. In other words, this documentary is pure satisfaction!

gregwetherall (above) has done an excellent and spot-on job so I'll keep this brief -

as a 15-year rock musician (so I actually get "the wobble bit" - though I'm not quite sure I buy all of it) who grew up with the Rolling Stones, while this isn't anywhere near perfect (likely impossible)

"Crossfire Hurricane" is still very entertaining and a must for any Stones fan. Some of the remixed live tracks are astoundingly preserved and sound great, though imo some of the interview comments need to be tweaked up a bit (though my hearing is shot, so maybe that's me)

Some quick cuts from "Cocksucker Blues" interspersed just at the right moments of some of the live tracks; Keith as usual brutally honest in his comments about drugs, Brian, songwriting, etc - and there's some stuff in Crossfire Hurricane I've never seen before. (no spoilers here) - even Charlie speaks up now & then. The best and worst of Brian is brutally portrayed as well.

All in all, a job well done and definitely worth seeing. I've DVR'd it, seen it twice so far, and likely will watch it again. Play it loud through your sound system.

Yet another assemblage of vintage clips of the Stones, this time celebrating their 50th anniversary together. For some reason, it starts with footage of the "I-want-to-be-trendy" talk-show host Dick Cavett hanging with the band during their access-all-excess 1972 American tour, itself recently the feature of a film all to itself. From there, it works backwards to the band's origin, then taking us back up to 1978, when they temporarily rejuvenated themselves for the "Some Girls" album, actually an apt place to stop as their music hasn't progressed, far less excited, any since, like in their glory days. More than that the film signs off by tellingly making the point that having started out as a blues-covers band, then become deliberately moulded into the anti-Beatles by manager Andrew Loog-Oldham, they progressed from counter-cultural anti-heroes to fully fledged members of the establishment (arise Sir Mick!) and become everybody's favourite rock and roll band/brand, a title they've never relinquished but equally the irony of which appears to escape them.

I am a big fan of the band and enjoyed seeing some footage I'd not seen before, particularly impromptu or backstage stuff, but most of it I had, while the band interviews, none apparently latter-day revisionist, similarly don't tell us much we didn't know already. Jagger certainly comes across as the most intelligent and loquacious, with Keith playing up to his bad boy persona, leaving Charlie and Bill not giving a damn about the fame and celebrity that goes with the gig. Mick Taylor sensibly explains that he left for the good of his health and Ron Wood was apparently brought in as much for his peace-making irreverence as his musical ability. Brian Jones gets mentioned in dispatches in the first hour, but probably less than he deserved.

All the band's major events are chronicled with contemporary film footage, like deliberately choosing their "black-hat" marketing image, the breakthrough of learning to write their own songs, their first US mass-popularity in 1965, the Redlands drug-bust in 1967 which saw Mick and Keith controversially sentenced to jail for drug possession, Brian Jones' exit and soon-afterwards death-by-drowning in 1969 and to close out the decade on a low, the disastrous free concert at Altamont.

There's less of interest in the second part, unless you count their new tax-exile status as a major event, eventually leading up, from a long-way out, to Keith's drugs bust in Toronto in 1978. One doubts if the producer could have filled another two hours on the years from 1978 until now, for which I suppose we should be grateful. However this interesting document, filled with attitude and great music is definitely a watchable tribute to the best-surviving band of the 60's.