One Love

[Drunk Monk]

Bob Marley: One Love

This has the full endorsement of the family and estate (but so did Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story).

Akin to how Dragon was Linda’s version, One Love is Rita’s version. But Rita has a point - she was surely Bob’s anchor and one of the great queens of reggae. She deserves some spotlight. 

Kingsley and Lashana do well in their respective roles. Ben manages to not so much imitate Bob but channel him. Both manage the patois well, convincingly enough, and I imagine audiences not conversant in it may wish for subtitles. On top of the rich jargon, words like pickney, and references to figures that are unexplained, the patois is constant. Plus the dialog dips into Bob’s lyrics a lot although I’m suspect that Rita wasn’t the source of so many lines as the film implies.

It races from the Smile Jamaica concert to the One Love Peace concert - coincidentally the same ground covered by that Who Shot the Sheriff doc I watched on Netflix a few nights ago. I strongly recommend watching that first if you don’t know Bob’s history.

Here in the film, characters are seen very fleetingly. Bunny (played by Bunny’s real life son) only appears in a flashback and is mentioned once. The actor who plays Peter is now claiming that all the scenes he shot were cut. Other characters like Cindi Breakspeare and Mick Jagger are seen but don’t have any lines. The I Threes are mentioned once but Judy and Marcia don’t really have lines either so we never learn who is who. Other members of the Wailers are mentioned quickly in passing like Aston (who just passed away and is also played by his son). Chris Blackwell comes off well, Don Taylor not so much.

I’m curious what someone who knows nothing about Bob will say.

It captures JA well. 56 Hope rd looked like we remembered it, sans the funky statue of Bob that was in front when we were there in 96. 

The music holds it together. There’s some fine remixes, bringing out those big bass theater speakers. They tapped some archival Bob recordings to get slightly different takes. I’d be interested in that soundtrack.

All in all, it was a nice valentines date movie. It didn’t blow me away but I enjoyed it for what it was and what it aspires to be.

The show was nearly sold out, but this is the Cruz. There was some quick vaping in the audience. I thought it would be fun to watch it again with a tray full of joints and to take a puff whenever someone takes a puff in the movie.
 
D00M recommended.

[King Bob]

Here a good article about the album Legend, with a mention of Cali Roots.

[Drunk Monk]

That was a good read. Thanks! I’m not a big fan of Legend - not only is it Bob’s softball tracks, the are mixed to be more poppy. But I respect it as a gateway.

[King Bob]

Remixing the tracks to be more mainstream was Winston Rodney's big issue with Island as well.

[King Bob]

Here's an article about Marley with some cover versions, most interestingly Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer doing Redemption Song. I think Cash would have done better with maybe Stop that Train or Zion Train.

[Drunk Monk]

Any train song would work for Johnny.