Make it Funky! (2005)
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Genre: Education/General Interest
Starring: Bonnie Raitt, Keith Richards, Steve Jordan, Neville Brothers, Allen Toussaint
DVD Info
Release:
Sep 27, 2005
DVD Features:
- Widescreen - 1.78
Audio:
- Dolby Digital 5.1 - English
- Subtitles - English - Closed Captioning
- Subtitles - English, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai - Optional
Additional Release Material:
- Deleted Scene - "Showdown at the Funky Butt"
- Featurette - 1. "What is Funk?"
- 2. "Culture of New Orleans"
- 3. "Family"
- 4. "Music and Musicians"
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
The sort of documentary that informs and educates through sheer passion, excitement, and, yes, downright funkiness.
The brilliant colors, the vibrant flavors and sultry, seductive rhythms of New Orleans music serve to remind us how unique, beautiful and valuable the city and its heritage are to all of us in this country.
Lively tribute to New Orleans' musical traditions takes on an added poignancy in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Watching it now, with the devastation behind us, is a bittersweet affair.
Michael Murphy's documentary about the musical traditions of New Orleans can serve as an apt, wrenching elegy for the city's unique contribution to American culture.
A suddenly vital biography, Make It Funky, pays apt homage to the unique gifts New Orleans has given its country over the last century. Watching it ought to inspire anyone to return the favor.
The musicians swear this is dance music, but the beats are far too ponderous to get a rise out of the hip-hop generation.
It doesn't quite capture the essence of the city, a trick to which it desperately aspires throughout, but it comes close, shedding light on one of the few locales that can legitimately be called an American cultural touchstone.
There's not a second in this film that isn't a reminder that New Orleans in its architecture, cuisine and multicultural diversity as well as in its music is a unique and major American center of culture.
Make It Funky! is in many respects a stock item, but what gives the film newfound ache is the copious amount of time it spends on the streets with ordinary citizens.
...a pretty good, aesthetically modest film [that has] suddenly become deeply affecting in ways its makers could never have predicted.
A love letter to New Orleans, Make It Funky! reminds us of what has been lost in the flood, and of an artistic spirit that will never dissipate.


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