Not every cool story has the potential to be a great documentary, not even when it provides its own fantastic soundtrack. Rick Hall grew up dirt-poor in Alabama - as in, the floor of his house was dirt. He suffered a series of devastating tragedies (revealed over the course of the film), but still managed to start up the phenomenally successful FAME recording studio in nearby Muscle Shoals. (The young Rolling Stones covered a song from the first artist he recorded.) He assembled an astonishing house band, one seemingly capable of being all things to all voices (Percy Sledge, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, et al). The white players backed the black singers, and everybody got along because everybody loved the music. Alas, there isn't much else to say, and so we wind up with Bono waxing lyrical about music coming up out of the mud and the river. Plus slo-mo. (2013) — Matthew Lickona
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