TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Paul Allaer "Born To Be Blue" (2015 release; 97 min.) is a movie about jazz legend Chet Baker. As the film opens, we are in "Lucca, Italy, 1966" and baker is in prison, only to be bailed out by a Hollywood director. When then go to "Birdland, New York City, 1954" when Baker is at the peak of his fame and fortune, only to be exposed to heroin by a femme fatale. As it turns out, we then understand that this entire sequence was reenacted back in "Los Angeles, 1966" with Baker, now on the com-back trail, starring in his own movie. Alas, misfortune strikes again, as Baker is viciously assaulted, to such a degree that he cannot play the trumpet anymore. Now he faces even longer odds to come back. At this point we are 15 min. into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.Couple of comments: the movie does not tell us that this is a "true story" or "inspired by true events", and for good reason, as this is NOT a bio-pic in any way, shape or form about Chet Baker. Instead, the movie brings a fictionalized composite of certain elements and episodes of Baker's life. Canadian writer-director Robert Budreau makes this into his own cocktail mix, and the end result is quite good, and certainly entertaining. That said, the movie would not have succeeded if it weren't for the outstanding performance by Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker, I mean, Hawke nails it. Kudos also to Carmen Ejogo as Baker's love interest Jane (who is African-American). There are a number of key scenes in the movie. One that stands out for me is when Baker and Jane visit Baker's parents in Oklahoma. At one point, the less than friendly (and outright racist) Baker's dad sneers "I never dragged the Baker name through the mud", to which a stunned Baker has no reply, and simply walks away (and leaves for good), wow. If there is one criticism of the movie, I felt that the music was not given a full enough role. There are long stretches in the film where music seems to be an afterthought. Given Baker's fierce love for music, music should never be an afterthought when looking at Baker's life."Born To Be Blue" premiered to great acclaim at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, but despite that only got a very limited theater release in the US (it never made it to my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati). So glad I finally picked this up as a DVD. A comparison between this movie and last year's "Miles Ahead" (about jazz legend Miles Davis) is inevitable. I found both movies are quite well done, each in their own way. If you liked "Miles Ahead", you are bound to also like "Born To Be Blue", and vice versa. Bottom line: "Born to be Blue" is worth checking out, be it on Amazon Instant Video or on DVD/Blu-ray.

dierregi This movie is a fictional reconstruction of a short period in the life of Baker, during the 60s. Starting with Chet in an Italian jail in 1966, the story quickly moves to New York, where Chet is invited to play himself in a documentary about his life. Then follows one of the most amazing scenes I ever saw.Opening as a black & white flashback, we see a young Chet in 1954, playing very cool in Birdland, with Miles Davis and Dizzie Gillespie in the audience. In the backstage we see what should be Baker's initiation to heroin, but we discover that the scene is actually part of the documentary.Brilliant film-making is made of such scenes conveying all the magic of cinema. The story continues with Chet trying to rebuild his "career" with a help of a female artist, unfortunate enough to be attracted by his relatively good looks and melancholic charm. The pair moves from New York to California, where Chet swear to be clean and ready to play some serious jazz.Unfortunately, Chet was the master of all junkies, unreliable, selfish and self-destructive. His girlfriend wisely dumps him and off he goes to enjoy the company of heroin until the day he died.I am not a jazz fan and never heard any of the music Baker played, so I cannot comment about the remarks about the music not being good enough or even detrimental to the movie. For me it was a very well written and executed film, with a solid plot and good performances.PS: as far as "blackening the reputation" of Baker... I never understood why junkie musicians should be idolized. The history of contemporary music is paved with unpleasant, self-destructive characters who had exceptional musical skills. Egotism does not make them any less talented, but certainly does not add to their charm. If you want to see what years of heroin addiction do to the body, just check the photos of Chet from his early 20s until the end of his life. The crevasses on his face mirrors the destruction of his internal organs....

ifet I was going to say initially that Ethan Hawke was miscast, but since this is a work of fiction it does not matter. It is a story of a trumpeter addicted to heroin, who together with his lady friend struggles to establish a career. But Chet Baker has nothing to do with it. Kevin Turcotte played all his solos, and I particularly liked the piano of David Braid, who I had seen in Toronto. There is no mention or reference to Chet's association with Gerry Mulligan the baritone sax player and their pianoless quartet which became world famous. The trumpeter in this story was beaten by a drug dealer and his cronies, so badly that his teeth were purposely knocked out and of course we all know this is what regrettably happened to the real Chet. I heard Chet Baker on Music for Moderns on the radio in the 60s in England and I was fascinated by him and his sound. Happily I can say I have much of the important music he created in my CD collection. And today computer to stereo 20 ft away via Apple Airport Express wirelessly.... Russ Freeman on piano, with Chet playing "Bea's Flat"simply blew my mind. I mean the original 1953 recording version with Larry Bunker on drums (not the Boston 1954 later version). Listen to that and you will hear amazing melodic and inventive trumpet at medium tempo with piano bass and drums, and for any trumpeter reading this I challenge you to play it. I am a jazz fan, Chet was a jazz trumpet man I can never forget... from Malcolm Hopkinson in Toronto Aug 2016

Allguns Allguns To start is necessary to say that this movie wouldn't be half as good without Robert Budreau's vision. Otherwise, it would be just another bio-pic about a musician that people kinda forgot.Burdreau's bold decisions, like using the black and white "footage" of the movie Chet was staring as flashbacks, and by that, having one actress, the lovely Carmem Ejogo, playing two parts, both as Jane and Elaine, or having two actors on one row, like Dick, by Callum Keith Rennie and Joe Cobden. If half of the success was on the decisions of the director, the other half it has to be on Ethan Hawke's performance. He incorporated completely the character of Chet. Everything, from the body language, the gestures, the expressions, the pantomime at the trumpet and the voice. The way of talking was pure Chet Baker, part smooth and romantic, part cynical and hopeless. The insistence with the fake teeth. All of that was pure Chet. Hawke is a hard actor to lose on the character, there's always something that identifies Hawke, that makes you remember "Training Day", the "Before Trilogy" and even "Sinister", that common thing to his performance in those otherwise completely different movies. But in "Born To Be Blue" Hawke vanishes inside the character, maybe for being as cool as the actor, but in no moment I could see other person but Chet Baker. For me, that will be his image, more than any other actual footage of the musician.Talking performances, the co-star Carmem Ejogo was just delightful. And even both parts not being superficially much different, there was nuance. Elaine and Jane had different dynamics with Chet, and most of it pass under the radar, but to make it work as it did in the final cut, it was great. And there was Callum, the eternal Great Ashby, but here he delivers a solid performance as the producer Dick Bock, sometimes a worried friend, sometimes a guy that is tired to trying to save someone who don't want to be saved.The story. Well, that's an unauthorized bio-pic, and its synopsis state already that this is "A re-imagining of jazz legend Chet Baker's musical comeback in the late '60s". How much of what we see in the movie is factual? How accurate is Budreau's script? Does it matters that much? Born to be blue is engaging, not 'cause its a bio- pic, but 'cause it's a good movie, with a good script, a good directing and good performances. What's true or not, we may let it to the next documentary on Chet Baker.This is a must watch!!!