The series starts on Cellcom TV, HOT VOD, Next TV, Yes VOD, Sting TV and HOT HBO on June 22 at 10 p.m. and on Yes Action on June 28 at 10 p.m.
By HANNAH BROWNSMOKEY ROBINSON (left) and Berry Gordy in the documentary ‘Hitsville: The Making of the Motown Sound.’(photo credit: BBPHOTO.COM/COURTESY YES)
Hitsville: The Making of Motown is running on YES VOD and StingTV and it’s a real gem. This documentary looks at the early years and history of Motown, the great black-owned, Detroit-based record label that launched performers such as the Supremes, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Smokey Robinson and created the memorable Motown sound.The company was the brainchild of Berry Gordy, and the documentary, which features interviews with him as well as Robinson, Wonder, Mary Wilson of the Supremes, some of Motown’s most important songwriters, including the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, and many others, is based on a business plan Gordy made when he started the company.While naturally this version leaves out many of the scandals and gossip and sticks mainly to Gordy’s point of view, that’s a small price to pay for hearing the story of how he created the company and drove it to the peak of mainstream success, at a time when few black artists attracted white audiences. The scenes where he reminisces with Robinson are especially wonderful and they get into the specifics of what made certain songs work and even sing the company anthem together. Gordy also admits he was wrong in trying to suppress the social commentary in Marvin Gaye’s groundbreaking album, What’s Going On.In one anecdote that is especially relevant today, Gordy and his business partner Barney Ales (who passed away in April) recall a time when Ales, who was Italian-American, wanted to take Gordy to Detroit’s best Italian restaurant, only to be told by the maître d’, “Sorry, we don’t serve blacks.” Ales replied, “That’s OK, I don’t eat them.” After that, Gordy and Ales enjoyed their dinner at this restaurant.Spike Lee’s latest film, Da 5 Bloods, was just released on Netflix and it’s fun to see his four lead actors – Clarke Peters and Isiah Whitlock Jr. (who played, respectively, Lester and Clay Davis on The Wire), Delroy Lindo (The Good Fight) and Norm Lewis (Scandal) – having a great time playing off each other as four Vietnam War vets returning to Vietnam. They have made this trip for two reasons: to find the body of their fallen comrade, Stormin’ Norman (Chadwick Boseman from Black Panther) and to dig up the gold that the CIA used to pay for its secret deals that they believe is buried with his body.But the exposition is labored and clumsy, as are the preachy asides about black history. This is the kind of movie where, as soon as a middle-aged female Vietnamese character shows up, you know she is about to introduce one of our heroes to his out-of-wedlock child, which she does not five minutes later and gives us a lesson about the damage that the Americans left behind. If you like the actors enough, you’ll stick with this drama, otherwise you’ll be a casualty of Lee’s bad habit of editorializing rather than dramatizing.Matthew Rhys, who won an Emmy for his performance as a Russian spy in The Americans, is starring in the new HBO series Perry Mason, a reboot of the famous legal drama with Raymond Burr.The series starts on Cellcom TV, HOT VOD, Next TV, Yes VOD, Sting TV and HOT HBO on June 22 at 10 p.m. and on Yes Action on June 28 at 10 p.m.This new series is set in Depression-era Los Angeles and this new Perry is not a legal eagle but a cynical, down-on-his-luck World War I veteran working as an investigator on the case of a kidnapped child that belongs to a couple who are members of a cultish Evangelical church. The music, atmosphere and cinematography are all excellent and this noir series plays like Chinatown meets Raymond Chandler meets American Crime Story. But viewers should be warned that it is extremely violent and this violence is grisly and disturbing.But it’s worth seeing for its wonderful cast, which includes John Lithgow, Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and Gayle Rankin (a distinctive actress who plays Sheila on GLOW). Rhys is one of the best actors working today and finds new ways to play an underdog brilliantly.
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