Feb. 12, 2005 - 10:41 am
after a week of watching the tv shows Wonderfalls and Sealab 2021, we finally were able to grab a copy of Ray from Blockbuster. Netflix was just completely out of copies. it's the hot movie rental right now i guess. so this was our 4th Best Picture nominee to see. plus it seems to be pretty much a lock that Jamie Foxx is going to win the Best Actor award for this film.
this movie is a biographical film about the true life story of Ray Charles. if you're not familiar with his story, Ray Charles was a very famous American pianist/singer from the 1960s until he died last year after production of this film ended. he was also blind since the age of 7 and lost his brother in a disturbing childhood accident. he was tortured by this through his early adulthood and at one point turned to heroine to make him feel better. he stayed on the drug for many years and finally had to kick the habit when his wife convinced him that it could make him lose everything.
so of course i really enjoyed Jamie Foxx's performance in this film. he does a wonderful job mimicking Ray Charles. i'm scared that the mimicking thing could be big at this year's Oscars. i'm still thinking that Cate Blanchette might beat Natalie to the Oscar for mimicking Katharine Hepburn. i mean yeah, it was a great performance, but is it as good as an original character? perhaps not.
one small thing that bothered me in the performance of this film was that at some points early on in Ray's career, Jamie Foxx sang the songs. now he may be able to look and act like Ray, but he doesn't at all sound like Ray. then later on they did start using the real Ray's voice from recordings to replace Jamie's voice. i understand it sort of had to be done that way, but it was still a bit disorienting and inconsistent. that's my only real complaint though. other than that we really enjoyed it. good movie. not Best Picture, but a good movie.