Stoned (2005)

Well, not that bad as I first imagined. THis 2005 production is fairly competent take on last days of Brian Jones' life and his tenure with the Stones. This is a very British film, but at times it draws too much from Oliver Stone and his The Doors or Nixon - the imagery, color scheme, sequence, plot, music, faces, blurred visions. Apart from that, Paddy Cinsidine is good as FRank, he did a marvelous job and showed his acting skills to the full. It is Not a movie about The Rolling Stones - well, they are here, you see all 5 of them, but Billy and Cahrlie never utter a single sound, and Mick is a bit detached. Keith is more prominent, but he is a bit too slow and languid. Anita is good, she is not very vivid here, but her drug-drenched life is shown well. What is great, is the excellent scenery of the park, and the excellent 60's soundtrack. Too much nudity is a bit embarrassing, and too many drug moments are a bit imposing. But that was part of life, just another faucet of that. All in all, a nice Brian biopic, with many good details and nice memos. Good for Stones fans, and a good word of warning - drugs do kill

This is a great film. Took me totally by surprise. I had watched the documentary about the murderer of Brian Jones in which they used a few clips from this film. I downloaded it and then read the reviews—not that flattering and so filed it away as a "later watch." Glad I did so.Watching it about 6 weeks later it was awesome. It's just about the last 3 months of Brian Jones' life but it is a great portrayal of the sex, drugs and rock'n'roll lifestyle of the 60s.Never boring. This film grabs you. 99% of it is about Brian so if you're looking for biopic of the Stones, don't watch it. But about Brian Jones and his builder it is spot on—everything that the doco suggested.Certainly well worth a watch.

The Rolling Stones ripped off the blues greats, and were just another example of white men ripping off black men, like Elvis and all the rest. I have no idea what contribution Brian Jones made to their tinny dance records, and I tended to agree with the outraged father of a fourteen year-old girl (depicted in an early scene) who said how much he despised him for getting her pregnant. Jones's despicable answer was that a doctor could do away with it. Way to go, Mr Wooley, set up your hero as a total tosser right from the get-go! Now we don't care about him at all, let's get on with the rest of the film, eh? There's no mystery about the pool death now, any more than there was in Sussex at the time: I was there. The guy was a decadent poltroon who had an asthma attack while swimming and accidentally drowned because he was hopelessly overweight and weak from chronic dypsomania. No one killed him, he killed himself, blatantly. Looking at the footage of the half-million attending the free concert for Brian held in Hyde Park, I wonder what got into everyone at the time. It must have been the very powerful sound systems that were coming in, and could reach big crowds and make more money than anyone had ever imagined. Give me Nora Jones instead of Brian Jones any time.

So the director had the cast watch Performance first, eh? Its a pity that none of the originality, menace, atmosphere or talent of that film rubbed off on the crew or cast involved in the making of this turkey. The story of Brian Jones has so much to recommend it to filmmakers. There is the journey of the middle class kid from small town England to international rock star, there is the story of the cultural changes that took place in the 1960's, there is the doomed love-affair between Brian and Anita, there is the story of the Rolling Stones themselves; how they changed the face of pop music and then there is the story of Brian Jones relationship with his gardener. All of them have the potential to make a great film. So how come Stoned fails on very single one of them? Brian's wig for starters. Brian's "acting". The clichéd, lazy script. The awful choice of music (lame cover versions for the most part). The underwritten characters. The complete absence of any sympathetic characters. Missed opportunity after missed opportunity. Stay away from this film.