Thursday, March 31, 2016

Movies: Miles Ahead Opening Tomorrow, 4/1

Miles Ahead
(Sony Pictures Classic)
Don Cheadle as Miles Davis
Photo by Brian Douglas, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Don Cheadle stars as the late trumpeter Miles Davis in this bio-pic he co-wrote with Steven Baigelman. In his directorial debut, Cheadle explores a tumultuous period of Davis' life during the late 70s where he had pretty much disappeared from the public eye. The film co-stars Ewan McGregor as a music reporter who ends up on an adventure with the caustic Davis.


MILES AHEAD is a wildly entertaining and moving exploration of one of 20th century music's creative geniuses, Miles Davis, featuring a career defining performance by Oscar nominee Don Cheadle in the title role. Working from a script he co-wrote with Steven Baigelman, Cheadle's bravura directorial debut is not a conventional bio-pic but rather a unique, no-holds barred portrait of a singular artist in crisis. 

In the midst of a dazzling and prolific career at the forefront of modern jazz innovation, Miles Davis (Cheadle) virtually disappears from public view for a period of five years in the late 1970s. Alone and holed up in his home, he is beset by chronic pain from a deteriorating hip, his musical voice stifled and numbed by drugs and pain medications, his mind haunted by unsettling ghosts from the past.