John Ridley is the great success story to come out of Milwaukee in recent years. The writer-director earned an Oscar for his carefully calibrated screenplay, 12 Years a Slave. He returns with a dramatization of a year in the life of Jimi Hendrix, Jimi: All Is By My Side, which received its local premiere at this year’s Milwaukee Film Festival.
Most musical “bio pics,” to use an ugly phrase beloved by hack movie critics, are mediocre exercises in screenwriting 101. The problem comes down to reducing a messy, complicated life to a two-hour feature in three-act form. Wisely, Ridley avoids that difficulty by focusing on 1966-67, as Hendrix was speeding from journeyman to stardom, capped by an explosive performance at Monterey Pop Festival. The casting is apt: who better to play Hendrix than Outkast’s Andre Benjamin?
Ridley will attend the 7 p.m., Oct. 4 screening of Jimi: All Is By My Side at the Oriental Theatre.
