Ray Charles

Watched the movie "Ray" last night. (Thanks for the B Day gift Darwin). Ever since I can remember, I have always liked Ray Charles' music. He could take any song and make it his own. I never knew or thought much about his personal life and the movie fills in that gap (up to about 1964). I'm still sorting out what I think of his attitude but the music just rocked. Ray did the singing and playing for the sound track himself and Jamie Fox just nailed the performances. His actions and speech put Ray Charles on the screen. Every character, costume, prop and set in this movie is authentic. The cars are outrageous. The musicians are real (even Jamie plays the piano). There is a 3 dimensional texture to every face. Even the extras are great on the dvd. There are no interviews of the actors explaining the plot of the movie that you just watched, just shorts of Jamie and Ray working together, deleted scenes and extended music cuts. I saw Ray Charles once at the San Mateo County Fair about 12 years ago and that was as good a show as any in this movie. Most excellent and highly recommended.