Get On Up

You gotta have a list of things to check off for a biopic of a musical legend:

Aged performer reflects before a show.
Troubled childhood haunts career.
Performer alienates loved ones.
Musical montages depict rise/fall.
Performer makes amends with loved ones.

This movie has all of that. But it also opens with a heavy set woman sitting on a toilet, prompting James Brown to fire a shotgun at the ceiling. It's his toilet, so he's edgy. Plus he's high. Then he looks into the camera. The audience becomes complicit to everything he does: good, bad, and worse. Sold.