Ancestral home Sep 4, 2009
The small County Clare- town of 23 thousand put on an open-air concert, closed schools early and had special screenings of the Ali v George Foreman documentary "When We Were Kings" to welcome the "Louisville Lip.". Ali -- who has been a Parkinson's Disease sufferer since 1984 -- did not speak to those who had gathered but shadow-boxed to spectators and cameras before meeting his distant relatives. (CNN -- World)
'Soul Power' offers compelling glimpse of music greats Jul 17, 2009
A documentary about the fight, When We Were Kings, won an Oscar ... It was a footnote in When We Were Kings, but one of that film s editors, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, has pared 125 hours of footage into Soul Power, a 93-minute freeform film of the festival ... It rides in the When We Were Kings sidecar, a random abridgement that entertains despite its tendency to wander through a lot of terrific material. (Boston Globe)
'Soul Power': the Ali-Foreman fight soundtrack Jul 13, 2009
Jeffrey Levy-Hinte didn't attend Zaire '74 but as the "When We Were Kings" editor combed through footage from the music festival that preceded Muhammad Ali and George Foreman's famed "Rumble in the Jungle" boxing match he knew it contained another film waiting to be made. Images. (San Francisco Chronicle -- Entertainment)
Documentary ‘Soul Power’ revives 1974 Zaire concert Jul 12, 2009
The event was chronicled in the Oscar-winning 1996 documentary When We Were Kings, but the film offered just a glimpse of the accompanying three-night music festival held in a Kinshasa sports stadium featuring African-American royalty: James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, the Crusaders, the Spinners, and others. That didn t sit well with Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, one of the editors of When We Were Kings, who for many years dreamed about combing through more than 120 hours of outtakes sent back to the... (Boston Globe)
The power of 'Soul' is the music Jul 10, 2009
Though When We Were Kings gave limited focus to the music festival, this documentary would have been better if the entire focus had been on the wonderful music. It's a shame so much time is spent on the prosaic concerns and predictable observations of concert planners and underwriters. (USA Today -- Life)
DAS Communications' Artists Dominate Global Music Charts Jun 17, 2009
DAS produced the Academy Award winning feature documentary WHEN WE WERE KINGS and its film SOUL POWER will be released theatrically in July. DAS currently has multiple joint ventures with various labels including Interscope Records, Island/Def Jam and Warner Brothers Records. (Yahoo! Wire -- Entertainment News)
There's nothing evil about this king of documentaries May 9, 2009
Which brings us in a roundabout way to When We Were Kings, the celebrated film about the Muhammad Ali-George Foreman heavyweight title fight in Zaire, as the country was known then, in 1974, which Channel Seven is repeating today at 3 ... When We Were Kings, directed by Leon Gast, went on to win an Academy Award, which suggests the rave reviews were justified. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Sport)
Reliving the 'Thrilla in Manila' through Frazier's eyes Apr 11, 2009
"Thrilla in Manila" lacks the verve and sense of a cultural moment captured in Leon Gast's 1996 Academy Award-winning documentary, "When We Were Kings," about the 1974 Ali-George Foreman title fight. It's also a bit slick and hyped up. (Boston Globe)
Life in review Mar 17, 2009
"It's a very long-term relationship. I get irritated with him. David is very stubborn. Anything that's overtly hand-held, he's got a real thing about that. Anything by Lars von Trier, he's going to hate. And he's not mad on sporting movies. I remember being so angry with him for disliking that fabulous documentary When We Were Kings about the Muhammad Ali fight in Zaire. I thought it was fantastic but, because it was about boxing, David didn't like it. "I just felt like smacking him. " Despite... (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
