Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Jenna Walter
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Cristal
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
maccas75
I really enjoyed reading Ozzy Osbourne's biography "I Am Ozzy" and found this movie was a great companion to that book.Due to reading his biography, I didn't encounter anything new or that I didn't already know about him. If that great book was to be made into a film, then this would be the logical one to be made.Ozzy Osbourne is a lot more intelligent than most people would realise, which firmly comes across in this movie. Many would be forgiven for thinking this is another "sex, drugs, rock n roll" music doco, but it's more a triumph over adversity tale with great soundtrack! How a bunch of long-haired hoodlums from working-class Birmingham made it big as musicians and pioneered an entire musical genre is inspirational in itself. His resultant battles with addiction and subsequent triumph over these also provide inspiration and unique insight behind the myth.The crazy rock n roll stories of Ozzy are of course here also, which both add large doses of humour and after a while, sadness and somewhat sympathy.A must-watch for Ozzy Osbourne and rock music fans!
Michael_Elliott
God Bless Ozzy Osbourne (2011) *** 1/2 (out of 4)Very good documentary on the life and times of Ozzy Osbourne who is certainly one of a kind. The film covers Ozzy's early days growing up poor and follows him to Black Sabbath, the fame, the drugs, the partying, the solo career and of course his comeback, which itself had many highs and lows. GOD BLESS OZZY OSBOURNE is an appropriate title because if you know anything about the madman then it's really amazing that he survived the 70s. The documentary uses behind the scenes footage mixed in with both past and present interviews as well as news footage. All of this is perfectly mixed together and in the end you really get a great idea of who Ozzy is and why he did some of the crazy stuff that he did. The majority of the running time deals with the craziness, which of course means a lot of wild pranks, drugs and alcohol. There's no question that all of these stories are used for entertainment because as sad as it might be to see a father neglect his children, the crazy lifestyle Ozzy was leading just puts a smile on your face because he survived it all. Had Ozzy died then it's doubtful these same stories would have been as amusing as they are today. We get interviews with his family, friends and fellow musicians who all tell their stories of what Ozzy means to them. At just 91-minutes the documentary goes through pretty much every stone leading up to the musicians current state.
ShootingShark
A documentary charting the life of rock star Ozzy Osbourne; his early days with seminal heavy metal band Black Sabbath, his solo career, his notorious party lifestyle and his life-long battles with drink and drug addiction.John Osbourne, aka Ozzy, is that rare breed - a rock-and-roll survivor who has somehow managed to outlive the most outrageous excesses of showbiz, maintain a very successful career in music for forty years and produce an incredible body of work. As he admits in this film, he should be dead many times over, but somehow he's not only very much alive but still a great musician and songwriter. This is a fairly conventional documentary; it starts at the beginning, with Ozzy's working-class childhood in Aston, moves through the Sabbath years, talks to his friends and family. There are the expected lurid anecdotes of drug-fuelled craziness and some sharp moments of honesty (at one point, he's unable to remember what year his daughter Jessica was born), but unfortunately for me there's very little discussion of his music. This is a man who's made (at the time of writing) eighteen outstanding albums, who has a unique voice, and is a truly gifted lyricist. I want to ask him things like how did you work out the melody for Crazy Train, or what inspired you to write the beautiful words to Spiral Architect ? But no, it's always about why did you bite a bat on stage or how much coke did you snort in '85. There's a long section towards the end dealing with his battles with booze, but it isn't nearly as informative or eloquent as when he sings (in the song Demon Alcohol), "I'll wash away your lies / And have you hypnotised / There'll be no compromise today / I'll share your life of shame / I think you know my name ... ". The movie deals with the (many) low points of his life, such as the heartbreaking death of the brilliant young guitarist Randy Rhoads in 1982, but is oddly uplifting towards the end, showing Ozzy's sideline in painting and his determination to pass his driving test. For someone who has led such a screwed-up life, he's philosophical, articulate and non-judgemental. I didn't like (or watch) the MTV show The Osbournes, which, while it may have been a canny promotion tool on his wife's part, embarrassed me in its peepshow depiction of one of my rock heroes as a bewildered clown. This film goes some way to redressing that image, but not far enough. It's informative and balanced but to get to know the real Ozzy, buy any of his records (I'd suggest starting with Master Of Reality or Diary Of A Madman), turn your TV, phone and all the lights off, and crank up the volume - that's really what he's all about.
jc-osms
A heavy metal fan I'm not, the only Ozzy song I know is Sabbath's "Paranoid" and I didn't see a single episode of "The Osbournes" and yet somehow you feel you know this massive personality very well. Broken into two lots pre- and post- his days with Black Sabbath, this bio-documentary covers a lot of ground and does so entertainingly. Even though it's co-produced by his son Jack, it pulls no punches in its true telling of Osbourne's long journey of near self-destruction before he at long last kicked his various habits in his 60's.Yes, he seems somewhat shambling, even ridiculous at times as he warms up his voice before a gig, but elsewhere, as you'd expect, the man himself is brutally honest in his self-assessment, as indeed are almost all his coterie of family and friends. Of course much of the early scene-setting material comprises celebrity endorsements from members of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Metallica and even Sir Paul McCartney, before the story goes back to his post -war Birmingam roots and takes us chronologically through his larger-than-life and times. As you can probably tell there isn't much originality in the techniques used to bring Ozzy's story to life, even the act of taking him back to his childhood haunts, which recalls nothing so much as the well-known re-election Party Political Broadcast by the then Tory Prime Minister, John Major. Yes some of the over-the-top segments seem apocryphal, even by Osbourne standards and sure, the relentless loud HM music blasted way over my head much of the time. All his well-documented vices, particularly drink and drugs, are aired without much shame or regret and yet you do believe he's turned the corner himself.Looking at him today, rather like the other best-known "dead man walking" Keith Richards, you wonder just how he is, to paraphrase Elton John, still standing, but, sanctimonious title apart, this was an intriguing and watchable insight into the life of an old warrior who may just have found peace in his own time, in the nick of time.