cult film freak: RIP CHARLIE WATTS DRUMS UP 'LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER'

Charlie Watts in LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER Year: 1983 Rating: ****

Nearing the end of British Movie Month on Cult Film Freak we say goodbye to one of the all-time great British drummers, Charlie Watts, who, like bassist Bill Wyman, had a style of grooving under their band THE ROLLING STONES so the "weaving guitars" by Keith Richards and Brian Jones then Mick Taylor then Ron Wood could intertwine and Mick Jagger can run the show...

And while not as critically acclaimed as Martin Scorsese's Stones' concert film SHINE A LIGHT where only the band is shown on stage without any point of reference, causing an even more claustrophobic and downright dizzying effect than the fact they're giving all the money to Bill Clinton's mysterious foundation...

Charlie Watts in LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER

In comparison, Hal Ashby's flowing and glowing LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER is a long, if slightly overlong hangout concert flick and the last tour (1982 supporting TATTOO YOU) with the stripped-down sound of twangy guitars and a few pianos without a chorus of background singers and a giant audible net they've been covered in and obscured by since 1989...

The band sounds almost like they're playing their hardly distorted inttuments in someone's backyard party but to an immense stadium, and Ashby brings both the band and sea of an audience in focus for a long-gone celebration that still somewhat resembled the free-form 1970's.