Brian Jones was a talentless hack. He never did anything worthwhile in his entire life. The Stones were garbage until they--Mick and Keith, not Brian--figured out how to write pop songs. Before that they were just the worst blues cover band in the history of the world. Those Stones shows you saw in '65, '66? His amp wasn't even turned on. The only thing he ever accomplished in his life was impregnating a surprisingly large number of lassies.

Worst of the sixties. There are hundreds, thousands, of more interesting and valuable musicians of that era. Brian Jones was an irrelevancy years before he managed to die.

It's difficult to know how to respond appropriately to the story of a person who has made a complete waste of his life--whether that person be Brian Jones, or Dick Cheney.

Perhaps Ernest Hemingway came up with the best response in his memoir, "A Moveable Feast": "A so-and-so alive is a so-and-so dead."

The best thing about this review is that it managed to flush a living, breathing Brian Jones fan out of the bushes! Cheers, Andy!

This movie is about Brian Jones's death, which happened when the rest of the band were distancing themselves from him. It is not about the Rolling Stones; it is not a documentary about the history of the band. Zacharek didn't miss "a big point" by neglecting to mention his role in the Stones' development, because the film itself is not about that. One of the most common complaints about Zacharek's reviews is that she "doesn't do enough research," or hasn't read the source material of adaptations. These criticisms usually come from people who haven't seen the movies in question. This is fitting, because they have nothing to do with the actual movies. The job of a film critic is to review what they saw on the screen, which Zacharek does pretty thoroughly and thoughtfully on a consistent basis.

...what song did Brian ever write? That failure was what drove him to madness.

As a long time Stones fan, it seems the reviewer missed a big point

Brian was the Stones, the founder and the face

The whole Mick and Keith thing came later

When I saw the Stones in '65 and '66, everyone was focused on Brian

how long was his hair

what was he wearing

what instruments would he play

Launching the Stones is an accomplishment that makes Brian memorable even though Mick and Keith want everyone to forget about that now

A