Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon Blu-ray Movie Review

Excuse them while they kiss the sky.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman December 17, 2011

Kings of Leon coined their name from their grandfather Leon, and Grandpa Leon is on hand in Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon, a sort of backwoods, quasi-Jed Clampett type who can’t quite believe that his own grandsons struck gold (as opposed to that Clampett oil) as one of the bestselling rock bands of the past several years. Kings of Leon are currently on hiatus, after a highly publicized onstage meltdown by lead singer and guitarist Caleb Followill walked off the stage during a Dallas concert, informing a somewhat shocked audience that he needed to go throw up and drink some more beer (evidently in that order), after which he would come back and resume performing. He didn’t make it back onstage, and shortly thereafter The Kings of Leon canceled the rest of their tour and stated they were taking a half year break. One wonders what Grandpa Leon would make of all the brouhaha, but it’s not easy to imagine that while some of the more religious types in the Followill clan would be aghast over Caleb’s behavior, others might be secretly in awe of this “good ol’ boy” living the life of a rock star, warts and all. Talihina Sky is a fascinating piece of documentary filmmaking, one that peers behind the veneer of rock stardom to look at a very interesting, if frankly a little bizarre, family of evangelicals and assorted hangers-on who managed somehow to produce two brothers, the aforementioned Caleb along with Nate, who somehow morphed from singing Holy Roller come to Jesus material on their local public access television station to selling millions of albums worldwide which included such singles as “Sex on Fire,” certainly not the sort of subject one might initially expect to come from sons of a Pentecostal preacher.

That very dialectic is what makes Talihina Sky so interesting. Probably very few casual fans of the band knew about the Followill Brothers’ ultra-religious upbringing, one that saw them carted around in the back of a station wagon while their father led revival meetings in the hopes of reinvigorating individual churches. Ivan, the brothers’ father, is on hand here, too, lamenting his own inability to “preach for dollars,” and instead accepting it on faith that whatever God wanted to provide to him and his family would be enough. The Followill boys are a good deal more ambivalent about it all, reminiscing about growing up in the ghettos (as they describe them) of Oklahoma City, with only two pairs of pants each, one for wearing and the other that was in the process of being washed for the next day. There’s also a not very well hidden subtext of Ivan’s drinking problem, one which contributed to the eventual divorce between Ivan and the boys’ mother, Betty Ann. One can only wonder if in a bit of Biblical karma the sins of the father are being visited on the son, as younger brother Jared, who plays bass in the band, has talked about “internal sicknesses” that need to be healed after Caleb’s recent issues.

In fact the whole cautionary tale aspect of Talihina Sky comes to the forefront really more within the context of what has happened after the filming of this documentary. There are certainly troubling signs captured on the road here, including a tongue lashing that Caleb receives after he drinks too much and acts out irresponsibly, alienating his brothers and cousin and the road crew. As bad as that is (and it’s mitigated somewhat by Caleb’s quick and repeated apologies), it gains added meaning when one thinks about what’s happened since. The question that will probably be zooming through a lot of fans’ minds is, “Is Caleb headed on a downward spiral from which he can’t escape?”

It’s all the more fascinating when thrust up against the boys’ ultra-religious upbringing, an upbringing that prevented them from having a television (“a one eyed devil” as Betty Ann calls it), and for using their music talents only to glorify God. Talihina Sky does a brilliant job of paralleling the worlds of Pentecostal “speaking in tongues” with your typical head banging, body thrashing rock and roll gyrations in one especially effective sequence, making the perhaps none too subtle point that the Followills have simply replaced one kind of ecstatic experience for another.

Talihina Sky nicely contrasts the boys’ rock and roll touring experience with the salt of the earth family members who all get together annually for a big reunion. It’s actually kind of funny to see the wide spectrum of behaviors within the Followill clan itself, for as rigorously religious as the Followill parents are, one gets the feeling that the extended family, including Grandpa and Grandma and assorted Uncles, Aunts and cousins, are a good deal more lenient. Grandma especially seems positively unimpressed with the boys’ rock and roll success. The almost primitive, incredibly simple living conditions of these backwoods folks is both sad and also a little funny at times. When the Followill boys make a segment of The Price is Right which includes a subscription to Rolling Stone (Kings of Leon are on the cover the spokesmodel holds up), it sends the entire community into a spasm of excitement that is both instructive and in a way rather sad. If this is the culture that surrounded the Followill boys as they were growing up, it’s easy to see why they wanted out, but also why it’s been such an adjustment shock, leading to some of the results we’ve seen over the past year.

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.09:1. The documentary is comprised of elements from a variety of film and video stocks under widely varying filming conditions, and as such video quality is highly variable here. The contemporary HD footage looks really fantastic, with brilliant sharpness and clarity, excellent saturation and phenomenal depth of field. Some older home movies from the 8mm era are obviously pretty ragged by comparison, with overwhelming grain and fuzziness. Even some of the more contemporary footage seems to be sourced from nothing larger than 16mm, and that also has a grainy, soft appearance. Black levels and contrast are all over the place, as might be imagined, but again, with regard to the newest footage at least, things look crisp, consistent and extremely well defined.

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon sports two lossless audio options, a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo mix, but perhaps surprisingly there's less difference between these two than might be initially expected. That's due largely to the fact that this is not a traditional concert documentary and instead consists of so many talking heads, with little appreciable spatial difference as a result. The snippets of music which are included in the piece do finally allow the 5.1 track to open up and fully utilize the surround channels, albeit fairly fitfully. The good news is that fidelity is great on both of these tracks, even with regard to some of the old footage from cable television, which still sounds surprisingly spry. Dynamic range is also excellent throughout, though some might wish for a bit more low end, especially with regard to the music sequences.

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Nathan, Caleb and Director Stephen C. Mitchell
• Commentary with Jared, Matthew and Producer Casey McGrath.
  Both of these commentaries are pretty low key affairs, with lots of long pauses and not especially insightful or informative discussions, but they may hold a little extra interest for fans who want to hear the guys talk about their experiences on the road and with their family members at the reunion that is shown in the documentary.
• Deleted Scenes include:
  Bud & Cleo (HD; 5:39)
  Granny, Nate & Nacho (HD; 1:36)
  Soundcheck Jam at 02 Arena (HD; 3:31)
  Slow Night, So Long (HD; 2:09)
  Gastonbury Set List (HD; 2:36)
  Talihina Sky (720p; 4:33)
• Home Movies include:
  Campfire (SD; 2:09)
  Who Is Nacho? (SD; 2:04)
  Betty Ann Singalong (SD; 2:06)
  Roofball (SD; 1:39)
  Manhattan (SD; 3:35)

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Talihina Sky: The Story of Kings of Leon is only part of the story, as recent developments have made clear. That very fact makes the documentary more than a bit prescient, at least with regard to Caleb's behavior, but even taking that aspect out of the mix, the documentary is a really fascinating look at three brothers (and a cousin) who pretty much came out of nowhere to take over the rock world. The fact that they came from such a rigorously religious background only makes their transformation into Rock Gods all the more fascinating. Hopefully the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey used to say) will be happy. Recommended.