Oscar-winning biopic of the legendary blues, soul and jazz musician. Even though he had lost his sight as a young boy and grew up in a segregated, racist society, Ray Charles (Jamie Foxx) is determined to follow his love of music and begins a successful tour of the American south. With a career that begins to grow beyond all expectations throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Ray starts struggling with drug addiction and with failed relationships that take their toll on his health. But throughout all this, he never loses his love of music, eventually becoming a Grammy Award-winning icon and one of the most popular musicians of the twentieth century. Jamie Foxx's uncannily accurate performance isn't the only good thing about Ray. Riding high on a wave of Oscar buzz, Foxx proved himself worthy of all the hype by portraying blind R&B legend Ray Charles in a warts-and-all performance that Charles approved shortly before his death in June 2004. Despite a few dramatic embellishments of actual incidents (such as the suggestion that the accidental drowning of Charles's younger brother caused all the inner demons that Charles would battle into adulthood), the film does a remarkable job of summarizing Charles's strengths as a musical innovator and his weaknesses as a philandering heroin addict who recorded some of his best songs while flying high as a kite. Foxx seems to be channeling Charles himself, and as he did with the life of Ritchie Valens in La Bamba, director Taylor Hackford gets most of the period details absolutely right as he chronicles Ray's rise from "chitlin circuit" performer in the early '50s to his much-deserved elevation to legendary status as one of the all-time great musicians. Foxx expertly lip-syncs to Ray Charles' classic recordings, but you could swear he's the real deal in a film that honors Ray Charles without sanitizing his once-messy life. --Jeff Shannon,