Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer / Dexter Fletcher)

[Grouchy]

https://http2.mlstatic.com/queen-bohemian-rhapsody-the-movie-poster-D_NQ_NP_933411-MLA28226035951_092018-F.webp

[Grouchy]

Am I the only one who actually went ahead and watched this?

Performances and music (duh) aside this is one terrible movie. Almost every scene that's not a concert or a song follows a predictable, trite pattern and very few effort is spent making the characters relatable or interesting. I'd be happy to just watch the dramatization of the Live Aid concert even with that CGI crowd because the attempts at telling Mercury's life story that make up the rest of the film are so uninspired. Pretty much a waste of time.

[Lazlo]

I saw it. It sucked. Between this, Ray, Straight Outta Compton, Walk the Line, and I Saw the Light, I've determined that the music biopic is my least favorite kind of film. Love and Mercy is an outlier and the structure is a great help.

[baby doll]

It's not the worst musical biopic I've seen (that would probably be Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque)). Obviously there's a lot wrong with the film (it takes Freddie about half the movie to realize he's gay, even though everyone knows it from the start, including the other characters in the film), and virtually every scene is a cliché (the evil gay dude is forever standing in a shadowy doorway to remind us how sinister he is), but like a lot of recent Hollywood product, it somehow manages to be diverting without ever being very good, and the Live Aid climax is surprisingly effective despite being little more than a reenactment of videos freely available on YouTube, perhaps because it's the only time in the film we're allowed to listen to Queen's music for any length of time. If nothing else, it's easily the best Bryan Singer film's I've seen.

[Grouchy]

(it takes Freddie about half the movie to realize he's gay, even though everyone knows it from the start, including the other characters in the film)
I'm not any kind of expert on Mercury's life but he did keep a common-law wife until pretty late in his career. We do see him engaging in homosexual sex before he admits it to her.


If nothing else, it's easily the best Bryan Singer film's I've seen.
Hahahah it's not like he's a genius but this can only be true if it's the only one of his films you've seen.

[transmogrifier]

Queen may be my choice for most overrated band of all time. Can’t stand them. This, combined with a general dislike for biopics and Singer-directed films, will mean the closest I get to watching this will be reading the reactions on this thread.

Made a lot of money for me in Film Fantasy, though.

[Grouchy]

Queen may be my choice for most overrated band of all time. Can’t stand them.
Aaaaaaaaaaaand Matchcut continues to top itself.

[Dukefrukem]

My choice is the Beatles for most overrated band of all time.

[Grouchy]

I'd say Oasis or Coldplay.

[Grouchy]

I saw it. It sucked. Between this, Ray, Straight Outta Compton, Walk the Line, and I Saw the Light, I've determined that the music biopic is my least favorite kind of film. Love and Mercy is an outlier and the structure is a great help.
Eh, Straight Outta Compton and Walk the Line are very watchable, and this is coming from someone with absolutely zero interest in rap. Just not my thing. I do like Johnny Cash.

The Doors is a mess but it's pretty fun. And I'm Not There is a great movie - I know, it's not like it's a standard biopic, and neither is Superstar also by Todd Haynes. Coal Miner's Daughter is supposed to be good.

I'm sure someone down the line will do a pretty shitty Michael Jackson and David Bowie biopic. I think they are already doing Amy Winehouse.

EDIT: Control is a damn good film!

[transmogrifier]

Aaaaaaaaaaaand Matchcut continues to top itself.

Really? Queen? Please.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Really? Queen? Please.

A Quiet Place better than The Little Mermaid? Seriously? Really?

(rolls eyes)

(scoffs)

(lights cigar)

(leans back in recliner and returns to book)

(leans to the side and farts)

[Watashi]

Queen is good.

[transmogrifier]

A Quiet Place better than The Little Mermaid? Seriously?

Wait, The Little Mermaid is some impeachable classic too? Someone’s gonna have to make a list of “Meh Things that You Can’t Criticize For Some Reason” so I can keep track.

[transmogrifier]

The best music biopic is Walk Hard.

[transmogrifier]

Queen is good.

Counterpoint: no. Queen is not even the best band with Queen in their name.

[Watashi]

Wait, The Little Mermaid is some impeachable classic too? Someone’s gonna have to make a list of “Meh Things that You Can’t Criticize For Some Reason” so I can keep track.

It's not the best of the Disney renaissance, but it's sure better than A Quiet Place.

[transmogrifier]

It's not the best of the Disney renaissance, but it's sure better than A Quiet Place.

Yeah, nah.

[Watashi]

Yeah, nah.

Yeah, yeah.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Wait, The Little Mermaid is some impeachable classic too? Someone’s gonna have to make a list of “Meh Things that You Can’t Criticize For Some Reason” so I can keep track.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/992/397/9c9.gif

[transmogrifier]

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/992/397/9c9.gif

I’m thinking so.

[transmogrifier]

That reminds me though, I should update my signature...

[MadMan]

Good but kind of your typical biopic.

[MadMan]

The Little Mermaid sucks.

[Dukefrukem]

The Little Mermaid sucks.

No it doesn't.

[transmogrifier]

It's better than The Lion King at least.

[Dukefrukem]

It's better than The Lion King at least.

Dude, there is NOTHING that exists on this planet that is animated better than the Lion King.

[MadMan]

It's better than The Lion King at least.

Hell nah.

[Neclord]

This thread is a fucking rollercoaster

[Henry Gale]

A definitive ranking:


Queen's catalogue
The Little Mermaid
The Lion King
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
The average Bryan Singer movie, particularly those with the letter "X" in their title
Straight Outta Compton
A Quiet Place (A good movie!)
The rest of the music biopics mentioned (Though really, who knows what I'd think of Ray and Walk The Line now)

n/a: This movie. I just ain't seen it.

[Dukefrukem]

The The Little Mermaid can't be better than the Lion King because The Little Mermaid story doesn't make any sense.

[Spinal]

Animated films I have seen from 1994 ranked:

1. Pom Poko
2. The Lion King

That is all.

[Irish]

"A Hard Day's Night," "Tommy," and "Truth or Dare" are world's better than any recent equivalents. (Maybe they're not pure biopics but then they're probably more honest about the bands and the music than most films labeling themselves as such.)

Also: I've read through the thread twice and I still don't understand how you all jumped from Queen to "The Little Mermaid" without breaking stride.

[Henry Gale]

"A Hard Day's Night," "Tommy," and "Truth or Dare" are world's better than any recent equivalents. (Maybe they're not pure biopics but then they're probably more honest about the bands and the music than most films labeling themselves as such.)

I agree, which is kind of why, despite it's apparent outrage and him now no longer being with us to have any guiding hand in it, I'm more interested (if morbidly) in this week's news about whatever this Prince jukebox musical movie may be over something that's trying to be THE STORY OF PRINCE: SQUEEZED INTO TWO HOURS.

The core music will still be great even if the movie around it isn't (similar to, say, Across The Universe, where I think some of the versions are really inspired and make the clunkiness of its surroundings more worthwhile), and a potentially bad movie with Prince music is still one I'd rather see than a bad movie without that.

There is also the grey area with biopic movies like Bohemian Rhapsody and especially Straight Outta Compton where the surviving group members' involvement seems more like a tailoring of their own self-mythology, largely choosing the story they most want to leave of themselves (now no longer making new music and more set on preserving the integrity of an estate or merchandising and streaming numbers) over the one that's best or most truthful. But at the same time after someone's passing you'll potentially have the family/estate refusing life rights or key music rights (like that Andre 3000 movie where he played Hendrix, but Hendrix never played Hendrix songs) so perhaps the genre is largely a fruitless, lose-lose endeavour.

That may be why my favourite artist-driven, musical films tend to be when the artist largely loses themselves and their real-world image to ingnite an album of theirs with the visual medium (The Wall, Purple Rain, Yellow Submarine, your aforementioned Tommy) or even in some cases still doing that while also abstractly telling a story that deconstructs themselves amongst it all (All That Jazz, The Monkees' Head, Kanye's Runaway, Lemonade.... obviously Spice World (https://youtu.be/Yzxxc5KnBOE)).


Also: I've read through the thread twice and I still don't understand how you all jumped from Queen to "The Little Mermaid" without breaking stride.

Ahaha.. Obviously the list was only semi-serious, as it feels impossible to actually want to compare such radically different things (I considered calling it "A definitive that everyone will agree with and not arguw further"), but the general sentiments are true, which is that I think Queen's music is better than most things, and that The Little Mermaid is better than most movies.

[Grouchy]

The Little Mermaid was never one of my favorite Disney flicks while growing up. The Lion King is an absolute classic and a childhood landmark.

[Peng]

Maybe it's because I'm not much of a music guy -- although my father is an avid one so I heard enough Queens growing up to get some contact high from these songs -- but the Live Aid sequence, though the high point of the film, feels like not enough compensation for other biopic bullshit we have to endure up to that point. And even then, it's undercut by distracting crowd CGI and some truly lame cutaways from Malek's fun physical performance, with the worst being Mike Myers' lonesome callback shot. Malek is almost downright bad during the first third, where he seems as distracted by those enormous fake teeth as many of us. He gets better as the film goes along, but doesn't come fully into his own until the final look, where he deepens a bit all the way to that committed Live Aid performance.

The controversies around Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book feel like they have developed in tandem, and now that I saw both, it's striking how similarly confused the films are about integral part of their subjects (sexuality, race), and how that seems born out of who get to tell the stories (other band members here, white counterpart there). Even without knowing anything beforehand about who has story input, I am amazed at how sanctimonious some other band members brazenly comes off as here, especially Brian May, compared to Freddie Mercury the main troublemaker. The scene where they are at a party, offered drugs from Mercury, but turn it down because it's "late" and they need to get home with their wives is such a hilarious "sure, jan" moment of unnecessary retroactive insistence that I'm completely taken out of the film. The film veers like this between trite biopic mode and misguided characterization so much that its choppy filmmaking might be under-talked about, but there must be special mention to those unbelievably tacky Microsoft Word text effect, which is used not once but twice for location montages. Shit's embarrassing, man. 4/10

[Morris Schæffer]

Well, I guess I found this completely not boring and even rousing by the end. Perhaps it doesn't quite dig deep enough into Mercury's life, but it works as a celebration of the band and the music I think.
Rami Malek is great and to think I first saw him as a bit part terrorist in 24.

This is a better best picture nominee than Black Panther. :D

[Peng]

Of the nominees, I found it the worst while Black Panther's the best.

[Grouchy]

So far I've only seen the nominees that start with a "B" and I'd rank them:

1. Black Panther
2. BlackKKlansman
3. Bohemian Rhapsody

The Spike Lee joint loses some points with me for sugar-coating the real life story too much but it's still a very good movie.

[Ivan Drago]

I'm really regretting giving this the mildest of yays because it keeps getting worse the more I think about it. Can I change my vote, or should I see it again just to be fair?

Please don't make me watch it again.

[Ezee E]

This is close to terrible. Shocked that even the general public is apparently liking it. It takes two hours to get to the Live Aid performance which works, but it's such a repeat of previous movies, and the teeth are so distracting that it's almost caricature.

Seeing this thread turn from discussion of the movie to The Little Mermaid makes sense, because there's nothing really to discuss here.

[Mal]

I don't care for The Lion King

[Dukefrukem]

I don't care for The Lion King

https://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s36/Dukefrukem/Forum%20Insults/goreroll.gif

[transmogrifier]

I don't care for The Lion King

You’re my kind of people. Most overrated animated film by a long way.

[Skitch]

You’re my kind of people. Most overrated animated film by a long way.

Oh, I'm soooo on this island with you fine chaps. Fuck that movie.

[Rico]

I saw it. It sucked. Between this, Ray, Straight Outta Compton, Walk the Line, and I Saw the Light, I've determined that the music biopic is my least favorite kind of film. Love and Mercy is an outlier and the structure is a great help.

I kinda dug The Runaways biopic, but mostly because of Michael Shannon's supporting role.

[Dukefrukem]

Watching this I can't help think what Sasha Baren Cohen would have done with it.

[Morris Schæffer]

Watching this I can't help think what Sasha Baren Cohen would have done with it.

I think he may have fitted Mercury's physiognomy more than Malek who looks a bit like a bug.

[Philip J. Fry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dn8Fd0TYek

[Dukefrukem]

I saw several people tweet about that scene and I honestly, even after watching this video, don't even think it's that bad.

When I think of bad editing I think of this


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCKhktcbfQM

[baby doll]

I saw several people tweet about that scene and I honestly, even after watching this video, don't even think it's that bad.Unmotivated edits are always bad.

[Dukefrukem]

I suppose if you went to film school sure.

[baby doll]

I suppose if you went to film school sure.Or just if you like good movies. If a shot isn't providing any new information, you're probably going to sense that on some level whether or not you went to film school.

[Dukefrukem]

Or just if you like good movies. If a shot isn't providing any new information, you're probably going to sense that on some level whether or not you went to film school.

Right. Like the scene I posted above.

[Grouchy]

Right. Like the scene I posted above.
The Rhapsody scene is the dialogue equivalent. I think the video does a pretty good job of explaining why it's an appalling moment.

[Dukefrukem]

I'm not in disagreement with the video, I just don't think it's THAT bad, especially if the Editor was only working with what he was given.

[baby doll]

I'm not in disagreement with the video, I just don't think it's THAT bad, especially if the Editor was only working with what he was given.I'm of the opinion that if people are going to pay thirteen dollars to see a movie, "not that bad" isn't good enough (regardless of who's to blame). Also, the video points out some small changes the editor could have made to make the scene flow more smoothly just using the footage included in the final edit.

[Dukefrukem]

I'm of the opinion that if people are going to pay thirteen dollars to see a movie, "not that bad" isn't good enough (regardless of who's to blame). Also, the video points out some small changes the editor could have made to make the scene flow more smoothly just using the footage included in the final edit.

Except for the part about not having a shot with all 4 members of the band. That's on the director.

[baby doll]

Except for the part about not having a shot with all 4 members of the band. That's on the director.I'm not very interested in apportioning blame for lousy technique. An awkwardly cut sequence is still an awkwardly cut sequence even if the editor is doing the best they can with the footage they're given.

Also, films can be (and are) reshot.

[Grouchy]

Yeah, but reshoots are costly. I found the portion of the video that dealt with that the most interesting - any hack director would have made the shot of the whole band because it's an obvious call. I think that's evidence of the hectic state Singer was reportedly at during the shoot.

[Morris Schæffer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dn8Fd0TYek

That was great! Thanks man.

[Morris Schæffer]

https://www.slashfilm.com/bohemian-rhapsody-editing/

Well, editor John Ottman is just as embarassed about that one scene.