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If it assuages that feeling any, the film was completed by the talented Director Dexter Fletcher (after the other guy got sh*t canned part way through filming) so the finished product is Fletcher's. Due to DGA rules only Singer is credited.
Fletcher's is doing the Elton John biopic next, which I hope is as much fun as his Queen film:
I’ve climbed what is considered one of his earlier benchmarks: the Moonlight Buttress in Zion. Of course I did it as a two day aid climb. I can’t even fathom soloing that, let alone El Cap. I thought the movie did a great job of presenting him as someone not with a Death wish or even a thrill seeker. I’m just curious if that message resonates with non-climbers.
If I'm honest I wondered whether he was on the autistic spectrum his attention to every minute detail (which was obviously required) seemed superhuman. I understood his motives and why his relationships had suffered in the past as a result. The result of his MRI were fascinating bit I didn't feel at all that he had a death wish it felt more like obsessive compulsion coupled with an autistic like disconnect with the worst case scenario.
Yeah I may have mentioned it earlier, but he just seems to have the perfect combination of brain chemistry, drive, talent, and temperament for something like this. He’s not a thrill seeker. He says if he’s got an adrenaline rush there’s something very wrong. I can’t say that about guys like Dean Potter or Dan Osman. Probably the closest to Honnold would be Peter Croft, who I was happy to see in the movie.
The rise of the band happens with little to no excitement. It just... happens. And all of the sudden the band is a family and we never see what bonds them. They’re just this huge band and everyone loves each other. There’s just not much character development. And the most annoying part of the movie is the 4th Wall breaking moment where Mike Myers’ character says kids in cars will never bang their heads to Bohemian Rhapsody. Terrible. Where the story should offer context and provide insight and depth to an enigmatic figure, it feels like a TV movie paint-by-numbers intended to offend no one and merely satisfy everyone. This becomes especially problematic when it deals with issues larger than just Mercury or the band. The character moments between Freddie and Mary are the best parts of the movie. Unfortunately they are few and far between.
Where to start with this? I agree with most of what you stated in your spoiler review. However, I think that you may have missed the point. I will start by confessing that I believe that Queen was one of the four greatest rock bands of all time. I also believe that Freddie Mercury was the greatest frontman and vocalist of all time. No one even comes close. He also was a genius composer.
The movie was really about their monumental comeback performance at Live Aid. An aging rock legend who knew that he was dying, who had been the subject of much media backlash (much of it because he was outed and reputed to have AIDS), who put everything he was into his one last hurrah...
The rest was hastily done backstory to get you to the final twenty magnificent minutes. Albeit, with much cheese. And in some places it was too much to handle. I personally thought that the huge teeth were a little over the top. Freddie had deformed teeth...it was what made him distinctive along with that one-of-a-kind voice but those chompers...made him look like a horse.
I was a teenager when Live Aid took place. I remember that it was a huge event. I remember that there were a lot of big names performing. Queen is the only band that I remember performing. And perform they did. They WERE Live Aid. Don't take my word for it...ask Bob Geldof.
Nonetheless, there will never be another like him. May we all bow and say goodbye to another once in a lifetime legend who felt life far too intensely to live it and whose candle burned so bright that it inevitable burned out far too quick.
No, I got it. Obviously some like it and my opinion is worth no more or less than those that do. But had I known I was going to be watching a two hour Hallmark Channel movie leadingnup to a recreation of Live Aid, I would’ve saved myself some time and just watched the actual concert footage.
As a Queen superfan you must also be aware of the altered timelines and how loose with the truth they were to make that concert more dramatically impactful. A few liberties are fine, IMO, but they went too far here.
For example:
Live Aid was in 1985. He was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987.
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)
1988 fantastical quest movie from Vincent Ward, the New Zealand Director who is probably most famous as the guy who wrote the cancelled "wooden Monastery space station' script for 'Alien 3'. Peasants fearing the plague, tunnel through the Earth's core from 14th Century North of England, to 1980s New Zealand. Ward really manages to capture how a modern city would seem terrifying, unfathomable and supernatural to these arcane travelers.
Fyre (2018)
Music festival disaster Documentary Directed by the same guy who did the excellent 'Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond'. It's like "Schadenfreude: The Movie", watching vain, social-media obsessed people with more money than sense get scammed. You still feel sorry for the people who were clearly working hard in good faith on the project.
during the post-mortem meeting when one of the employees says “this was fraud.” And Ja Rule, on speakerphone, says, “nah it wasn’t fraud; more like false advertising.” Lol. Someone get Ja Rule a thesaurus!
Had a fairly hazy memory of this from the last time I saw it around release but totally forgot how good Viggo M is in it. It's rare I want a film to go on for another half hour or so but I did with this one. It's aged very well...
Bad Times at the El Royale. I enjoyed it and would recommend if you’re a fan of movies like True Romance or Pulp Fiction. While it never rises to the heights of those films, there is a lot of fun in the way new elements of the story come together in the semi-nonlinear story. The first half, in particular, is a lot of fun and there’s some great dialogue and solid performances. I was less impressed with the second half. For me, once all the main players are together it kind of went off the rails. I’d also say it’s about 20 minutes too long.
^Yeah that's a pretty spot on analysis, one of my main gripes is that
The fact the hotel is situated in two states never comes into play, I thought a duristictional law would come into play at some point but it never happened which made it seem a pointless plot point.
Bad Times at the El Royale. I enjoyed it and would recommend if you’re a fan of movies like True Romance or Pulp Fiction. While it never rises to the heights of those films, there is a lot of fun in the way new elements of the story come together in the semi-nonlinear story. The first half, in particular, is a lot of fun and there’s some great dialogue and solid performances. I was less impressed with the second half. For me, once all the main players are together it kind of went off the rails. I’d also say it’s about 20 minutes too long.
^Yeah that's a pretty spot on analysis, one of my main gripes is that
The fact the hotel is situated in two states never comes into play, I thought a duristictional law would come into play at some point but it never happened which made it seem a pointless plot point.
Bad Times at the El Royale. I enjoyed it and would recommend if you’re a fan of movies like True Romance or Pulp Fiction. While it never rises to the heights of those films, there is a lot of fun in the way new elements of the story come together in the semi-nonlinear story. The first half, in particular, is a lot of fun and there’s some great dialogue and solid performances. I was less impressed with the second half. For me, once all the main players are together it kind of went off the rails. I’d also say it’s about 20 minutes too long.
Yeah I did watch the making of special feature. The whole story started with the idea of that setting.
The entire production design was centered around it. They talk about it also playing out thematically in that the California side was hopeful and bright and warm; where the Nevada side was sinister and cold and darker. I never really felt that while watching. When I saw the comment on the way the two states were supposed to be portrayed I thought, I wonder how the Nevada Chamber of Commerce feels about that. Lol.
Saw live aid...I just don't get the whole Queen thing. Please take any further Queen love to a specific movie thread to help maintain the purpose of this particular thread. Thanks!
Saw live aid...I just don't get the whole Queen thing. Please take any further Queen love to a specific movie thread to help maintain the purpose of this particular thread. Thanks!