Posts Tagged Biopic
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December 8, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Music Biopics Usually Get It Wrong: The Problem Is Taking The Page To The Stage
The music biopic has a tough job I guess – it has to satiate the fan, someone who might know it all or be pretty sure they do. It has to also introduce people to the music, it has to explain why there is a narrative fictional film about this person – or at least […]Archive
August 14, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Mr. Dynamite – The Rise of James Brown: DVD
Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown Director: Alex Gibney HBO/Universal Music Group Alex Gibney’s great skill as documentary-maker – apart from his speed and ability to work on several projects simultaneously – is in unearthing the hard-to-find/previously-unseen footage. Here with his “Dynamite” profile of the making of James Brown it would be a good […]Archive
July 21, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Born To Be Blue: Film
Born To Be Blue Director: Robert Budreau New Real Films/Lumanity Productions/Black Hangar Studios This impressionistic biopic of Chet Baker largely succeeds where the other recent impressionistic biopic of a legendary jazz trumpeter was just ludicrous, insulting, absurd. So why does Born To Be Blue work? For a start it actually makes sense. Miles Ahead played […]Archive
July 17, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Miles Ahead: Film
Miles Ahead Director: Don Cheadle Bifrost Pictures/Miles Davis Properties, LLC/Sony Pictures Classics In a boldly absurd almost blindly idiotic move Don Cheadle decides to simply invent a story for his Miles Davis impersonation. Here we have Cheadle as a more than passable Miles (not as great as some would tell you, but certainly as decent […]Archive
May 11, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Nina: Film
Nina Director: Cynthia Mort Ealing Studios Entertainment/Londinium Films In a new low for the music biopic Nina makes the recent James Brown-mess, Get On Up feel like Coal Miner’s Daughter. The film, shot four years ago and sitting on the shelf all this time, had to weather a storm of bad publicity around the choice of […]Archive
April 19, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The End of The Tour: DVD
The End of the Tour Director: James Ponsoldt Lionsgate One of the chief concerns about this movie, before anyone had seen it, seemed to be the casting of Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace – it’s a non-issue, for two reasons. First of all he acquits himself just fine. Secondly, and far more importantly, it’s […]Archive
September 1, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 1046
V/A, Coal Miner’s Daughter [OST] (1980) I saw the film a while ago now, maybe ten years back, something like that – and what a great biopic, surely one of the best. The soundtrack is a new acquisition, a fairly beat-up second-hander, but it plays well enough. Cover’s a bit grubby, but so what. It’s […]Archive
August 25, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
20,000 Days on Earth: Film
20,000 Days on Earth Directors: Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard Corniche Pictures/BFI/Film4 Here is Nick Cave – running about his day, his 20,000th day on earth – here is Nick Cave in a film that is part impressionistic doco, part subverted feature film, it’s the rock-doc as prose-poem, and it’s been co-created with love (and – […]Archive
August 19, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
Get On Up: Film
Get On Up Director: Tate Taylor Imagine Entertainment/Jagged Films/Wyolah Films This James Brown biopic has been on the cards a while – and then it just seemed to arrive, no real fanfare. And it’s hard to know what to say really – for is it a fairly typical, mostly terrible biopic? And are all Hollywood-infused […]Archive
July 3, 2014 by Simon Sweetman