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Posts Tagged Biopic

Archive

November 27, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Stardust: Film

Stardust Director: Gabriel Range Salon Pictures / Wilding Pictures / IFC Films Stardust is a little movie. That could have been fine. There are some wonderful small pictures. But Stardust is also a terrible movie. Plagued by many things – not just a lack of Bowie’s music, and distancing from the estate. For a start, […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Biopic, Bowie, David Bowie, Film, Film Review, Gabriel Range, Johnny Flynn, Marc Maron, Movie, Movie Review, Stardust, You can support Off The Tracks via PressPatron, Ziggy Stardust ·

Archive

June 30, 2020 by Simon Sweetman

Richard Jewell: DVD

Richard Jewell Director: Clint Eastwood Malapaso Productions / Appian Way Productions / Warner Bros. Pictures Richard Jewell is the story of a security guard that went from national hero to chief suspect in a crushing blow for his own health and sanity and in an awful trial-by-media persecution that is just part of the downfall […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged 1996, Atlanta Olypmics, Biopic, Clint Eastwood, DVD, DVD Review, Film, Film Review, Jon Hamm, Kathy Bates, Movie, Movie Review, Nina Arianda, Olivia Wilde, Paul Walter Hauser, Richard Jewell, Richard Jewell: DVD, Sam Rockwell, You can support Off The Tracks via PressPatron ·

Archive

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Miscellany · Tagged Biopic, Brian Wilson, Chet Baker, Film, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Miles Davis, Music, Music Biopics Usually Get It Wrong, Music Biopics Usually Get It Wrong: The Problem Is Taking The Page To The Stage, Nina Simone ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Alex Gibney, Biopic, Doc, Doco, Documentary, DVD, DVD Review, Film, Film Festival, Funk, HBO, James Brown, JB, Mick Jagger, Mr. Dynamite, Mr. Dynamite - The Rise of James Brown, Mr. Dynamite - The Rise of James Brown: DVD, Soul ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Biopic, Born To Be Blue: Film, Chet Baker, Ethan Hawke, Film, Film Review, Heroin, Jazz, Movie, Robert Budreau, Trumpet, Vocalist ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Biopic, Don Cheadle, Ewan McGr, Fiction, Film, Film Review, Impressionistic, Jazz, Miles Ahead, Miles Davis, Movie, Movie Review, Sony, Trumpet ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Biopic, Coal Miner's Daughter, Cynthia Mort, David Oyelowo, Film, Film Review, Get On Up, Jazz, Leaving Las Vegas, Mike Epps, Movie, Movie Review, Music Biopic, Nina, Nina Simone, Nina: Film, Piano, Ray!, Richard Pryor, Walk The Line, Zoe Saldana ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, Biopic, D/FW, David Foster Wallace, David Lipsky, DVD, DVD Review, Essay, Essayist, Film, Infinite Jest, James Ponsoldt, Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Movie, Movie Review, Novelist, Rolling Stone, The End of The Tour: DVD, Writer, Writing ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, The Vinyl Countdown · Tagged [OST], 1980, Beverly D'Angelo, Biopic, Coal Miner's Daughter, Levon Helm, Loretta Lynn, LP, Sissy Spacek, Soundtrack, V/A, Vinyl ·

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 – […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged 20 000 Days on Earth, Biopic, Blixa Bargeld, Doco, Feature Film, Film, Film Review, Grinderman, Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard, Kylie Minogue, Music, Nick Cave, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Push The Sky Away, Ray Winstone, The Bad Seeds ·

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 […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged Biopic, Chadwick Boseman, Film Review, Get On Up, James Brown, Mick Jagger, Music Film, Ray Charles, Ray!, Tate Taylor, The Rolling Stones, Walk The Line ·

Archive

July 3, 2014 by Simon Sweetman

Jimi – All Is By My Side: Film

Jimi: All Is By My Side Director: John Ridley Darko Entertainment/Freeman Film/Subotica Entertainment This Jimi Hendrix biopic – that isn’t really a biopic, aiming rather to be a portrait of the year leading up to Hendrix becoming a superstar – isn’t so much “based on a true story” (as it tells us before its opening […]
Posted in Blog, Reviews · Tagged All Is By My Side, Andre 3000, Andre Benjamin, Biopic, Film, Film Review, Hendrix, Jimi, Jimi Hendrix, Jimi: All Is By My Side, Music, New Zealand International Film Festival, NZIFF, Outkast ·

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