| Saint Jiub 09.01.2019 02:11 |
A few comments from an arrogant movie critic: link "With big wins for the toothless, well-acted Civil Rights-era heartwarmer "Green Book" and the sexless, well-acted Freddie Mercury Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody," Sunday’s Golden Globes stuck to the middle of the road like a motorist determined to drive 15 mph under the cultural speed limit. Alongside that road, three billboards in steady rotation, like the old Burma Shave signs, sold audiences on notions of common ground, inclusion and equality. Everything but quality." ... "For context’s sake: The Globes represent the tastes and voting preferences of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It’s a tiny group (between 90 and 100) of what’s known as “junket journalists,” regulars on the studios’ freebie train, writing heavily promotional features for media outlets outside the U.S." ... "Now that we’re in the thick of the awards seasons, a “thick” that so often feels very, very thin, it’s crucial to remember: This isn’t real life. It’s a lot of hooey and popularity contests and celebrity rubbernecking. But it’s worth saying this, too. Filmmaking, the art and craft and possibilities of the medium — these things do matter. When the Globes tell the world that “Green Book” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” are the best the medium had to offer last year, that’s saying something, all right. It’s saying that filmmaking technique and visual style and ambition do not matter. That sincere intentions and bland platitudes about acceptance are enough. As film historian and cultural critic Mark Harris tweeted Sunday night: “Okay, Academy members: Voting starts this week. If you think the two best movies of the year were Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, I guess you’re in good shape! If you don’t, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELVES HEARD.” These two are movies liked by millions, and that’s ducky. They’re movies for those who want a certain thing from them. Millions adore the Queen songbook, and anybody with eyes can appreciate the zest and drive Rami Malek brings to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The film already has pulled in nearly $750 million worldwide. That figure very likely has something to do with the script’s shameless camp and inauthenticity, its dodgy nervousness regarding Mercury’s sexuality, and its squaresville approach to the biopic genre." ... "But please, Academy voters, remember this: Antiquated notions of progressivism and pedestrian examples of filmmaking style are not enough." |
| Saint Jiub 09.01.2019 02:14 |
I generally agree with the above soapbox statements in my local newspaper Although I have refused to see this mediocre movie, I still have negative opinions based on what I have seen and heard: * The portrayal of Freddie breaking up the band for several years because of his solo album. * The portrayal of the other three band members as saints who went home to their families. * The stereotypical depiction of the gay lifestyle as epitomized by Paul Prenter. * The insinuation that Freddie would have been better off denying his sexual identity and marrying Saint Mary. * The portrayal of John Deacon as a loser. |
| spiralstatic 09.01.2019 07:14 |
Saint Jiub you can't comment on a film if you haven't seen it! You don't want to see it? That's fine, but you can't pass judgement on what it is or isn't. I love the film but agree with the comments you posted from the critic: it isn't an artistic wonder of a film and I would hope a film that would win awards would be. For me, this has been a weak year though (when I refer to "this year" I'm meaning 2018!) The only film I can think of I've seen this year which I found really unique and impressive was Paul Dano's Wildlife, starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal. If there have been a swathe of great films or indeed any), please let me know!!?! And I guess Wildlife had too small a release to be an awards contender? That and films getting awards has as much (more?) to do with campaigning as the film itself. I've seen Green Book and it is an average film with great performances (well, really just good, not great), as they say. I would actually say Rami Malek's performance is the best I have seen this year, Is it absolutely astounding? No, but that's only due to the depth the film goes to. It doesn't dig deep enough into Freddie's experience to give Rami emotionally much to do or convey, however he is totally transformed from himself and while Freddie had many facets to his personality, for me Rami gets across the sweetness and generosity that was part of Freddie's nature and he gets it across all of the time, even though they have Freddie as the star whose ego gets too big, thus he (egged on by Paul Prenter) causes a rift in the band. There's lots of factual fallacy in the film, you're right, although the points you make aren't all true: - John Deacon isn't portrayed as a loser in my view, not at all - in fact he is portrayed as funny and sweet - Brian May is portrayed as a saint, but Roger definitely isn't and to be fair none of the other 3 band members are given any true depth of character to really be played as anything - The film is very clear Freddie is gay and attracted to men from the outset. It includes Mary and Freddie's relationship and this is the heart of the film, but it never suggests they should have got married and it expresses that Jim loves Freddie, albeit Jim isn't in the film much. Mary and Freddie’s relationship can be at the heart of the film without the implication he was a straight man corrupted into being gay! That is totally not how the film is - Paul Prenter is portrayed as totally evil and a corrupting influence on Freddie, but NOT a sexually corrupting influence - a corrupting influence in terms of damaging the band's music and relationships, convincing Freddie to go solo and in terms of sexuality, only in adding drugs and a lot of sexual partners who care nothing but about having a one night stand with a lonely Freddie, willing to accept it. That Paul is portrayed as evil does not equal homosexuality is portrayed as evil. That’s like saying gay characters should all be good & never do bad things. The film is not Oscar quality, but any film is about how you feel it. If you're interested to know how you'd feel it, I suggest watching it. For me, Rami is particularly great in the live music scenes, recreating concerts and I loved that the film had a fair amount of young-Queen and Freddie in. I found it poignant that the film was respectful towards Freddie and his legacy and that it ended at live aid as I am sure Freddie wouldn't have wanted the last years of his life portrayed. I thought prior to seeing the film that I'd probably hate it, but instead I truly felt Rami got some essence of Freddie that really moved me. And most of all, overall the film is joyous and uplifting. I agree with the critic - it ain't an awards level film, but WHAT IS THIS YEAR?! And for me Rami's performance certainly is awards worthy - at least to be a contender. :) |
| stevelondon20 09.01.2019 07:26 |
This ^^^^ |
| Invisible Woman 09.01.2019 07:52 |
Those awards will not change my opinion. As I said before in some other thread - it's just a movie. Some like it, some don't like it, regardless of the award. I think the movie is more fiction than a biopic and I don't like that. |
| Fly away 09.01.2019 17:48 |
Well said, spiralstatic; I totally agree. |
| paulprenter 09.01.2019 18:40 |
I’ve seen the film and it’s shitty...one good thing: the guy who played Brian did really a good job. |
| ILoveAnalBleaching 09.01.2019 20:43 |
7 too many |
| raucousmonster 10.01.2019 01:08 |
My biggest gripe with the movie is of course the bending of the truth to breaking point and beyond. But most people who went to see it wont have the same depth of knowledge as the folks on this forum so it won't be that big a deal for them. But what SHOULD be a big deal is the poor quality of the writing. The way certain facts were shoehorned in with little regard to subtlety or expositional clunkiness was embarrassing. I'm paraphrasing slightly but fir example "You're a dentist and you're an astrophysicist, I studied art and design." "I have four extra incisors, more space in my mouth means more range" "We are Indian Parsis. A thousand years ago the Parsis left India because they were being persecuted by Muslims". And that's just the first 15 minutes. The script was largely devoid of subtlety or craft so I can understand why critics are annoyed. It doesn't stop me being chuffed that the movie has done so well and Rami's performance was certainly award worthy. But I'm also delighted (if not bamboozled) by how much non Queen fans enjyed the film. Its brought the band back into the public consciousness and that can only be a good thing. |
| VanP 10.01.2019 17:45 |
Why did we need another R rated biopic of Freddie, and the horrible death he died? Why does anyone need to relive that? I watched three of my best friends die with the AIDS virus. no, thanks, I have no desire to relive it. Most people want to be entertained when they go to a theatre, energized, not heartbroken and depressed. what makes this movie so important is that it is relevant. what makes this movie so relevant is tolerance in today's politics, schools, and day to day relationships. Nearly 50 years ago, there were band members who accepted each others differences and changed the face of music. the movie approaches and deals with Freddie's sexuality and illness in a way that any person, regardless of age, gender, race, or sexual preference can understand. the movie creates an open dialogue about sexuality and the dangers of unprotected sex after the movie. this is just as important as tolerance today. The cast's performance was unparalleled. no reason to bang on about how great the actors are in this movie. the music. where else can you go to see a Queen concert for $15? Queen has always made their audiences feel inclusive, like they are just as much as part of the band as the band itself. Bohemian Rhapsody did the same on the big screen. the PG rating allows a greater audience. there is no age, gender, sexual preference, or race that that the demographic of this movie is limited to, Wait, isn't that what Queen said about their music????? |
| Saint Jiub 11.01.2019 03:06 |
"Look, there’s Freddie, doing drugs and hanging out with all his gay friends, while the rest of the band – those squeaky clean choir boys – tell Freddie how they can’t stay and party because they all have to get home to their wives and kids. You see, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon are wholesome people who would never partake in the rockstar lifestyle like Freddie Mercury does. The whole movie is basically those three shaking their heads at Freddie’s behavior. And what pisses me off about it is that those three (to be fair, Deacon didn’t have anything to do with the movie) are still around to offer this version of events while Freddie isn’t here to say, “Wait a minute, what about the time you did such and such.” link ... "There is something woefully reductive, even pernicious, about the narrative shorthand used to elide Freddie’s sexual relationships with men: a glimpse of leather here, a truck-stop montage there. There’s also something oddly moralistic, even punitive, about the way Freddie’s increasingly debauched, hard-partying ways drive a wedge between himself and his bandmates[...] Even more irritating is a wholly inaccurate later scene in which Freddie tells his bandmates in 1985 that he has AIDS, a fabricated detail that feels like an attempt to tidy up the obligatory reconciliation narrative. Given that May and Taylor are producers on the movie, as is Queen’s longtime manager Jim Beach (played by Tom Hollander), it’s hard not to interpret the picture as a clumsy, conflicted attempt to grapple with Mercury’s legacy, to honor his undeniable significance while also wresting some control of the Queen narrative from his grip." link |
| Saint Jiub 11.01.2019 03:28 |
Bohemian Rhapsody homophobia: link "Bohemian Rhapsody loves Freddie Mercury’s voice. It fears his queerness. ... The most telling moment in Bohemian Rhapsody, the Golden Globe-winning Queen biopic that occasionally stops singing to zoom in on its ostensible subject, Freddie Mercury, is almost certainly an accidental one. It arrives at the end of the film — July 1985, in the film’s historically inaccurate timeline — when Mercury (Rami Malek) decides to tell the other members of Queen the truth about himself shortly before the biggest concert of their lives. “I’ve got it,” he says. And they have no idea what “it” is. Of course they don’t. Though Bohemian Rhapsody spends most of its runtime paying lip service to the idea that Queen is a sort of dysfunctional misfit family, in that moment, the distance between Mercury and his bandmates is undisguisable. “It” has been looming over Mercury’s life for years. “It” has been stalking his community, stealing away people he loves, constantly reminding him of his mortality. Freddie Mercury’s reality, in 1985, was one in which “People just vanished, and everyone was in some kind of panic.” For Mercury, there was only one “it”: AIDS. But the other members of Queen had no idea what he was talking about. How could they? They were all straight. ... The result is far more hurtful than your average unconsciously homophobic film. Bohemian Rhapsody is a movie that consciously tries to position a gay man at its center while strategically disengaging with the “gay” part as much as it can, flitting briefly over his emotional and sexual experiences and fixating on his platonic relationship with an ex-girlfriend instead. It strips Mercury of a part of his identity that was as vital to his success as his four-octave vocal range. ... Bohemian Rhapsody’s toxic depiction of queerness is subtle but pervasive — and completely avoidable ... The movie reduces queer identity to a series of promiscuous sexual encounters, which it consistently frames as sordid, shameful, illicit, and corrupting. It also builds a whole annoying subplot around the “predatory gay villain” trope, which is a tired, obnoxious cliché that in Bohemian Rhapsody is even more problematic than usual because it’s used to imply that Mercury, a real-life gay man, was somehow corrupted into becoming queer by an opportunistic music industry parasite who doesn’t really care about Freddie at all. ... Bohemian Rhapsody also refuses to depict gay men having meaningful and deeply emotional relationships. The emotional development of Mercury’s romance with Jim Hutton, his partner of seven years, is relegated to a single conversation. Their entire loving, monogamous relationship is reduced onscreen to a single kiss and a brief hand squeeze. This minimization makes it an even worse offense that the film does take the time to depict Mercury having a series of promiscuous sexual encounters, which it paints as sordid and shameful. Because Bohemian Rhapsody only equates queerness with sex, and because it frames his queer lifestyle as bad, Mercury’s subsequent AIDS diagnosis is inherently set up and portrayed as a punishment for his queerness. Not only is all of this negligent, it’s actively harmful. There are numerous real-world examples of how equating queerness to sexually explicit content continues to hurt and marginalize people — such as the many YouTube vloggers and creators who are constantly fighting against algorithms that incorrectly flag their queer content as “explicit” and “not safe for work” solely because it concerns queer people. And the depiction of AIDS as a punishment for gayness, which has found voice in everything from doomsday preachers to Stephen King novels, has historically contributed to the deaths of millions by creating a huge stigma around the disease, making it difficult for researchers to gain public support in the fight for the cure and causing considerable obstacles for many who are diagnosed to receive equitable treatment. It boggles the mind that this needs to be said at all, but queer people have deep complexity that has nothing to do with sex or dying. Freddie Mercury, a man who wrote a song to his cat and once snuck Princess Diana into a club after disguising her in drag, had so much more personality than Bohemian Rhapsody allows him to have. |
| Saint Jiub 11.01.2019 03:37 |
Continued ... Bohemian Rhapsody spends more time on Mercury’s wife than any other character, including Mercury himself To be fair to the film, Bohemian Rhapsody hardly wastes time on characterization at all; there’s almost no onscreen interiority in the film, despite star Rami Malek’s best efforts. Most of what’s there, however, is devoted to showing us how much Mercury loves his common-law wife, Mary Austin, who’s portrayed as personifying virginal beauty and traditional wholesomeness — everything Mercury could have, the film implies, if only he weren’t tragically queer. There’s a troubling pattern of movies like this one — for example, the Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game, or the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely — that diminish the real queer experiences of their subjects in favor of elevating their platonic friendships with the patient, chaste women in their lives. It’s true that Austin and Mercury had a meaningful and long-lasting friendship in real life. But Bohemian Rhapsody isn’t interested in exploring the positive aspects of their friendship, because it would apparently rather portray Mercury as lost, confused, and fixated on her, just as a straight man might be. After they break up — because Mercury is gay — Mercury pines for Austin. He longs for her to keep wearing her wedding ring. He’s jealous of her boyfriend. At one point, he begs her to come live with him again, only to be informed that she’s pregnant. This moment is portrayed as a catastrophe that will keep them apart forever — as if it’s unfortunate timing that’s at issue, rather than Mercury’s queer identity. The only overt sexual moments in the film — which, as it’s rated PG-13, are nearly nonexistent — are between the two of them. In one scene, she’s framed in a diaphanous gown against soft pastel backlighting, while he gazes at her lovingly and then tells her how beautiful she is. It’s a completely straightforward iteration of the (straight) male gaze. The camera never repeats this framing when Mercury is looking at the men around him, so we’re not allowed to see the queer men around Freddie Mercury as he would have seen them — as beautiful, as lovable, as human. (For the record, there are zero queer women onscreen.) It’s as if Bohemian Rhapsody is afraid of taking us too deeply into Mercury’s mind for any length of time in order to show him actually feeling like a queer man, getting to know other queer people, experiencing the complex personalities of other queer people. It’s absurd and insulting, and it serves to depict Mercury himself — a legendary creative genius — as infantile and petulant. In the film, he only seems to care about two topics, Mary Austin and his music, because those are the only parts of his life the film seems to feel safe approaching. ... The film paints Freddie Mercury as somehow choosing his own isolation The effect of this is that the film strongly implies that Mercury chose to be gay, to surround himself with other queer people, at the risk of losing his “true” friends, his “family.” We’re never actually shown what the other members of Queen really thought about Mercury, or if they even liked him at all, because the film doesn’t care about those relationships either. It nonetheless depicts Queen, as well as Mary Austin, as becoming increasingly exasperated with Mercury’s extravagant lifestyle, his parties, his huge circle of friends — in other words, with all the things that signal his embrace of queer culture and his increased acceptance of his queer identity. And because Bohemian Rhapsody hasn’t done due diligence in portraying queer identity as something more than shamefaced fashion choices and surreptitious visits to clubs, “it” becomes the only thing the audience is allowed to take away from Mercury’s queerness. Not that it made him beautiful, made him erotic, made him a rock star, but that it left him dead. ... Instead, the film winds up being the last thing Mercury himself would have wanted it to be, given his own embrace of the queer community: an erasure of that community, and of Mercury’s own uniqueness, as well as a flimsy, demonizing stereotype of queer men. All fans of Freddie Mercury, but especially the queer ones, deserved better. |
| Saint Jiub 11.01.2019 03:38 |
raucousmonster wrote: My biggest gripe with the movie is of course the bending of the truth to breaking point and beyond. But most people who went to see it wont have the same depth of knowledge as the folks on this forum so it won't be that big a deal for them. But what SHOULD be a big deal is the poor quality of the writing. The way certain facts were shoehorned in with little regard to subtlety or expositional clunkiness was embarrassing. I'm paraphrasing slightly but fir example "You're a dentist and you're an astrophysicist, I studied art and design." "I have four extra incisors, more space in my mouth means more range" "We are Indian Parsis. A thousand years ago the Parsis left India because they were being persecuted by Muslims". And that's just the first 15 minutes. The script was largely devoid of subtlety or craft so I can understand why critics are annoyed. It doesn't stop me being chuffed that the movie has done so well and Rami's performance was certainly award worthy. But I'm also delighted (if not bamboozled) by how much non Queen fans enjyed the film. Its brought the band back into the public consciousness and that can only be a good thing.^^ This |
| Saint Jiub 11.01.2019 03:49 |
link "Should biopics like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Green Book' be accurate? ... I just don’t want to feel lied to by a movie. Golden Globe winners “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Green Book” have both been criticized for this and I think with good reason. ... The thing about biopics is that sometimes they have a way of becoming the definitive version of a story that becomes entrenched in our collective headspace — and any other films that come in their wake have the job of persuading us otherwise. “Audiences don’t necessarily go home and research a person after they see a movie,” said Frederick. “I think that’s just the world we live in. People take a depiction — particularly when it’s a movie — and think: OK, I got all the information I need.” ... So now we’re seeing a huge dissonance between the people who are upset about the facts being inaccurate and arguing that these movies suffer because of that, and audiences who simply had a great time watching these movies and don’t understand why anyone is in a huff about it: ‘I enjoyed the movie, I don’t care about these details. Stop being a hater, everyone had a good time, why are you trying to ruin things? ... Because “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Green Book” do purport to be films of record “to the point where ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ meticulously re-creates that Live Aid sequence, shot-for-shot,” Fallon said, “which is telegraphing to audiences that it is realistic, that it is based on fact — that what you’re watching actually happened. ... ... link "Though the movie was done with the cooperation of two of Queen’s surviving band members – guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor – it’s riddled with factual errors and distortions. Mercury’s solo career in the ’80s is portrayed as causing a major rift in the band, yet May and Taylor also released solo work in the same decade. The firing of band manager John Reid is turned into an ugly confrontation over loyalty, even though it actually was an amicable split after the manager’s contract expired. Key songs (including “Fat Bottomed Girls” and “We Will Rock You”) are shown being recorded or performed years out of sequence. And the climactic scene, the band’s appearance at Live Aid in 1985, is depicted as a last, triumphant stand for the recently reunited quartet with Mercury dying of AIDS. In reality, the concert was the culmination of a nearly year-long tour, and the quartet would go on the road again the next year after completing another album. Mercury actually didn’t tell his bandmates that he had AIDS until two years later. More troubling is the way the movie addresses Mercury’s affairs off-stage. The singer’s sex life is portrayed less as a personal choice than an illicit descent into a sinister underworld. He is lured there by a back-stabbing lover, band manager Paul Prenter, a convenient villain for all of the problems endured by Mercury and, by extension, his band. It reduces his story to a moral accounting – the “deviant” punished for his sins but allowed one last chance at redemption. |
| jozef 11.01.2019 09:25 |
Good job, Saint Jiub, that film is a fairy tale for prepubescent audience or for idiots .... |
| spiralstatic 11.01.2019 14:20 |
You've read an awful lot of reviews of a film you don't wish to see! It's interesting, because I think after reading so many reviews, it would be hard to take the film for what it is even if you ever did decide to watch it on the TV some day now. But if you ever do, I'd be curious to know if these sort of comments play in your head as you watch!? And if you could get anything positive from any of the film. As I say, I agree with many of the criticisms levelled at the film, particularly in terms of weakness of script/dialogue, depth of characterisation & obviously factual inaccuracies in terms of Queen's history and musical catalogue. The part where Freddie announces his diagnosis to the rest of the band is such terrible writing it made my skin crawl with the cringiness of the dialogue. I don't understand what critics want when they level criticisms of either homophobia and/or not including enough wild partying though. Such comments sometimes contradict each other, but I also disagree with what some reviewers suggest in this area. I'll say it again: Although Paul Prenter is portrayed as a “predatory gay villain”, he is NOT portrayed as making/corrupting Freddie into becoming gay. To me, to read reviews seems to suggest you shouldn't have any gay characters unless they are portrayed as nice people. Freddie is not portrayed as "choosing" to be gay and this therefore causing all of his and all of the band's problems. Surely having his love for Mary so evident in the film completely contradicts that idea. If it was a choice on Freddie's part, Mary was there to marry and have kids with and pretend to be straight with had he wanted to. To not include her in the film would surely imply something closer to this criticism? It also is not like the film is inventing any of the stuff with Mary. Freddie did actually propose to her once, he lived with her for several years and she remained important to him his whole life and inherited his home and 50% of his royalties. Where is the invention in all of this?! I don't understand quite what representation of Queer culture critics of this area would like the film to have. Some reviews think the 12-rated film is not extreme enough to depict Queen/Freddie's lifestyle. Other reviews say "The movie reduces queer identity to a series of promiscuous sexual encounters, which it consistently frames as sordid, shameful, illicit, and corrupting." but the truth was that Freddie's ilife WAS pretty wild for a time in the 80's and unfortunately, when his life did eventually become romantically more stable, really it was in the time period after the film (the film does say this - it ends by saying Freddie was happy with Jim for the rest of his days. Maybe an oversimplification, but not homophobic, I think.) Freddie wasn't exactly having loving relationships and deep intellectual and spiritual connections with men who loved him deeply and caringly from all I can ascertain in the period of I dunno '78-84....? I mean, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know entirely. Though I'm pretty sure he had quite a lot of fun. Now I think it would be very interesting for a film to analyse Freddie's psychology, drives and desires, especially in the time period '75-'85, say - although I imagine you'd have to use a great deal of conjecture as Freddie was a complex and in many ways contradictory man, like we all have many contradictions in us. He was also very private & I doubt engaged in self analysis or spoke of anything in this area to many/any people. I imagine most conclusions would upset some critics though. And it would be difficult to be truthful. I think there are some aspects of Freddie that will remain always somewhat a mystery. I don't think for a moment the film reduced Freddie's sexual identity to something sordid though. It shows connection with other men from the very start of the film, it clearly shows Freddie attracted to men pre-Paul Prenter. It clearly shows Freddie has zero desire for a sexual relationship with Mary once they have broken up. Jim isn't in the film much (partly as the film ends in 1985!) but he is portrayed as someone who cares about and loves Freddie. And I’d say despite less screen time, he has as much if not more characterisation to him as for example any of the other members of Queen! While in terms of Queen's music and the band's relationships to each other there are many factual errors, I don't personally feel like the film lies as much in the area of Freddie's sexuality in this way. In fact the most untrue area to me is when they have Freddie take Jim to his parents and have his parents accept essentially his coming out, happy as pie. To fictionalise that kind of scenario is to 2018-up a story to make it acceptable to current 2018 correctness, when in fact as I see it you can't discuss Freddie's sexual identity without acknowledging that 1946-1995 was a very different time to now. I also find comments such as "It strips Mercury of a part of his identity that was as vital to his success as his four-octave vocal range." quite insulting. I hope nobody is defined in terms fo their creativity or skill by their sexual identity and I'm sure Mercury himself would have been not too amused if people had suggested to him his creativity was due in "vital" amounts to his sexuality. But at the same time, the film is very clear that Freddie is gay. It's a similar thing to how I can't understand how some people have to desire either Mary or Jim. Freddie loved them both! Not in the same way. To acknowledge that Freddie loved Mary does not diminish the truth of his love for Jim or negate the truth of his homosexuality. People suggest those who would enjoy or be happy with Bohemian Rhapsody must be simple minded, but I feel certainly in this area, to be unable to accept something more nuanced and complicated than simply "Freddie was gay & that's FANTASTIC and WONDROUS in every way." suggests some limit in the imaginative capacity and ability to place oneself in the time period this all took place on the part of the critic... Oh and the film does tell rather than show. For me, something more poetic would quite clearly make a better film. But for all of Bohemian Rhapsody's flaws, I enjoyed it - found it respectful, enjoyable and to contain something true about Freddie's nature. (Of course not everything true - very basically, Freddie had far more wit for starters!!). But it's fair enough to criticise the film - there are plenty of flaws it genuinely DOES have. I don't understand why some (most?) critics seem so keen on inventing/taking offence at other flaws it (as I experienced it) doesn't have and putting them out there like they're truths....??? I don't get it. |
| bucsateflon 11.01.2019 19:47 |
All those critics you cited never knew to name three Queen albums, so their opinions are nullified. They can only be objective regarding acting stuff and screenplay structure and production but not on the story itself. |
| Saint Jiub 12.01.2019 20:16 |
spiralstatic wrote: You've read an awful lot of reviews of a film you don't wish to see! It's interesting, because I think after reading so many reviews, it would be hard to take the film for what it is even if you ever did decide to watch it on the TV some day now. But if you ever do, I'd be curious to know if these sort of comments play in your head as you watch!? And if you could get anything positive from any of the film. VERY TRUE. I WOULD LIKELY BE VERY IRRITATED WITH BRIAN'S APPARENT REVISIONIST HISTORY, AND BE UNABLE TO ENJOY THIS FILM CASUALLY. .... I don't think for a moment the film reduced Freddie's sexual identity to something sordid though. It shows connection with other men from the very start of the film, it clearly shows Freddie attracted to men pre-Paul Prenter. It clearly shows Freddie has zero desire for a sexual relationship with Mary once they have broken up. I THINK THAT YOU OVERLOOKED OR IGNORED A FEW STATEMENTS FROM THE WEB ARTICLES THAT I QUOTED. THE CONSTANT DISAPPROVING HEAD SHAKING BY THE OTHER 3 BAND MEMBERS APPEARS TO IMPLY THAT FREDDIE'S BEHAVIOR IS VERY SORDID. FURTHERMORE, THE FALSE PORTRAYAL OF FREDDIE LIVING ALONE IN THE GARDEN LODGE SEEMS TO IMPLY THAT FREDDIE IS SOLELY LIVING A LONELY SORDID LIFE VOID OF FRIENDS OR FAMILY. FINALLY, THE MOVIE APPEARS TO MISTAKENLY SHOW THAT FREDDIE IS VERY JEALOUS OF MARY'S "COMPETING" ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS. ... THE BELOW ARE THE QUOTES THAT SUSPECT THAT YOU ARE OVERLOOKING: Look, there’s Freddie, doing drugs and hanging out with all his gay friends, while the rest of the band – those squeaky clean choir boys – tell Freddie how they can’t stay and party because they all have to get home to their wives and kids. You see, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon are wholesome people who would never partake in the rockstar lifestyle like Freddie Mercury does. The whole movie is basically those three shaking their heads at Freddie’s behavior. ... After they break up — because Mercury is gay — Mercury pines for Austin. He longs for her to keep wearing her wedding ring. He’s jealous of her boyfriend. At one point, he begs her to come live with him again, only to be informed that she’s pregnant. This moment is portrayed as a catastrophe that will keep them apart forever — as if it’s unfortunate timing that’s at issue, rather than Mercury’s queer identity. ... More troubling is the way the movie addresses Mercury’s affairs off-stage. The singer’s sex life is portrayed less as a personal choice than an illicit descent into a sinister underworld. He is lured there by a back-stabbing lover, band manager Paul Prenter, a convenient villain for all of the problems endured by Mercury and, by extension, his band. It reduces his story to a moral accounting – the “deviant” punished for his sins but allowed one last chance at redemption.My comments regarding some of your statements are shown above in "ALL CAPS" after each paragraph. |
| runner_70 12.01.2019 20:20 |
Saint Jiub wrote: I generally agree with the above soapbox statements in my local newspaper Although I have refused to see this mediocre movie, I still have negative opinions based on what I have seen and heard: * The portrayal of Freddie breaking up the band for several years because of his solo album. * The portrayal of the other three band members as saints who went home to their families. * The stereotypical depiction of the gay lifestyle as epitomized by Paul Prenter. * The insinuation that Freddie would have been better off denying his sexual identity and marrying Saint Mary. * The portrayal of John Deacon as a loser.Amen - for that alone Maylor should rot in hell. A clear insult to Freddie and JOhn |