Bohemian Rhapsody

I'd read the bad reviews about this film and then I'd seen the numerous awards that it picked up - mostly by Rami Malek for his performance - so I was genuinely interested finally to see it.

I enjoyed it, but thought  that it offered a sanitised version of Freddie Mercury's life: it would take someone with the talent of Derek Jarman even to come close to a more authentic version, although I don't think that such a film would have received the approval of the rest of Queen let alone the finance needed to produce it.

Bohemian Rhapsody

USA 2018        134 minutes

Director:          Bryan Singer

Starring:            Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee and Ben Hardy

“We can stipulate a few things about Bohemian Rhapsody. We can stipulate that it’s not a great movie. We can stipulate that, in many ways, it’s not even a very good movie. As a trite, often laughably clichéd biopic of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, an enterprise that should have been as daring and flamboyantly theatrical as its subject winds up being bowdlerized, Wiki-fied, distortingly compressed and unforgivably conventional.

And yet.

We can also stipulate that, despite the myriad shortcomings of its parts, the sum of Bohemian Rhapsody winds up being giddily entertaining, first as an exercise in so-bad-it’s-funny kitsch, and ultimately as something far more meaningful and thrilling. Every now and then, a film comes along that defies the demands of taste, formal sophistication, even artistic honesty to succeed simply on the level of pure, inexplicable pleasure. Bohemian Rhapsody is just that cinematic unicorn: the bad movie that works, even when it shouldn’t.”

Anne Hornaday, Washington Post

Award and Nominations:

• Won four Oscars including Best Actor (Rami Malek)
• Won two BAFTAs including Best Actor (Rami Malek) plus five other nominations
• A further 27 wins and 56 nominations

In London in the early 1970s aspiring musician Farrokh Bulsara (Rami Malek) learns that the lead singer of a band called Smile has left and so he auditions to take on the role: subsequently Bulsara changes his name to Freddie Mercury, the band renames itself Queen and the group begins its rise to global success. In the 1980s Freddie Mercury leaves the band to work on solo albums, but they reunite to perform triumphantly at the 1985 Live Aid concert. Prior to their performance Mercury reveals to his bandmates that he has contracted the HIV virus and intertitles at the end of the film state that he died from AIDs-related pneumonia in 1994.

Brain May and Roger Taylor were both co-producers of the film which had a long and complex production history involving, among other issues, a struggle over whether the film should focus on the story of the band or should be a more adult story focused on the life on Mercury. Initially both Sacha Baron Cohen and Ben Whishaw had been linked to the role of Mercury with Dexter Fletcher (whose previous work as director includes the musical Sunshine on Leith (2013) and the comedy Eddie the Eagle (2016)) to direct from a screenplay by Peter Morgan. In November 2015 Anthony McCarten, who had written the screenplays for both The Theory of Everything (2014) and Darkest Hour (2017), was commissioned to produce a new screenplay from Morgan’s outline and the film finally went into production in 2016. In addition to the complexities of its production history the film’s screenplay generated some controversy as a result of its depiction of some key events in the history of Queen in the wrong order, especially Mercury’s HIV diagnosis: it is generally accepted that he discovered that he had been infected between late 1986 and Spring 1987, and in reality he did not make the other band members aware of this until late in 1989.

Bryan Singer is credited as the film’s director although he was fired from the production with less than two weeks of principal photography left. Dexter Fletcher was recalled by the producers to finish the photography and complete the film although the credits list only Singer as director, with Fletcher’s role being relegated to that of Executive Producer. Fletcher is currently working on Rocketman, a biography of Elton John which has the tagline of being “based on a true fantasy”, a statement which hopefully will ensure that it escapes criticism for any elements that do not reflect the historical record.

Here is the trailer:

Eddie the Eagle

This was a bit of a surprise: I missed the reviews of the film when it came out and based on the subject matter it did not appeal, but it was great fun.

It was our last film before Christmas so we chose something light. Everyone who came enjoyed it, no doubt helped by the mulled wine and mince pies.

Here are my notes:

Eddie the Eagle

UK 2016                      105 minutes

Director:                      Dexter Fletcher

Starring:                        Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Iris Berben and Jim Broadbent

Awards and Nominations

• Won Truly Moving Picture Award at Heartland Film Festival
• A further three nominations, including a Teen Choice Nomination for Taron Egerton

“This Matthew Vaughn production is one of those cheerful Britcoms that celebrate the idea that we’re a bit crap and uncool as a nation, but carry-on-regardless spirit will see us through. In reality, you might regard it as a surreptitious hymn to innate national superiority: those Norwegians may have been mastering the sport since childhood, but a Brit armed with doughty innocence will only need a few months’ practice to emerge with honour.”

Jonathan Romney

Eddie Edwards (Taron Egerton) dreams of Olympic glory and takes up skiing so that he can take part in the Winter Games. While training in Germany he is taken on by Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), a former champion ski jumper who is now an alcoholic; Peary starts training his new pupil and uses various unorthodox methods to improve his skills. Eddie qualifies for the Olympics and at Calgary sets a British record with his ski jump.

The film is produced by Matthew Vaughn (director of Stardust (2007), Kick-Ass (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011) and Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014). He had been watching the film Cool Runnings (1993), a film about the Jamaican bobsled team at the Calgary Olympics, and wondered why no one made films like that anymore. Coincidentally Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards had participated in the same Olympics, and this might have been a catalyst for the film, although it bears little resemblance to the life of the real Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards who was warned that 90% of the story was made up. The character of Bronson Peary is entirely fictional.

Director Dexter Fletcher began his career as a child actor with a small role in Bugsy Malone (1976) and has subsequently appeared in many films and TV programmes, including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) (which Matthew Vaughn produced) as well as Stardust and Kick-Ass. In 2012 he directed Wild Bill, his first feature film, followed by the highly successful musical Sunshine on Leith, which used music by The Proclaimers, in 2013.

Eddie the Eagle is a British/German/American production, with substantial funding from the German Federal Film Fund, and it received its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.  Following its worldwide release the film grossed $46.1million including $12.8 million in the UK, which made it the highest grossing British film released in the UK in the first half of 2016.

Here is the trailer: