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Bohemian Rhapsody -Rami Malek

Michael Knight

By Michael Knight
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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89758

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On 5/15/2018 at 12:45 PM, Horn_Spanker said:

Looks pretty bad.  Would have worked with Sacha Baron Cohen.  

Yeah, he wanted it so bad and was taking it very seriously.  Was going to be his Deadpool.  

But they fucked uo and had a shitty script that would have had Freddie dying early on in the movie, among other things. I think he bailed  during that first script or two. 

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CurlyDumps

CurlyDumps 4476

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On 5/15/2018 at 12:23 PM, RPM said:

Malek is a great actor. Have no idea if he's any kind of singer. Hopefully it's all lipsync.

Sounds like they’re dubbing in the real thing.  Letting an actor impersonate Freddy Mercury’s voice would be a disaster of a decision.  

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lateshow

lateshow 1304

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On 5/17/2018 at 11:45 AM, CurlyDumps said:

Sounds like they’re dubbing in the real thing.  Letting an actor impersonate Freddy Mercury’s voice would be a disaster of a decision.  

I've yet to see anyone that could properly impersonate Freddy Mercury. 

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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9127

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Was listening to some Queen earlier, and decided to look up this movie (I knew it’s been in the works).

A biopic of Freddie Mercury that’s rated PG-13? I find that surprising, but I think I also remember hearing the band is very protective of its iimage, so it may have really controlled/neutered the script.

And Singer is still credited as the director on IMDB.

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irishtexan

irishtexan 11522

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On 5/18/2018 at 1:32 PM, lateshow said:

I've yet to see anyone that could properly impersonate Freddy Mercury. 

I don't know if this dude can act, but he's the closest you get to being able to "sing" the part.

Like with anything directed by Bryan Singer, I have no idea what to expect out of this. It could be fucking awesome. It could be Usual Suspects. It could be X-Men Apocolypse. 

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Michael Knight

Michael Knight 12989

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This felt like a Queen concert, all performance no substance. They really just glossed over everything and the only good parts were the songs. Before the mustache Rami was distractingly weird looking, and did we really need fucking Shrek in there? That said the Live Aid part was good

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Chad Fuck

Chad Fuck 17698

Posted
Posted (edited)

Saw it with Chad Jr. and the Mrs. yesterday.  We all enjoyed it.  I thought they did a good job of handling the inter-band squabbling and Mercury's excesses (while alluding to the excesses of the others) in a way that made it clear to adults, but still let it be a family movie, which equals young Queen fans.  Chad Jr.  was rocking out and asking questions about the music (not Freddy's proclivities) afterwards.  It had the ring of truth, given the May/Taylor consultations.  

As a story, I thought it was pretty well told given the subject matter.  Would the gritty, adult oriented version that Sacha Baron Cohen wanted be better?  I don't know.  It would certainly have been different and it's probably a story I'd still like to see on screen.  But I was entertained by this one as well.  

Seeing Mike Myers discuss how no one would head-bang to Bohemian Rhapsody 20 years from now was fun.  

Wayne_247363_887599.gif

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Buffsoldier

Buffsoldier 1895

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3 hours ago, Chad Fuck said:

Seeing Mike Myers discuss how no one would head-bang to Bohemian Rhapsody 20 years from now was fun.  

Wayne_247363_887599.gif

This.  Made me giggle.

There was a few things about the movie that left a bit to be desired.  Like Freddie announcing to the band that he had AIDS before LiveAid.  In fact, he was diagnosed in 1987 (and unofficially in 1986), which was a full year plus after LiveAid.  The (onscreen) turmoil about Freddie doing the solo albums seemed a bit disingenuous, since Brian May had already had a solo/side project (the forgettable Star Fleet Project, with Eddie Van Halen, if you can believe that) and Roger Taylor already had 2 solo albums in 1981 and 1984.  It also seems that Paul Prenter was made out to be much more of a dickhead in the movie than he was in real life.  He was still a jackass, having outed Freddie to the Sun Tabloid in '87, but just not to the level presented in the movie.

All that said, I was still very entertained by the movie, and really really enjoyed it.  The LiveAid performance part had me actually forgetting I was watching a movie and believing that I was really watching LiveAid.

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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Also saw it yesterday. It's not a great film by any stretch, but I enjoyed it.

It was definitely filled with a lot of rise-fall-return rock star movie cliches, and even as someone who didn't know much about Queen going in, it had the feeling of playing pretty loose with some facts... there were certain things that just seemed to be obviously played up for drama... the timing of the HIV diagnosis being one... a few things also did illicit a bit of an eye roll also, like the idea that Live Aid wasn't really raising any money until Queen played... I mean... come on.

However, it was worth it just to get all of the great Queen songs blasted at you in a movie theater for a few hours and Rami Malek was absolutely electric as Freddie, especially in the concert scenes... I didn't think it would be possible for anyone to capture/replicate Freddie's charisma on stage, but I'll be damned if Rami didn't pull it off.  

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Spankytoes

Spankytoes 1742

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21 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

It wasn't bad but it wasn't great. They skimmed over way too much for it to be much of a biopic. Most of the between concert scenes dealt with how they came up with some of their hits. There was a little about Freddie's lifestyle, but nothing too detailed.

This. It was a generic rock movie. It was more like a collection of exaggerated stories on how they came up with their biggest hits more than anything. It's a TBS flipping through the channels kind of flick instead of a rental. Very little depth to any of the characters. Rami was pretty good though.

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XYZ

XYZ 2154

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5 hours ago, oSuJeff97 said:

However, it was worth it just to get all of the great Queen songs blasted at you in a movie theater for a few hours

This. Also:

Spoiler

When the movie was almost over, I was like “if they don’t play ‘Don’t stop me now’ I will burn this place to the ground”.

 

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Michael Knight

Michael Knight 12989

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On 11/4/2018 at 6:48 PM, PittsburghTiger said:

We liked it. To be honest I don't know all the background behind Queen's internal struggles and what had led to Mercury leaving to go solo.

That Paul guy should have been beaten with a bat.

He didn't, the first guy to do a solo album was the drummer; Mercury was the 3rd member to do one.

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PittsburghTiger

PittsburghTiger 6192

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9 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

He didn't, the first guy to do a solo album was the drummer; Mercury was the 3rd member to do one.

See, I didn't know that. I always liked Queen, but I never really sought out deep information about them, or any band for that matter. I went to my first Grateful Dead concert when I was in sixth grade but to this day I laugh when I listen to their channel on the Sirius and folks call in and talk about how the band changed their lives, blah blah, blah. For the most part I just want to be entertained.

I digress. 

I wonder why they did it that way and made it seem like Freddy did it first? Or, as someone a few posts up said, about Freddy and when he told the guys he had AIDS - in the movie being different than the reality. It's like in the movie about Ernie Davis when they had Syracuse playing at WVU that year and highlighted a bunch of racist hillbillies, when Syracuse did not play them at WVU that year.

The story of Queen is interesting enough that they didn't need to make up shit.

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oSuJeff97

oSuJeff97 3435

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11 hours ago, PittsburghTiger said:

See, I didn't know that. I always liked Queen, but I never really sought out deep information about them, or any band for that matter. I went to my first Grateful Dead concert when I was in sixth grade but to this day I laugh when I listen to their channel on the Sirius and folks call in and talk about how the band changed their lives, blah blah, blah. For the most part I just want to be entertained.

I digress. 

I wonder why they did it that way and made it seem like Freddy did it first? Or, as someone a few posts up said, about Freddy and when he told the guys he had AIDS - in the movie being different than the reality. It's like in the movie about Ernie Davis when they had Syracuse playing at WVU that year and highlighted a bunch of racist hillbillies, when Syracuse did not play them at WVU that year.

The story of Queen is interesting enough that they didn't need to make up shit.

Yeah some of it I get... like moving up the timing of when he told the band about the HIV diagnosis... they wanted to make the Live Aid performance the emotional climax of the film for good reason... so moving up the HIV thing to right before that is acceptable dramatic license, IMO.

The weirder decisions were things like having song releases all out of order (I didn't know enough about Queen to notice this, but have read that apparently several songs were shown being played years before they were actually released) or like the moment when they were acting like Live Aid wasn't getting any donations until Queen played... stuff like that is just silly and pointless.

 

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Spankytoes

Spankytoes 1742

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17 hours ago, PittsburghTiger said:

The story of Queen is interesting enough that they didn't need to make up shit.

Actually, it's really not. 

Freddie is an interesting character due to his persona on stage and arguably the greatest rock frontman ever. But, he was really shy offstage and preferred the life on an introvert. He was a lot like Robin Williams where he got pleasure being "on" to entertain folks. BR tried to make Freddie a caricature of what people thought he was rather than how he really was. (Like Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim Morrison in "The Doors") The band itself was quite boring with the normal ups and downs associated with being famous. Very "British".

BR just didn't have any real depth to the relationships Freddie had with his parents and Mary Austin, who he left most of his estate to. All we got was a few references to the insult "Paki" instead of the daily torment due to his overbite and race. Some of that was to maintain the PG-13 rating and some of it was to protect his legacy for his family's sake. The movie itself was a very compressed set of events to fill a screentime length. They could have just as easily made the movie about Lynard Skynard with their final script. It was very generic. John Deakins, the bass player, quit music completely after Freddie's death and has remained out of the limelight refusing to rejoin his surviving bandmates. There was major tension in the recording of "Under Pressure" with David Bowie, which the film failed to include anything about. We didn't get anything on their work for "The Highlander" or the iconic "Flash Gordon" theme, which caused a power struggle within the band regarding selling out. They barely touched on hits like "We are the Champions", "The Show Must Go On" or Freddie's foray into opera duets during his solo career. As I posted above, we got someone's positive memories on how some of their major hits came about to be recorded. 

All in all, it was a cash grab film. The intent was to boost residuals from their songs one last time in the twilight of the surviving band member's lives. As a huge Queen fan I was happy to see that a movie was made, and thought Rami nailed Freddie's look and movements, but the expectations are too unrealistic of what a "great" movie would entail. From what BR was, I would have preferred that they remastered concert clips and put them on IMAX instead of simply trying to recreate iconic moments.

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PittsburghTiger

PittsburghTiger 6192

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6 hours ago, Spankytoes said:

Actually, it's really not. 

Freddie is an interesting character due to his persona on stage and arguably the greatest rock frontman ever. But, he was really shy offstage and preferred the life on an introvert. He was a lot like Robin Williams where he got pleasure being "on" to entertain folks. BR tried to make Freddie a caricature of what people thought he was rather than how he really was. (Like Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim Morrison in "The Doors") The band itself was quite boring with the normal ups and downs associated with being famous. Very "British".

BR just didn't have any real depth to the relationships Freddie had with his parents and Mary Austin, who he left most of his estate to. All we got was a few references to the insult "Paki" instead of the daily torment due to his overbite and race. Some of that was to maintain the PG-13 rating and some of it was to protect his legacy for his family's sake. The movie itself was a very compressed set of events to fill a screentime length. They could have just as easily made the movie about Lynard Skynard with their final script. It was very generic. John Deakins, the bass player, quit music completely after Freddie's death and has remained out of the limelight refusing to rejoin his surviving bandmates. There was major tension in the recording of "Under Pressure" with David Bowie, which the film failed to include anything about. We didn't get anything on their work for "The Highlander" or the iconic "Flash Gordon" theme, which caused a power struggle within the band regarding selling out. They barely touched on hits like "We are the Champions", "The Show Must Go On" or Freddie's foray into opera duets during his solo career. As I posted above, we got someone's positive memories on how some of their major hits came about to be recorded. 

All in all, it was a cash grab film. The intent was to boost residuals from their songs one last time in the twilight of the surviving band member's lives. As a huge Queen fan I was happy to see that a movie was made, and thought Rami nailed Freddie's look and movements, but the expectations are too unrealistic of what a "great" movie would entail. From what BR was, I would have preferred that they remastered concert clips and put them on IMAX instead of simply trying to recreate iconic moments.

I reckon I stand corrected.

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Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler 3488

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On 11/6/2018 at 1:05 PM, Spankytoes said:

Actually, it's really not. 

Freddie is an interesting character due to his persona on stage and arguably the greatest rock frontman ever. But, he was really shy offstage and preferred the life on an introvert. He was a lot like Robin Williams where he got pleasure being "on" to entertain folks. BR tried to make Freddie a caricature of what people thought he was rather than how he really was. (Like Val Kilmer's portrayal of Jim Morrison in "The Doors") The band itself was quite boring with the normal ups and downs associated with being famous. Very "British".

BR just didn't have any real depth to the relationships Freddie had with his parents and Mary Austin, who he left most of his estate to. All we got was a few references to the insult "Paki" instead of the daily torment due to his overbite and race. Some of that was to maintain the PG-13 rating and some of it was to protect his legacy for his family's sake. The movie itself was a very compressed set of events to fill a screentime length. They could have just as easily made the movie about Lynard Skynard with their final script. It was very generic. John Deakins, the bass player, quit music completely after Freddie's death and has remained out of the limelight refusing to rejoin his surviving bandmates. There was major tension in the recording of "Under Pressure" with David Bowie, which the film failed to include anything about. We didn't get anything on their work for "The Highlander" or the iconic "Flash Gordon" theme, which caused a power struggle within the band regarding selling out. They barely touched on hits like "We are the Champions", "The Show Must Go On" or Freddie's foray into opera duets during his solo career. As I posted above, we got someone's positive memories on how some of their major hits came about to be recorded. 

All in all, it was a cash grab film. The intent was to boost residuals from their songs one last time in the twilight of the surviving band member's lives. As a huge Queen fan I was happy to see that a movie was made, and thought Rami nailed Freddie's look and movements, but the expectations are too unrealistic of what a "great" movie would entail. From what BR was, I would have preferred that they remastered concert clips and put them on IMAX instead of simply trying to recreate iconic moments.

I am convinced your claim that you are a huge Queen fan is very true, which makes your reference to "John Deakins" all the more puzzling.

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