BEFORE: See, I could have come here right after "Dolittle", with Rami Malek carrying over. But no, I've got to do things the hard way, now, don't I? Really, this is just for proper spacing to get me to Memorial Day at just the right time. But I've got a personal reason for putting this film here, semi-accidentally. More on that in a bit.
Instead, Ben Hardy, the parkour guy from "6 Underground", carries over to play Queen's drummer, Roger Taylor, today. See, we're gonna get there, I'm gonna get everywhere eventually, it just takes time. And this completes my bio-pics for the month, I think - Malcolm X, Herve Villechaize, Judy Garland and now Freddie Mercury. OK, so it's a loose theme.
I'm WAY too early for my annual Summer Music Concert / Documentary series, but that's just how it goes. The linking demands that this film go here instead, plus, why wait any longer than I already have? Also, I don't think this one will link in to that RockDoc series, so here it goes.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Rocketman" (Movie #3,509)
THE PLOT: The story of the legendary British rock band Queen and their lead singer, Freddie Mercury, culminating with their famous performance at Live Aid.
AFTER: OK, time to get personal for a minute. The only reason I know anything at all about Queen, beyond what I've heard on Classic Rock Radio, is that my ex-wife was a HUGE Queen fan, like, one of the biggest. Styx fan, too, but Queen was her biggest rock obsession while we were together, probably before and after, too. We met at NYU in 1989, so we weren't together at the time of Live Aid, but I was there for her at the time of Freddie Mercury's death, and I remember we went in to my office on a weekend to watch the tribute concert for Freddie. I was getting in to cover versions right about that time, so I was very into it. (That's something I really recommend, everything from Annie Lennox & David Bowie doing "Under Pressure" to Liza Minnelli singing "We Are the Champions", it all just kills...)
So there's all kind of stuff that I know about Queen, stuff that didn't make it into the movie, like the fact that Brian May built his guitars himself, like BUILT them. Anybody can learn to play an electric guitar, but how many people take the time to learn how to build one? Plus Mr. May's like a scientific genius in the realm of astrophysics, but the film does point this out.
The resemblance is uncanny - of course I'm talking about Rami Malek's performance as Freddie Mercury, but just how much of that is the teeth? Oh, yeah, the VOICE, sure, that's amazing, but those choppers! The teeth get him halfway there, I suspect, and the accent's good, too - plus he's got Freddie's MOVES, so really, it's the whole package. (Yeah, he's got the package, too...). This is for sure on a par with Jim Carrey disappearing into the Andy Kaufman role, and Renée Zellweger transforming into Judy Garland. So, did Rami deserve the Oscar? Again, as for "Judy", I say HELL'S YEAH.
But let's talk just for a second about how hard it must be to find somebody who looks like Brian May. The resemblance there is almost as astounding - OK, maybe put anybody in a big white-guy afro and you've got something akin to Brian May, but this guy really had a Brian May face! Kudos to the casting director. The guy playing John Deacon's probably third in this scenario, and Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor is a distant fourth, unfortunately - at least he can play the drums, though!
I'm sort of dancing around all the personal life stuff - partially that's because I'm so close to it. My own story with my ex is something of a reverse-Freddie story, she came out of the closet a few years after we got married, so I was kind of her Mary Austin. It's been years since we split up, and part of me still doesn't fully understand it (what would have been our 30th wedding anniversary was just a few days ago, but I guess one way or another, we never would have made it that long...). Like, how could she not see that getting in touch with this aspect of herself would mean the end of our relationship? She wanted to stay together and also be gay, how was that ever going to work? But that's what's confusing about Freddie, too - he wanted to keep Mary close to him, but also at arm's length so that he could do what he wanted to do. You can't have your cake and eat it too, plus then also go out for pie after hours. I mean, you CAN, but for most it's unacceptable, and the concept of the thrupple hadn't been invented yet.
There's a lot of the same DNA as the film "Rocketman", especially where the evil/manipulative boyfriend/manager is concerned. The way it's played, in both films Elton John and Freddie as movie characters, took a lot of time to figure out they were gay, and both (allegedly) then fell prey to the people who, umm, helped them figure that out, shall we say. Then both of those men turned out to be money-grubbing, publicity-hungry, possessive evil bastards? That's quite a coincidence, and it makes me wonder how close both stories are to the truth, and how much of that is a screenwriter trying to balance some form of "redemption" into gay characters. Like, they didn't figure it out at first, they were manipulated by other men, so they're somehow now "all the way" gay? That's some bullshit, perhaps, and it carries some weird old-fashioned connotations about gayness being "evil" on some level.
And then just as Elton John couldn't truly be himself and become the consummate performer until he'd kicked this evil, manipulative manager person out of his life and learned to love himself, so it also went for Freddie, again, allegedly. Like, Freddie's boyfriend didn't even tell him about the offer to play at Live Aid, what a bastard! So definitely, he had to go - for this and for a bunch of other reasons, BUT was it really this clear-cut IRL, or were things all just a bit murkier? I suspect the latter.
"Rocketman" also glossed over Elton's honeymoon scene, I mean, there was no reason to be vulgar, but aren't the details of what happened between him and his wife kind of important? It's got everything to do with his sexuality, and if they didn't connect, they didn't connect, but, umm, WHY? Freddie wanted to marry Mary, and in fact he considered her his wife in all the important ways, but again, if they don't connect sexually, then it's probably a no-go. I guess maybe things were probably no different for Freddie than they are for many straight people, who want marriage and the security that comes with it, but then soon after they get it, they want someone or something else, maybe a bit of danger or just something new.
Redemption comes when Freddie reunites with the other band members, and he admits he's been an arsehole, and they cut a new deal. They share all credits and royalties going forward, everybody in the band is an equal, though obviously some are more equal than others. NOW they can play Live Aid, and as you may know, they absolutely killed it. Pity the poor band that had to follow Queen at that concert. (Some hacks named David Bowie, The Who, and Paul McCartney...)
But there are timeline issues here - in reality, Freddie didn't reveal his HIV status to his bandmates during the rehearsals for Live Aid (which according to this, resulted in a sort of "Let's win one for the Gipper" moment.) He may not have even been sick at the time, most people seem to think he wasn't diagnosed until 1987 and didn't have this discussion with the band until then, or later on in 1989.
Also, the film suggests that Live Aid was kind of Freddie's swan song, but it's just not true, the full band made four albums together after that, even if one wasn't released until after Mercury died.. Queen continued, they got resurrected again with Adam Lambert on lead vocals, but I think without John "I wear sweater-vests" Deacon. Good on them, it's good to live in a world where you can still go to a Queen concert or a Who concert or a Stones concert, it just won't always be that way.
Bryan Singer is credited as the director here, but reports from the set say that he was often late, causing filming delays, or just didn't show up at all, which seems a lot like Freddie Mercury-type behavior. I can't decide if this is ironic or not. He was eventually fired from the film but the DGA awarded him solo credit. The film was reportedly finished by Dexter Fletcher, who also directed "Rocketman", so maybe that's another reason why the two films seem so similar.
Also starring Rami Malek (last heard in "Dolittle"), Lucy Boynton (last seen in "Rebel in the Rye"), Gwilym Lee (last seen in "The Tourist"), Joe Mazzello (last seen in "Shadowlands"), Aidan Gillen (last seen in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"), Allen Leech (last seen in "From Time to Time"), Tom Hollander (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Mike Myers (last seen in "The Cat in the Hat"), Aaron McCusker, Meneka Das, Ace Bhatti (last seen in "Bend It Like Beckham"), Priya Blackburn, Tim Plester (last seen in "Kick-Ass"), Dermot Murphy, Dickie Beau, Jack Roth (last seen in "The Snowman"), Max Bennett (last seen in "The Gentlemen"), Neil Fox-Roberts, Michelle Duncan (last seen in "Atonement"), Jess Radomska, Philip Andrew, Adam Rauf, Rosy Benjamin, Leila Crerar, Katherine Newman, with a cameo from Adam Lambert and archive footage of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon.
RATING: 8 out of 10 bedrooms for cats
No comments:
Post a Comment