Best Music Biopic

bodhrandude

So what is your favourite biopic on musicians, my all time favourite is the one done on Edith Piaf, La Vie En Rose, followed closely by Amadeus about Mozart and Immortal Beloved with Gary Oldman playing Beethoven. Have yet to see Bird the biopic about Charlie Parker played by Forest Whitaker, is it worth checking out.

Edit: I changed thread title again as the movies I chose would probably be compared to something like Doctor Zhivago, Ghandi or The Passion of the Christ, so will keep it about musicians.

Fishooks12

I liked Last Days even though I'm not a huge Von Sant fan

rockmongrel

Walk The Line for me. Although I do seem to be one of the only people I know who enjoyed Last Days.

JP Liz V1

rockmongrel wrote: »

Walk The Line for me. Although I do seem to be one of the only people I know who enjoyed Last Days.

+ 1 for Walk The Line and I also like The Doors (Val Kilmer was superb in the role imo)

Mickeroo

IMHO Walk the Line and Ray are practically the same film with the music changed. I don't think they're great films either, they tick every cliche for music biopics going. I suggest watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the funniest thing about it is its no-more silly than either of those movies in many ways.

THe best music biopics I've seen imo are Control about Ian Curtis, brilliant film bout the Joy Division lead singer and 24 Hour Party People which is about Tony Wilson and factory records. The latter is a hilarious look at what went on and Control is gritty,realistic and believable, not something I could say about Ray or Walk the Line which were just blatant oscar bait, although Walk the Line was reasonably enjoyable. Watching Contol and 24 Hour Party People back to back is worth doing.

Nowhere Boy is also pretty good I thought.

thebostoncrab

Mickeroo wrote: »

IMHO Walk the Line and Ray are practically the same film with the music changed. I don't think they're great films either, they tick every cliche for music biopics going. I suggest watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the funniest thing about it is its no-more silly than either of those movies in many ways.

THe best music biopics I've seen imo are Control about Ian Curtis, brilliant film bout the Joy Division lead singer and 24 Hour Party People which is about Tony Wilson and factory records. The latter is a hilarious look at what went on and Control is gritty,realistic and believable, not something I could say about Ray or Walk the Line which were just blatant oscar bait, although Walk the Line was reasonably enjoyable. Watching Contol and 24 Hour Party People back to back is worth doing.

Nowhere Boy is also pretty good I thought.

+1 for Control. I went simply as a Joy Division fan and was not expecting the film to be ad brilliant as it turned out to be. I can't fault it, and it is alot more honest about its star than most other biopics. It could have been light hearted when it came to Curtis and his life on the road, but instead it had no problem show casing him as an incredibly fragile human who had a huge list of flaws. Absolutely essential viewing.

Nolanger

Glen Miller Story.

ImpossibleDuck

Mickeroo wrote: »

I suggest watching Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, the funniest thing about it is its no-more silly than either of those movies in many ways.

Hmmm you may be on to something here

Those were the first three clips I saw.

I really don't think you have a leg to stand on here.

Mickeroo

ImpossibleDuck wrote: »

Hmmm you may be on to something here



Those were the first three clips I saw.

I really don't think you have a leg to stand on here.

Watch the whole film. Three scenes taken out of context don't really say much.

What were you expecting exactly? Its a parody which pokes fun at the genre conventions of the music biopic, walk the line and Ray are the main targets. It follows both of those movies nearly beat for beat. The father son relationship is parodied particularly well regarding the heavy handedness with which Johnny Cash's father's disapproval is portrayed in Walk The Line. In Walk Hard his father constantly straight up tells him "The Wrong Son Died", where as in Walk the Line he may aswell have been saying that the whole time.

ImpossibleDuck

Mickeroo wrote: »

Watch the whole film. Three scenes taken out of context don't really say much.

What were you expecting exactly? Its a parody which pokes fun at the genre conventions of the music biopic, walk the line and Ray are the main targets. It follows both of those movies nearly beat for beat. The father son relationship is parodied particularly well regarding the heavy handedness with which Johnny Cash's father's disapproval is portrayed in Walk The Line. In Walk Hard his father constantly straight up tells him "The Wrong Son Died", where as in Walk the Line he may aswell have been saying that the whole time.

I have seen the whole film. You could say that they're taken out of context but at the same time, they're the first three I stumbled upon when looking for examples. From my memory of the film, these three scenes were typical of the movie in general, i.e. there was a bloody lot of them :P

But in response to your second point, I believe you have misunderstood what I was saying in my post. I wasn't commenting on whether the film was silly or not. I was just disagreeing with you saying that Walk Hard is as silly as Walk The Line or Ray, a point which I found baffling to be quite honest.

OK you may have been saying that Ray and WTL was silly due to how typical they were of their genre. If that is what you were saying then OK, a fair but highly exaggerated point.

tony1kenobi

Spinal Tap.

krudler

Mickeroo wrote: »

Watch the whole film. Three scenes taken out of context don't really say much.

What were you expecting exactly? Its a parody which pokes fun at the genre conventions of the music biopic, walk the line and Ray are the main targets. It follows both of those movies nearly beat for beat. The father son relationship is parodied particularly well regarding the heavy handedness with which Johnny Cash's father's disapproval is portrayed in Walk The Line. In Walk Hard his father constantly straight up tells him "The Wrong Son Died", where as in Walk the Line he may aswell have been saying that the whole time.

Walk Hard is one of the most underrated comedies in years. I laugh more every time I see it. Jack White as Elvis is priceless "uh huh LOOK OUT MAN!"

Fishooks12

Ray and WTL are hugely cliché ridden but pretty watchable

+1 for Control by the way. It portrayed Curtis for what he really was, a bit of a dick, although an immensely talented one. Fantastic unflinching piece of Cinema

blue note

I've seen most of the ones mentioned. Buddy holly is the best I've seen. Amadeus would be thereabouts to be fair.

dark crystal

I loved John Carpenter's biopic, Elvis.

I thought Kurt Russell was amazing in the role.

Latchy

I liked the Johnny Cash , Elvis ( with Kurt Russell ) and Ray Charles biops with really in depth looks at the subjects .

The Tina / Ike Turner biop was brilliant , if harrowing at times to watch

I also really liked the 2 part , 3 hr movie on the Beach Boys which was shown on sky movies some years ago which covered their early rise to fame , the meddling in their music by the Wilson brothers dad ( Murry) the connection with Charles Manson and the drug abuse of Dennis and Brian which eventually shifted the focus away from Brian as the main man and leader of the group .(not to be confused with a weaker biop movie film on the group ) and the guy who played Mike Love looked like his clone ...the resemblance ,manners and voice was so uncanny )

Mickeroo

ImpossibleDuck wrote: »

But in response to your second point, I believe you have misunderstood what I was saying in my post. I wasn't commenting on whether the film was silly or not. I was just disagreeing with you saying that Walk Hard is as silly as Walk The Line or Ray, a point which I found baffling to be quite honest.

OK you may have been saying that Ray and WTL was silly due to how typical they were of their genre. If that is what you were saying then OK, a fair but highly exaggerated point.

Yea, I meant it in the way it follows those movies beat for beat and the way they follow eachother beat for beat, obviously Walk Hard is literally a lot more silly than those movies, but neither of those movies feel like real life, they're not exactly gritty realistic character studies of the people they are portraying, they're glossy, cheesy, unrealistic movies made with nothing but academy awards in mind, even in the way they look. I just thought Walk Hard did a great job of deconstructing them and basically ripping the piss out of them in a reasonably clever way.

+1 for Walk hard and Elvis. I love those films.


One I really like is Cadillac Records. I was lucky enough to catch it one night on Sky Movies something or other.

Im not a huge fan of blues but it was a fascinating look into the blues scene back then. What I really liked about it was that every song Muddy Waters or Howlin Wolf sang I said to myself "Oh thats who sings that song!" or "I didnt know that song was that old"

Bouncy Knowles as Etta James was also really good.

I suppose if you are a true blues fan you might hate it because you know way more about the subject matter than the regular punter (me) but as far as a good film goes then I liked it for that.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1042877/

crash davis

Shine is a little gem.

p to the e

Latchy wrote: »

I also really liked the 2 part , 3 hr movie on the Beach Boys which was shown on sky movies some years ago which covered their early rise to fame , the meddling in their music by the Wilson brothers dad ( Murry) the connection with Charles Manson and the drug abuse of Dennis and Brian which eventually shifted the focus away from Brian as the main man and leader of the group .(not to be confused with a weaker biop movie film on the group ) and the guy who played Mike Love looked like his clone ...the resemblance ,manners and voice was so uncanny )

You should check out his autobiography "Wouldn't it be nice:My own story". One of the best reads i've had in ages. The amount of drugs this guy had made Ozzy Osbourne look like a teetotaller.

Shine was a particular favourite of mine due to a great soundtrack.

If you're looking for something a little different see if you can track down the documentary "Moog" a documentary of Robert Moog a pioneer in electronic music creating the synthesizer and the theremin. Some weird sounds throughout.

kraggy

crash davis wrote: »

Shine is a little gem.

Good call. Excellent film with excellent acting from many, not just by Rush.

Also, La Vie En Rose. Not quite the best but a contender nonetheless.

paulosham

The Buddy Holly Story is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sMFQySGHs8

There was a Little Richard biopic released in 2000, which I thought was pretty great.

mcmacness

I dont know if this counts as one but I quite enjoyed "The Last Waltz", I think it was directed by Martin Scorseze (wrong spelling). It's a film about the last concert that the band that supported Bob Dylan had, also called "The Band". There are loads of musical guest performances and good interviews and despite the fact that it's not my kind of music nor am I very knowledgable about it, but when my Dad brought the dvd home I was pleasantly surprised by it!

Nolanger

The rose - starring Bette Midler based on Janis Joplin.

bodhrandude

Biopic of Shirley Bassey tonight called Shirley on RTE 1 at 11.15 PM.

Captain Red Beard

Hell of a bump chief

Guy:Incognito

And it wasnt even to post Beethoven

bodhrandude

Another hell of a bump, caught Respect last night, the Aretha Franklin biopic played by Jennifer Hudson perfectly and Forest Whitaker as her father, supporting cast is magnificent too, worth seeing, check it out.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2452150/

artvanderlay

Great Balls of Fire, the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic. It's cartoonish and OTT, but a lot of fun. Dennis Quaid is great in it.

Relikk

Love & Mercy. Both halves of the film complement each other perfectly, and it's great that they focus on two distinct periods rather than trying to cram the majority of a life story in to a couple of hours. With my adoration for Brian Wilson and the Pet Sounds/Smile projects, the first half is pure joy, and Paul Dano is perfect as Wilson.

PTH2009

Bohemian Rhapsody is my favourite but it's hard to ignore the way some of the events were made up to make a story

Beechwoodspark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117930123#Comment_117930123

Yeah very good movie and that’s coming from someone who’s a BW expert.