So pleased to Rami Malek and Bohemian Rhapsody get props at the Golden Globes for best actor and best picture-drama. That was a great film, if not totally accurate.
Well deserved.
I loved the film but wasn’t sure if I was just swayed by my love of Queen and Freddie, so I really didn’t expect that. Of course, I didn’t even know what was nominated this year so that was a double, pleasant surprise.
Holy cow, does Brian May ever age? His trademark curls are white now, but other than that, he looks frozen in time. I didn’t even recognize Roger Taylor. Once I realized it was him sitting at the table, I saw the same handsome face from years ago, but I’m not too keen on his current style.
The performance was indeed great but film was merely decent, a largely formulaic musical bio-pic. The only other nominee I have seen is Black Panther, which was again decent, but not even the best Marvel film of the year IMO. Maybe 2018 just wasn’t a great year.
Well, he’ll be 70 this year. He’s justifiably becoming an old British man. Can’t blame a man for that.
I was surprised to hear that Bohemian Rhapsody won best drama, after having heard so many people (including here on the SDMB) say it was formulaic and mediocre—enjoyable for fans of Queen, but hardly a Great Movie. (And that arguably the best things about the movie were the musical performances, yet it won in the Drama category rather than the Musical category.) I guess the rule is: Biopics win awards.
I just wonder if at least 5% of the motion picture academy’s voters think it’s the best picture of 2018 - under the new rules, that seems to be the requirement to get a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Only if there are fewer than five films that reach the 5% threshold (and note that the 5% is for the voter’s single best film, not just in the voter’s top five or ten) do they look at everybody’s “top ten lists.”
I agree.
Despite me loving the film immensely, I would say it isn’t “Best Picture” good. It truly is formulaic, and has a ton of flaws.
Give Malek Best Actor, sure! It was a best actor level performance.
Speaking of biopics, at least First Man didn’t win. What a poor film that is. Good soundtrack, though. Theremins rule. 
Recent post by Brian:“I Feel About 15 But Shame I Look About 89”. 
I haven’t seen the movie, having heard it was good-but-not-great, but I guess I’ll check it out.
I was more shocked by Green Book winning the Musical/Comedy category, since I had heard it wasn’t even close to great. Very weird year.
It was quite good but it wasn’t really close to being a comedy or a musical, even though the main character is a musician and there are some light moments.
I sat through Bohemian Rhapsody a bit irritated and impatient as it tip-toed in its PG-13 way through what had to be a lot of made-up stuff. Rolling my eyes at the long depiction of what was supposed to be the Lady Love of His Life, and ever so gently later tiptoeing around his gay side, visiting a leather bar and receiving a chaste kiss or two. I remember reading a review where the writer seemed very angry and doubtful about the song-writing process, seeming to be offended that the songs just ‘came’ to the group ‘out of thin air’. (Myself, I don’t know how musicians think up and write songs, other than noodling around for hours at a piano. For all I know, inspiration might very WELL strike like a bolt from the blue.) . But OMG the best actor award was well deserved! That concert re-enactment, Wembley Stadium, was breathtaking. I found myself in tears, I was so taken by it .
I’ll disagree about “tiptoeing around”. Freddy was shown having drug-fueled gay orgies. Those leather boys weren’t coming by to watch TV. Short of making it X-rated gay porn I’m not sure it could have been more obvious.
I was disappointed that this movie was chosen the best of the best. I cannot believe that Brian May as one of the producers would allow such a work of fiction to be presented as a biopic. My guess is that he completely sold out. I would have loved more historical accuracy and more focus on the creative process.
And Rami as best actor? The stage performances were excellent but he played Freddie as a one dimensional fop.
It’s so sad that this film won as now we can expect more of this drivel.
This is the world where truth doesn’t matter and alternate realities are more interesting than character.
I know the chronology is off in certain areas but beside that, what important details are inaccurate?
Well, no one in the industry ever dismissed BR because “kids won’t be banging their heads in cars” to it.
Freddy knew Smile before the point in the film where he introduced himself to them, and had already been in two bands. Is that an important detail? I don’t think so myself.
As far as I can tell, the rest of the inaccuracies are all chronological. And while those are stupid and for the most part unnecessary, I don’t think they ruin the film.
Off the top of my head, the biggest inaccuracies were in the third act. Freddie never left the band to exclusively pursue a solo career (as depicted in the film). In the scene in their manager’s office, when the four of them are discussing “reuniting” for Live Aid, Brian says, “we haven’t even played together in years,” when, in actuality, the band (including Freddie) had just come off of a nearly yearlong tour in support of “The Works.”
That segment of the film also depicts Freddie as receiving a diagnosis of AIDS just before Live Aid, and his revelation of that diagnosis to his bandmates during a rehearsal is a pivotal moment in the film. Based on what Jim Hutton has said, Freddie wasn’t diagnosed with AIDS until late April of 1987 (or, nearly two years after Live Aid, and outside of the movie’s scope).
It might be easier to state the details that are accurate.
All those guys were in the band and did play those instruments. They wrote those songs too.
The band did not meet that way. They did not sell their van to make their first album. There was never a confrontation with the record company over the song Bohemian Rhapsody. The manager was never fired because he suggested Freddie go solo. The band did not “reunite” for Live Aid. Freddy did not have AIDS at the time of that concert.
These are not just chronological. They are rock and roll cliches.
I think a more accurate, more sensitive movie about the life of a gay rock star would have been more interesting and made a better movie.
I still can’t believe Brian May and the boys allowed this to be made.
Hmmm. I didn’t think I’d remembered Freddie ever going solo and I was also pretty sure they were still together and still kind of popular (I know I still liked them) at the time of Live Aid. Other than that, I just look at the other stuff as creative license. Maybe Brian and Roger don’t think those other details are a big deal either.
And yet all us young 80’s metal-head guys never had a clue about Rob Halford.