Gregg Bissonette
Slightly off-topic: Note to Todd fans–his autobiography, The Individualist - Digressions, Dreams & Dissertations, is coming out next month.
ps: Roger Daltrey has wanted to make a Keith Moon biopic for years, but I think the plans ultimately came to nothing.
There have been movies about segments of the Beatles’ career (the excellent, underrrated Backbeat for example) or individual Beatles (mostly on the small screen–only one Beatle biopic I can think of for the big screen, Nowhere Boy, about John’s youth). But I’d love to see, not just a movie on the Beatles’ whole career, but a miniseries–or even a multi-season cable drama.
Their story is just so fascinating and so rich with side characters and incidents that I don’t know if a movie would do it justice. There have been documentaries, I know, but I’d like to see the story dramatized.
There was talk of a Brian Epstein biopic with Benedict Cumberbatch, but it seems to have come to nothing. That would have been a good story to tell in its own right.
Speaking of Beatles biopics, there is also Two Of Us, a TV movie imagining what might have happened one night at The Dakota when Paul paid a visit to the Lennon household. Worth checking out if you’re a fan.
There’s already been an Ian Dury biopic, Sex and Drugs and Rock n Roll, starring Andy Serkis. It’s pretty good.
someone else talked about making a movie about Moon but Daltrey got Townshend to deny the Who music rights so that other movie was canceled .
If these things come in threes, I’d probably argue that Straight outta Compton was really the first, Bohemian Rhapsody was the middle, and Rocketman will be the final band/performer biopic of the trio.
BAM!; it’s on my list! Thanks for the heads-up!
Can I recommend 24 Hour Party People in return? It’s about Tony Wilson, who founded Factory Records and helped birth Rave culture. Many bands and colorful, interesting and influential people are part of the story.
For studio musicians, there have been The Wrecking Crew, Muscle Shoals, and a third (centered on the Stax label?) which I can’t remember the title of right now.
Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story
Don’t forget 20 Feet from Stardom about backing singers or 2016’s Hired Gun about touring/studio musicians.
I’ve been waiting for a J.P. Richardson biopic for years, but since one was named after the artist and one for a signature song, the last of the trilogy needs to be named for a catchphrase - “Helloooooo Baby!”.
a few movies were made about Elvis - one was a TV movie in 79 and the other was a TV mini-series in 2005.
They should do a variation of my modest movie proposal.
Make three, independent, biopics, that are fully stand alone movies, but use the same actors for the characters in all three. And the scenes where they are all together on screen are exactly the same (maybe change camera angles, focusing on whose movie the scene is in).
If you really wanted to be gimmicky, “time code” the movies so the interaction scenes are all at the same run point in the movies. Have the movies finally converge at the crash.
From IMDB:
“The movie was originally entitled “Pearl”, which was a biographical movie based on Janis Joplin’s life. When approached with the script for “Pearl”, Bette Midler believed it was too soon after Joplin’s death to portray her life in a movie. Rewrites were then made, with Midler’s guidance, that deleted some portions of the original script and embellished other parts of the story. Then the rewritten script was named “The Rose” and Midler agreed to the lead role.”
I only saw it once but I think there was a Kris Kristofferson(est) character in there. Bette did a great job, but she’s no Janis! That’s the major problem with any movie about Janis, she was so powerful and bigger than life when she was on stage and so incredibly insecure off stage, getting someone to capture both sides of her is near impossible.
I quick check on IMDB shows there are plans for a movie called Janis starring Michelle Williams. Sorry, don’t know who she is since I don’t watch anything from Hollywood.
A Fleetwood Mac movie would be interesting, but there have been so many documentaries about the group, I don’t see how a movie would be able bring anything new to the table. The same holds true for most groups/soloists.
Plus, like Janis (though of course not to her level), I can’t see anyone matching Stevie’s early (partially drug-induced) versions of Rhiannon (both visually and aurally), while being a good enough actress to portray her in the rest of the movie.
I see she was one of the stars of “Dawson’s Creek” and played the lead in a Marilyn Monroe biopic a few years back.
I’d watch the fuck out of Heart Full of Napalm: The Iggy Pop Story. God knows who you’d cast, though.
I’d watch that.
Or how about an MC5 movie? Plenty of drama there!
Did you know that this wasn’t Alex’s first documentary? That’s right: in 1971, he and about 10 other Toronto teenagers lived together on a farm for two months. With the exception of one youngster (NOT Alex!), it’s really not as scandalous as it may seem. I finally saw it a few weeks ago after I found it on You Tube.
It’s called “Come On Children.” Maybe I haven’t looked hard enough, but I haven’t been able to find it on DVD (my library couldn’t locate a copy) because I’d LOVE to hear a commentary track, regardless of who would do it.
I first heard of it in the mid 1980s when a co-worker at Pizza Hut told me about it. My response was, “Where did you hear about something like this?” Don’t remember his answer.
There’s an Allin doco. Yeah, I’ve seen it. Unlike “Pink Flamingos”, this was real.