Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

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moodyblue
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Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by moodyblue »

Has anyone seen this biopic of Freddie Mercury yet?

I had the pleasure of sitting thorough this film last night and I have to say, it was immensely enjoyable.
The actor that plays Freddie is a very convincing character and the bloke who plays Brian May sounds exactly like him.

Suffice to say, it is exactly 32 years (November 24th 1991) since Freddie passed away. Where has the time gone?
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by flashback »

Freddie was 1 of the greatest voices of all time.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by twcc »

Not seen the film yet ... 32-years, that makes me feel old, I remember the day clearly as the team were up at 05:00 to catch a harbour taxi out to an aircraft carrier on sea trials. It was a difficult day and we had a few beers that evening.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by my breakfast. »

I've heard that they've glossed over a lot of the debauchery and murkiness in Freddie's private life and paint him as something of a saint. I follow Brian May on Instagram and he seems massively invested in the film; as he is in the legacy of Queen in general. Fair enough, but there was and is more to the band, and Freddie, than just a cuddly, campy PG 13 musical.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by theaussiefloydian »

my breakfast. wrote: Sun Nov 25, 2018 10:01 pm I've heard that they've glossed over a lot of the debauchery and murkiness in Freddie's private life and paint him as something of a saint.
They do skip over a lot, and re-write the history of the band quite significantly in places. I get that sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to make sure you have a gripping film, but they moved Freddie's AIDS diagnosis to before the Live Aid concert so they could have a poignant moment before they go out on stage where Freddie tells them about it and they all unify for one last hurrah, which was kinda cheap if you ask me.
Aside from that it really is an excellent film. Rami Malek plays Freddie so very well.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by Massed Gadgets »

I really enjoyed it. But I went into it knowing it was a biopic, not a documentary, so I knew facts would be fudged or dropped and things might be re-arranged. This is always done in biopics because the filmmakers want to tell a compelling and entertaining story with good flow and powerful emotional arcs. In that, I think they succeeded with Bohemian Rhapsody. Rami Malek was superb in the role. I completely forgot it was him. He WAS Freddie Mercury up on that screen. Emotionally, the film had moments of utter despair and moments of transcendent elation. Yes, the ending was a "feel-good" ending, but you can't deny that the performance at Live Aid was a triumph. Even still, though, it was coloured with the knowledge that Freddie's days were numbered, which gave it more emotional depth. They brilliantly re-created that performance, but punctuated it with the expressions on the various characters faces that said so much without a word of dialogue, and brought all the emotional arcs in the story to a satisfying conclusion.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by moodyblue »

I saw it 8 times in the end!
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by Jimi Dean Barrett »

I did love the Live Aid sequence. Unfortunately I fell asleep around time Flash was being recorded and woke up to see someone outside a house in the rain.
When it comes on Sky I'll watch it again. It was ok. Not saw Rocket Man. Not as into biopics as is, but it did a great stab at it I can only get more enthused with reviewings.
It's been massive for them. I'll give it that.
I still want to see a Cold War spoof of 1983 Pink Floyd. The Falklands not the comedy, but the deterioration of Waters and the band would be.
But that's another thread. If you told me a Queen biopic movie would be successful in 1991, I'd think it was an obvious outcome, but having saw it I just thought the film would be better as great as the Wembley sequence is.

Still, due to legalities you'd never see a Hendrix biopic where he took drugs, let alone his tour with The Monkees!
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by Kerry King »

Bio pics are often some of the worst examples of revisionism. They also tend to be commercials (disguised as films). This film seems to be a commercial for Queen products. Changing the facts when the facts are available is deliberate mass deception. Revising "history" to make it more entertaining is of use to no one except those who will profit from it.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by theaussiefloydian »

Coming back to this thread a few months after having seen this film, I think I have to recent my thoughts on the film.
I described it as an excellent film. My mind has drastically changed as the further away I got from it the more I saw issues with it, especially its editing. I would therefore like to say I now think it's an average film at best and that Rami's performance is the best thing about it - so good it can fool you into thinking the rest of the movie is good, as it did me.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by Keith Jordan »

I watched this film again on a plane journey to Dubai and i must say it was not nearly as good as I originally thought after seeing it in the cinema. Decent enough film though, excellent soundtrack! ;-)
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by twcc »

^^^
Keith, rumour has it that the 'airplane' version is much shorter and heavily edited ... maybe this reduced the enjoyment of re-watching as, no doubt, your initial viewing was the FULL version in a UK cinema.
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Re: Freddie Mercury - Bohemian Rhapsody Film

Post by Keith Jordan »

Perhaps I was half asleep on the plane too, it was a long way to Sri Lanka. :-)

I didn't like the fact the film glossed over most of Freddie's history too, not a very accurate film.