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bean_shadow posted:When Stephen Fry married his husband, Elliot Spencer, they wore green carnations and brought with them a little Oscar Wilde doll. I was quoting a bit from Blackadder the Fourth, thanks for the info!
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Dec 17, 2016 00:48
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chitoryu12 posted:Unless you're Alan Turing, in which case you commit suicide because the punishment for homosexuality in the 1950s was chemical castration. Didn't matter if you were a genius or a war hero, you'd get hosed up if you got caught doing anything gay. It's actually not 100% certain that he committed suicide. He died of cyanide poisoning and it may have been a suicide but he was also dicking around with potassium cyanide for various things. He also had a list of poo poo he was going to do when he got back to the office. It's more likely that he accidentally poisoned himself. Granted it was also entirely possible that he arranged things to make it look like it wasn't a suicide. It's one of those things we'll just plain never know.
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Dec 17, 2016 01:14
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While we're on the topic, if anybody is interested in Alan Turing, it's worth mentioning that The Imitation Game is a bad movie and don't bother watching it. You're welcome
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Dec 17, 2016 10:10
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Most biopics aren't very good.
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Dec 17, 2016 10:53
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Quick, name good biopics. All the Way
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Dec 17, 2016 10:59
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Wheat Loaf posted:Most biopics aren't very good. Most movies aren't very good. I don't think biopics are especially worse than any other genre. (Though I suppose it depends whether you mean not very good as movies or not very good as sources of information about their subject)
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Dec 17, 2016 11:13
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. Amadeus.
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Dec 17, 2016 11:55
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Baron Corbyn posted:(Though I suppose it depends whether you mean not very good as movies or not very good as sources of information about their subject) The second, mostly. It's understandable given that you have to compress somebody's entire life and/or career into two hours, I suppose. A lot of the time, they depend entirely on the quality of the lead performance to distract you from dubious accuracy. If you look at a movie like Ray, there's a bunch of stuff that's either glossed over or even invented outright (Ray Charles was never banned from the state of Georgia, for instance) but Jamie Foxx is very good as Ray so you don't worry too much about it. Ken Burns's Jazz is like the biopic for the entire genre of jazz and it's the same way. That documentary is really weird because a big part of its central premise, as advocated by Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Crouch, is that jazz is an essentially African-American musical form (and I think there are some very strong arguments to support that thesis) but they reject jazz music which is actively and purposively Afrocentric as "not real jazz" because it does't fit into their preconceived musical concept of what jazz is. They can't reconcile the music from its cultural context. I could complain more about Jazz, but more knowledgeable and intelligent people than me have been doing so for the past 15 years, so I won't bother.
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Dec 17, 2016 12:12
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I watched the Gandhi biopic a few months ago and what really struck me about it is how it makes the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Al Jinnah, look like an unrepentant rear end in a top hat with zero redeeming qualities. Imo a good rule of thumb in biopics is if anyone is depicted as a villain in them you should probably do some reading about them because they are probably just as interesting and complex as the person the biopic is about.
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Dec 17, 2016 13:12
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Christopher and his kind, the BBC Christopher Isherwood biopic is very good.
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Dec 17, 2016 13:19
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. Malcolm X
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Dec 17, 2016 13:22
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Red Bones posted:I watched the Gandhi biopic a few months ago and what really struck me about it is how it makes the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Al Jinnah, look like an unrepentant rear end in a top hat with zero redeeming qualities. Imo a good rule of thumb in biopics is if anyone is depicted as a villain in them you should probably do some reading about them because they are probably just as interesting and complex as the person the biopic is about. Speaking of biopics, Jinnah has one in which he is played by Christopher Lee, and apparently Lee thought it was the best performance of his career.
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Dec 17, 2016 13:39
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Lord Cyrahzax posted:Speaking of biopics, Jinnah has one in which he is played by Christopher Lee, and apparently Lee thought it was the best performance of his career. I think we should be thankful he didn't say Fu Manchu.
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Dec 17, 2016 13:41
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. Caligula
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Dec 17, 2016 15:17
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. Pollock or 
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Dec 17, 2016 15:43
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Wheat Loaf posted:... Ah, Ken Burn's Swing, the classicist documentary about blues music not existing, because actually the true launchpad for african american musical influence is that which was most accessible to white audiences. Woe to jazz, for it's further advances into a more free expression of the black identity by davis and coltrane were actually a denaturing of it's "true" roots. Not to mention that jewish jazz musicians were just in it for the money, or that latins apparently never existed. Man I could rip on that piece of poo poo for days.
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Dec 17, 2016 15:47
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Wheat Loaf posted:The second, mostly. It's understandable given that you have to compress somebody's entire life and/or career into two hours, I suppose. A lot of the time, they depend entirely on the quality of the lead performance to distract you from dubious accuracy. Response to The Danish Girl irritated me for this reason. So much of the negative attention the film got was in response to its casting, rather than the loving about it did with Lil's history and relationships. Yeah it was based on a book that, in turn, was "inspired by" real events but that rubbed me something fierce.
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Dec 17, 2016 15:48
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16oTlXL5E0c
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Dec 17, 2016 15:59
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. Mr. Turner
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Dec 17, 2016 19:50
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poptart_fairy posted:Response to The Danish Girl irritated me for this reason. So much of the negative attention the film got was in response to its casting, rather than the loving about it did with Lil's history and relationships. Yeah it was based on a book that, in turn, was "inspired by" real events but that rubbed me something fierce. I thought the casting & portrayals were good, but there were some weird things that stood out to me as a Dane. One minor thing was that her landscape art was supposed to depict areas of Denmark, but it was all mountainous & thus very obviously not Denmark (highest point roughly 170 meters). The other bigger issue was that the smart guy who betrays her is named Axgil. That's the surname of Axel & Eigil Axgil, the first world's homosexual married couple (in 1989; they combined their first names to create their surname when they got engaged in 1950), and frontliners in the battle for LGBT rights. But they use the name for a slimy rear end in a top hat.
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Dec 17, 2016 19:58
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Love and Mercy
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Dec 17, 2016 19:58
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Powaqoatse posted:The other bigger issue was that the smart guy who betrays her is named Axgil. That's the surname of Axel & Eigil Axgil, the first world's homosexual married couple (in 1989; they combined their first names to create their surname when they got engaged in 1950), and frontliners in the battle for LGBT rights. But they use the name for a slimy rear end in a top hat. Yeah, it's this stuff that aggravated me. It's been mentioned already but the Imitation Game was another example - if the films were telling stories with characters that weren't actually the people involved it'd be one thing, and easy to tolerate. When they use historical individuals and start changing things around like that it's aggravating as all hell. It's an iffy middleground I don't like.
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Dec 17, 2016 20:08
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a little bit of Monica posted:Ah, Ken Burn's Swing, the classicist documentary about blues music not existing, because actually the true launchpad for african american musical influence is that which was most accessible to white audiences. Woe to jazz, for it's further advances into a more free expression of the black identity by davis and coltrane were actually a denaturing of it's "true" roots. Not to mention that jewish jazz musicians were just in it for the money, or that latins apparently never existed. Oh, yeah, I was going to mention that Bill Evans is mentioned a grand total of twice in the series and his entire role in jazz is relegated to "Miles Davis sideman", Benny Goodman is discussed primarily in the context of how poo poo he supposedly was compared to Duke Ellington and Chick Webb and the British Invasion is presented as a deliberate attempt to destroy jazz's mainstream popularity even though standards singers had done that about 20 years earlier, even before rock and roll became popular. I love the one parody where it says, "In 1964, John Coltrane was at his peak, Eric Dolphy was in Europe, where he would eventually die, the Modern Jazz Quartet was making breakthrough recordings in the field of Third Stream Music, Miles Davis was breaking new barrier with his second great quintet, and Charlie Mingus was extending jazz composition to new levels of complexity. But we're going to talk about Louis singing "Hello Dolly" instead."
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Dec 17, 2016 20:49
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The Imitation Game was the common cultural meme story of Alan Turing, and as such is heavily purple monkey dishwasher'd to the point that it's more about propaganda than it is an authentic representation of an important man done a great wrong.
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Dec 17, 2016 20:54
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:Amadeus. Entertaining movie, but not very accurate. Mozart might have been unreliable but he wasn't the effortless genius the movie wants him to be, and instead a super disciplined worker when it came to making music. Also Salieri was a highly regarded, uniquely creative composer and not at all untalented and envious.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:19
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Pick posted:The Imitation Game was the common cultural meme story of Alan Turing, and as such is heavily purple monkey dishwasher'd to the point that it's more about propaganda than it is an authentic representation of an important man done a great wrong. As long as it's not an egregious departure from the truth, I'm OK with a biopic taking some liberties to make a compelling 2 hour story. Think about it this way, someone who's never heard Turing's name goes to see The Imitation Game or catches it on Netflix. Even if they aren't compelled to go learn more about him, at least now they have a rough idea of who he was and what he did, and how he was repaid for it. I can't say that's a bad outcome.
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Dec 17, 2016 21:31
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Platystemon posted:Quick, name good biopics. Chopper
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Dec 17, 2016 22:20
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Honj Steak posted:Entertaining movie, but not very accurate. Mozart might have been unreliable but he wasn't the effortless genius the movie wants him to be, and instead a super disciplined worker when it came to making music. Also Salieri was a highly regarded, uniquely creative composer and not at all untalented and envious. That was, essentially, the joke. Also that it's based on a play, rather than a historical account.
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Dec 17, 2016 23:02
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:That was, essentially, the joke. Also that it's based on a play, rather than a historical account. Ah sorry I didn't get that. There's unfortunately quite a lot of people who think it's an accurate movie. I even remember watching it in a music lesson in school with the teacher taking it at face value.
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Dec 17, 2016 23:15
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:That was, essentially, the joke. Also that it's based on a play, rather than a historical account. With a good cast, the play is amazing and well worth seeing. It's one of the few I ever worked on where I paid attention every night.
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Dec 18, 2016 01:04
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Honj Steak posted:Entertaining movie, but not very accurate. Mozart might have been unreliable but he wasn't the effortless genius the movie wants him to be, and instead a super disciplined worker when it came to making music. Also Salieri was a highly regarded, uniquely creative composer and not at all untalented and envious. Next you're telling me that the soundtrack in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette isn't period appropriate, either!  (Does that count as a good biopic too? I only remember the music and the gorgeous costumes)
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Dec 18, 2016 01:27
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Honj Steak posted:Ah sorry I didn't get that. There's unfortunately quite a lot of people who think it's an accurate movie. I even remember watching it in a music lesson in school with the teacher taking it at face value. My Orchestra teacher in middle school really liked Salieri and was very bitter that he was most well known as the antagonist in Amadeus. I always like it when people pick weird rear end hills to die on and that was his.
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Dec 18, 2016 01:39
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Red Tails anyone ?????
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Dec 18, 2016 04:01
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Hancock
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Dec 18, 2016 04:10
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The main goal of a biopic isn't to be accurate and educational, it's to be entertaining. With that said Braveheart
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Dec 18, 2016 04:15
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Honestly the best biopic I can remember recently is Fruitvale Station
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Dec 18, 2016 04:17
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Sulla-Marius 88 posted:While we're on the topic, if anybody is interested in Alan Turing, it's worth mentioning that The Imitation Game is a bad movie and don't bother watching it. You're welcome
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Dec 18, 2016 04:26
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Lisztomania
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Dec 18, 2016 04:33
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hogmartin posted:As long as it's not an egregious departure from the truth, I'm OK with a biopic taking some liberties to make a compelling 2 hour story. Think about it this way, someone who's never heard Turing's name goes to see The Imitation Game or catches it on Netflix. Even if they aren't compelled to go learn more about him, at least now they have a rough idea of who he was and what he did, and how he was repaid for it. I can't say that's a bad outcome. I do think a fundamental tone shift is an egregious departure from the truth, though. I think it turns a life into a polarized political point, a "with us or against us" message, more than the tale of a person whose situation was kind of complicated and certainly more complicated than the version most people might be aware of.
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Dec 18, 2016 04:37
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"Another genre I have no respect for is the biopic. They are just big excuses for actors to win Oscars. It’s a corrupted cinema. [...] Even the most interesting person – if you are telling their life from beginning to end, it’s going to be a loving boring movie. If you do this, you have to do a comic book version of their whole life. For instance, when you make a movie about Elvis Presley, you don’t make a movie about his whole life. Make a movie about one day. Make a movie about the day Elvis Presley walked into Sun Records. Make a movie about the whole day before he walked into Sun Records, and the movie ends when we walks through that door. That’s a movie." -Tarantino
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