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shadowkat1. Two of my coworkers decided to debate the potential plot of the new Breaking Bad movie in front of my cubicle at work on Friday. Their theory was that Walter White hadn't died, and Jesse had either turned back to get him to the hospital, or raced away while someone else did.
It was a lengthy discussion. Most of it concerned all the ways that Walter White could have survived. Personally? I'd have rather he died. I liked the ending. I don't think we need to continue the story. I have deliberately ignored all spin-offs and followups. Okay, not true. I tried Better Call Saul and after two episodes thought...not for me. But I'm happy it's making others happy. My co-workers not so much -- they liked the original only and want it's continuation. They are both white men of a certain age...so identification is high.
2. Hmm..Amy Acker is cast as Ameila and Derek's sister...Katie on Grey's Anatomy -- so did she do this on hiatus from the Gifted? (Not that I've been watching the Gifted, I finally gave up on it. I was bored.
3. Just finished watching Bohemian Rhaspody which finally came on Optium On-Demand. And..I have been discussing the film off and on with movie buddy and frustrated music critic, cjlasky, who wrote a critique of the film when it first was released in his journal.
I agree with his review completely. Is it a good movie? Eh, not really. It's good when it focuses on the music business. It's horrible when it focuses on Mercury's personal life. Why? Because it's sort of obvious that the film makers have no clue what really was going on in Mercury's head or in his personal life -- they got all their information from his former band members (who co-produced it and were heavily involved, and Mercury died in the 1990s and was so intensely private, no one knows what he thought.) As a result the AIDS and homosexuality is shown through a heterosexual perspective. I don't think he was homosexual, I think he was most likely bisexual or queer, but there's no way of knowing from this film. And the statements it makes about homosexuality and the queer lifestyle are well...not exactly positive. Mercury is painted as a lonely, insecure, asshole who was easily manipulated. Why? Because we are looking at him from the point of view of his band mates who reunited with him around the time they discovered he'd contracted AIDS.
Also, interestingly enough -- we get no information on the internal lives of his bandmates or their families, only Mercury's, which gives the film a decidedly slanted perspective.
On the other hand, the music is great. The guy playing Mercury, Rami Malek, knocks it out of the park. He is Mercury. He disappears into the role. You feel like you are actually watching the real Mercury perform. He embodies the character. And the recreation of the classic Live Aid performance which ends the film -- seals that.
I can see why he's been nominated and won various awards for that performance.
But the other performances don't come close. Mike Myers is in it too - and is similarly unrecognizable. I didn't see him at all. I looked for him and don't remember him in it. So unrecognizable. No other performances stood out. Aidian Gillian, I recognized and he's okay. All the others including Myers put in forgettable performances -- this is Rami's film. Everyone else fades into the background and that is a problem.
The best scene and it's not long is the Bohemian Rhapsody recording. The other is the Live Aid performance, which you can actually watch on Youtube - the real one.
I vaguely remember it -- since I did watch Live Aid live in the 1985 -- it was over two nights. They did a lot of huge benefit televised rock concerts back in the 1980s -- with a call in number. Live Aid was done twice, I think. And over a weekend.
Other than that? The movie is boring. My attention kept drifting. It's your standard paint-by-numbers biopic. You aren't told anything about anyone that you don't already know and it plays heavily towards biopic cliches and stereotypes, also heavily towards AIDS and homosexual rock star stereotypes. The problem? Freddie Mercury was private. He didn't tell anyone about what was happening his life and he kept the press at arms length. If he'd been alive today? I doubt this film would have happened. He loved to perform, but he hated the limelight.
When you watch him perform, his appeal is understandable. Mercury made love to his audience. He loved them and they loved him back. He went out there and said -- sing with me. Here, I'll even write and perform lyrics that you can sing and remember.
And his band played along with that. He played his audience like a piano, a fine instrument, or a conductor. And it was impossible not to fall for him. Also he exuded the same raw bisexual sexuality that Prince and Michael Jackson and David Bowie and Mick Jagger do and did on stage. Add to that charisma, a voice that could blow your mind, not to mention the range, and charm. I fell in love with him.
Rami Malek gets all of that across in his performance, it's hard not to fall in love with him.
But you don't feel you know him at the end...the film distances you. And that's a shame. Mercury's story deserved more. While I understand the awards showered on Rami's head, I don't get the awards showered on the movie.
4. Had a very interesting conversation with my favorite co-worker this week, Lando.
Lando is the frustrated prosecuting attorney, race-car driver, and R&B musician that I work with. He owns a electronic key-board, sound-system, recording studio, organ, piano, and for a bit played in a Sambo band. Right now he has started recording music again, creating, and publishing. And wants to get into publishing and licensing.
We had a long conversation this week about the music recording process and the publishing/licensing and editing of music. (I could listen to Lando for hours.)
Anyhow, he explained to me that the money in the music business is in "publishing rights" not performance. Chaka Khan may have been known for her performance of "I Am Every Woman" but Dolly Parton, who owns the publishing rights made the money off it. He said a lot of African American musicians got screwed because they were manipulated into selling or signing off on the publishing writes to their songs. Such as say Little Richard. (Actually this isn't isolated to African-Americans, it happened to the Beatles, who were manipulated into signing away their publishing rights -- which resulted in Michael Jackson buying the Beatles Songbook and Paul McCartney paying Michael Jackson royalties every time he wanted to perform songs that he wrote. McCartney finally bought the rights back. But it is why we had a lot of commercials with Beatles songs -- Jackson gave them the rights, not the Beatles.
It's also why I didn't feel sorry for Dolly Parton when Whitney got credit for her song, because Parton made a killing on the royalties. Whitney got maybe 10% of it for every time it was played, Parton got more like 60%. There's a reason Parton is a billionaire.)
That's what Lando wants to get into. He says it's easier, more lucrative and more creative than performance. You write the song, do the composition and publish and license. He showed me an app -- where various musicians ask for certain types of songs, with examples of what they are looking for. He downloads the song. Analyzes the composition, and the instrumental arrangements, then he finds something that works like it. He has over 1 million instruments downloaded into his keyboard and syntheziers. And he understands pitch. He said that if someone sings a song and their pitch is off, he can adjust it until they sound exactly right for the song.
He also told me that most people don't really sing any longer -- what you hear on recordings is adjusted pitch and vocals via sound recording equipment. The song is remastered in the recording studio. Brittany Spears and Chris Brown don't sing -- or they do, but their voices are changed via recording equipment, fixing their pitch.
Lando told me there's a site, Limelight, where you can request rights to perform a song -- you fill out a form on sight, pay a license fee -- which is calculable based on how many CDS you wish to reproduce and then go. Also this site tracks all the songs -- no matter where they are played. So it knows if you are using one of the songs, and notifies you if you are doing so illegally. It will also remove songs from youtube etc -- if you haven't paid a license fee to perform it.
Then he told me about his recording studio -- and how he keeps it clean -- clean of sound. He said that lights make noise, a dull buzzing hum, which you can hear in the background. So he has a sound proof room, lit by candles, no lights, and has it electronically set up to turn off the speakers first and turn them on last. Because if you turn them off last -- you will get the boing or feedback of the other items shutting off. (I think I got that right...my mind tends to flip things. I repeated what he said twice in my head to make sure I remembered it. Because I'm writing a book about people who worked in music. One of my characters has a recording studio and another worked on race cars. Some people get their information for books by reading non-fiction, I get mine by talking to people who have actually done it. In my last novel -- I wrote about a character who had done card counting in blackjack, after having a long conversation with a guy who actually card counted, got thrown out of various casinos, and had played in underground poker dens in NY. I find it more real to take the information from actual people I've met than a book for some reason. Every thing I write has been inspired by conversations I've had or things I've actually observed. Regardless of what people may believe, I do write about what I know or have learned from others with a bit of a creative twist. I wrote the above here -- because I want to remember it. I'm afraid I might forget before I can use it. Lando is a limitless resource of information. Most people are.]
5. Television shows..
* Grey's Anatomy this week's episode reminded me once again why I despise the character of Maggie Pierce. Outside of Maggie, I liked the episode. Whenever the episode focuses too much on Maggie, I get annoyed.
* Why I despise Maggie? Because she's a self-absorped entitled nitwit who doesn't care about anyone outside herself, is a complete hypocrite, and can't feel compassion for others if they don't aid her in some way.
This week's episode, she is tasked with treating a woman that bullied her over twenty years ago in med school. Maggie is now the head of Cardio at a prestigious research hospital. The former "mean girl", aka Kiki, who is heavy set, with an allegedly inoperable heart stem condition that will kill her if it is not fixed and is in charge of a small family practice in the midwest, comes hat in hand to request Maggie's expertise. She even tells Maggie at one point that she knows she was nasty to people, that she has been to numerous doctors, and it is really hard for her to come to Maggie to get help. But she'd like to have time to make amends and redeem herself, but Maggie needs to save her life first.
Does Maggie feel compassion for her? No. Meredith comes to Maggie to ask Maggie if she will be okay with Meredith dating De Luca, Maggie's ex. Maggie doesn't hear Meredith -- she's enraged by Kiki having the audacity to ask her help after tormenting her in med school by calling her Magpie and putting diapers on her desk.
(Honestly, Maggie? Grow the fuck up already.) Meredith patiently listens and tells Maggie that she has her back, and the surgery sounds like fun, and wouldn't it be nice to save this women's life?
So they do. And during the surgery, Maggie gloats over the poor women's open chest about how the women had listed no one on her emergency contact sheet, and clearly had no one in her life and life came with consequences. And I wanted to smack her.
This character spent a whole season being angry at Meredith because Riggs, who Maggie had a crush on, liked Meredith more -- hence the reason Meredith was worried about De Luca. And another season angry at her mother for not telling her about her cancer, until her mother died on her. Then half a season raging on Avery for not sharing his problems with her, when she refused to share any of her own.
Ugh. Despise this character.
* Teddy and Tom are my new ship. I love the two of them together. They rock!
* Amelia has grown on me. But Owen is grating on my nerves. And the baby/foster child storyline just got really interesting with Kyle Secor and Jennifer Grey guesting as the parents.
* Meredith continues to rock -- and thank you, Meredith for ditching Link for De Luca. I'd have done the same.
* Alex Kirev continues to be my fav -- I like him so much better as chief than Bailey, who I think made it too much about herself and her own ego. Thank you, Chief Webber for forcing her to see that.
* A Million Little Things
Still only like Eddie, Gary, and Maggie. Everyone else still gets on my nerves. Ugh.
Also no progress made on the mystery with only two episode of the season left. Really?
The best scenes were anything with Gary, Maggie or Eddie. Also this is clearly a show written by men -- we're mainly in a male perspective and women are depicted oddly.
* This is Us -- a better episode than the last one. I really liked Rebecca in this episode, and found Kevin to be interesting. Randal continues to grate. But I felt both Kate and Kevin were explored in interesting ways, while Kate romanticizes her Dad and he can do no wrong, Kevin is furious with his and internalizes it. Kevin has inherited the addiction and self-hatred. Rebecca sees it in him...even if his father didn't. I liked how Nick's story furthers the others, specifically Kevin and Rebecca who both have different recollections of the same day, as does Kate and Randall. We don't quite see it through Kevin's perspective, except that his reaction to Nick and how his father dealt with Uncle Nick ages ago -- leads Kevin to take more than a couple of drinks..falling slightly off the wagon.
When Rebecca tells him how proud she is of he handled it, he looks troubled out the window and a bit lost.
6. Somewhat productive day. Feel better than yesterday. Had a nice long chat with Wales, which made me feel less lonely and more connected. (Wales is similar to some ways to Rebecca Bunch in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and in an odd way, watching Crazy Ex has made it possible to reconnect to Wales or figure out how to -- establish firm boundaries.) Also, renewed my Brooklyn Library Card -- so I can now check out books online and check out videos etc. I haven't used the library since 2003. Needless to say -- it's changed a bit since then.
It was a lengthy discussion. Most of it concerned all the ways that Walter White could have survived. Personally? I'd have rather he died. I liked the ending. I don't think we need to continue the story. I have deliberately ignored all spin-offs and followups. Okay, not true. I tried Better Call Saul and after two episodes thought...not for me. But I'm happy it's making others happy. My co-workers not so much -- they liked the original only and want it's continuation. They are both white men of a certain age...so identification is high.
2. Hmm..Amy Acker is cast as Ameila and Derek's sister...Katie on Grey's Anatomy -- so did she do this on hiatus from the Gifted? (Not that I've been watching the Gifted, I finally gave up on it. I was bored.
3. Just finished watching Bohemian Rhaspody which finally came on Optium On-Demand. And..I have been discussing the film off and on with movie buddy and frustrated music critic, cjlasky, who wrote a critique of the film when it first was released in his journal.
I agree with his review completely. Is it a good movie? Eh, not really. It's good when it focuses on the music business. It's horrible when it focuses on Mercury's personal life. Why? Because it's sort of obvious that the film makers have no clue what really was going on in Mercury's head or in his personal life -- they got all their information from his former band members (who co-produced it and were heavily involved, and Mercury died in the 1990s and was so intensely private, no one knows what he thought.) As a result the AIDS and homosexuality is shown through a heterosexual perspective. I don't think he was homosexual, I think he was most likely bisexual or queer, but there's no way of knowing from this film. And the statements it makes about homosexuality and the queer lifestyle are well...not exactly positive. Mercury is painted as a lonely, insecure, asshole who was easily manipulated. Why? Because we are looking at him from the point of view of his band mates who reunited with him around the time they discovered he'd contracted AIDS.
Also, interestingly enough -- we get no information on the internal lives of his bandmates or their families, only Mercury's, which gives the film a decidedly slanted perspective.
On the other hand, the music is great. The guy playing Mercury, Rami Malek, knocks it out of the park. He is Mercury. He disappears into the role. You feel like you are actually watching the real Mercury perform. He embodies the character. And the recreation of the classic Live Aid performance which ends the film -- seals that.
I can see why he's been nominated and won various awards for that performance.
But the other performances don't come close. Mike Myers is in it too - and is similarly unrecognizable. I didn't see him at all. I looked for him and don't remember him in it. So unrecognizable. No other performances stood out. Aidian Gillian, I recognized and he's okay. All the others including Myers put in forgettable performances -- this is Rami's film. Everyone else fades into the background and that is a problem.
The best scene and it's not long is the Bohemian Rhapsody recording. The other is the Live Aid performance, which you can actually watch on Youtube - the real one.
I vaguely remember it -- since I did watch Live Aid live in the 1985 -- it was over two nights. They did a lot of huge benefit televised rock concerts back in the 1980s -- with a call in number. Live Aid was done twice, I think. And over a weekend.
Other than that? The movie is boring. My attention kept drifting. It's your standard paint-by-numbers biopic. You aren't told anything about anyone that you don't already know and it plays heavily towards biopic cliches and stereotypes, also heavily towards AIDS and homosexual rock star stereotypes. The problem? Freddie Mercury was private. He didn't tell anyone about what was happening his life and he kept the press at arms length. If he'd been alive today? I doubt this film would have happened. He loved to perform, but he hated the limelight.
When you watch him perform, his appeal is understandable. Mercury made love to his audience. He loved them and they loved him back. He went out there and said -- sing with me. Here, I'll even write and perform lyrics that you can sing and remember.
And his band played along with that. He played his audience like a piano, a fine instrument, or a conductor. And it was impossible not to fall for him. Also he exuded the same raw bisexual sexuality that Prince and Michael Jackson and David Bowie and Mick Jagger do and did on stage. Add to that charisma, a voice that could blow your mind, not to mention the range, and charm. I fell in love with him.
Rami Malek gets all of that across in his performance, it's hard not to fall in love with him.
But you don't feel you know him at the end...the film distances you. And that's a shame. Mercury's story deserved more. While I understand the awards showered on Rami's head, I don't get the awards showered on the movie.
4. Had a very interesting conversation with my favorite co-worker this week, Lando.
Lando is the frustrated prosecuting attorney, race-car driver, and R&B musician that I work with. He owns a electronic key-board, sound-system, recording studio, organ, piano, and for a bit played in a Sambo band. Right now he has started recording music again, creating, and publishing. And wants to get into publishing and licensing.
We had a long conversation this week about the music recording process and the publishing/licensing and editing of music. (I could listen to Lando for hours.)
Anyhow, he explained to me that the money in the music business is in "publishing rights" not performance. Chaka Khan may have been known for her performance of "I Am Every Woman" but Dolly Parton, who owns the publishing rights made the money off it. He said a lot of African American musicians got screwed because they were manipulated into selling or signing off on the publishing writes to their songs. Such as say Little Richard. (Actually this isn't isolated to African-Americans, it happened to the Beatles, who were manipulated into signing away their publishing rights -- which resulted in Michael Jackson buying the Beatles Songbook and Paul McCartney paying Michael Jackson royalties every time he wanted to perform songs that he wrote. McCartney finally bought the rights back. But it is why we had a lot of commercials with Beatles songs -- Jackson gave them the rights, not the Beatles.
It's also why I didn't feel sorry for Dolly Parton when Whitney got credit for her song, because Parton made a killing on the royalties. Whitney got maybe 10% of it for every time it was played, Parton got more like 60%. There's a reason Parton is a billionaire.)
That's what Lando wants to get into. He says it's easier, more lucrative and more creative than performance. You write the song, do the composition and publish and license. He showed me an app -- where various musicians ask for certain types of songs, with examples of what they are looking for. He downloads the song. Analyzes the composition, and the instrumental arrangements, then he finds something that works like it. He has over 1 million instruments downloaded into his keyboard and syntheziers. And he understands pitch. He said that if someone sings a song and their pitch is off, he can adjust it until they sound exactly right for the song.
He also told me that most people don't really sing any longer -- what you hear on recordings is adjusted pitch and vocals via sound recording equipment. The song is remastered in the recording studio. Brittany Spears and Chris Brown don't sing -- or they do, but their voices are changed via recording equipment, fixing their pitch.
Lando told me there's a site, Limelight, where you can request rights to perform a song -- you fill out a form on sight, pay a license fee -- which is calculable based on how many CDS you wish to reproduce and then go. Also this site tracks all the songs -- no matter where they are played. So it knows if you are using one of the songs, and notifies you if you are doing so illegally. It will also remove songs from youtube etc -- if you haven't paid a license fee to perform it.
Then he told me about his recording studio -- and how he keeps it clean -- clean of sound. He said that lights make noise, a dull buzzing hum, which you can hear in the background. So he has a sound proof room, lit by candles, no lights, and has it electronically set up to turn off the speakers first and turn them on last. Because if you turn them off last -- you will get the boing or feedback of the other items shutting off. (I think I got that right...my mind tends to flip things. I repeated what he said twice in my head to make sure I remembered it. Because I'm writing a book about people who worked in music. One of my characters has a recording studio and another worked on race cars. Some people get their information for books by reading non-fiction, I get mine by talking to people who have actually done it. In my last novel -- I wrote about a character who had done card counting in blackjack, after having a long conversation with a guy who actually card counted, got thrown out of various casinos, and had played in underground poker dens in NY. I find it more real to take the information from actual people I've met than a book for some reason. Every thing I write has been inspired by conversations I've had or things I've actually observed. Regardless of what people may believe, I do write about what I know or have learned from others with a bit of a creative twist. I wrote the above here -- because I want to remember it. I'm afraid I might forget before I can use it. Lando is a limitless resource of information. Most people are.]
5. Television shows..
* Grey's Anatomy this week's episode reminded me once again why I despise the character of Maggie Pierce. Outside of Maggie, I liked the episode. Whenever the episode focuses too much on Maggie, I get annoyed.
* Why I despise Maggie? Because she's a self-absorped entitled nitwit who doesn't care about anyone outside herself, is a complete hypocrite, and can't feel compassion for others if they don't aid her in some way.
This week's episode, she is tasked with treating a woman that bullied her over twenty years ago in med school. Maggie is now the head of Cardio at a prestigious research hospital. The former "mean girl", aka Kiki, who is heavy set, with an allegedly inoperable heart stem condition that will kill her if it is not fixed and is in charge of a small family practice in the midwest, comes hat in hand to request Maggie's expertise. She even tells Maggie at one point that she knows she was nasty to people, that she has been to numerous doctors, and it is really hard for her to come to Maggie to get help. But she'd like to have time to make amends and redeem herself, but Maggie needs to save her life first.
Does Maggie feel compassion for her? No. Meredith comes to Maggie to ask Maggie if she will be okay with Meredith dating De Luca, Maggie's ex. Maggie doesn't hear Meredith -- she's enraged by Kiki having the audacity to ask her help after tormenting her in med school by calling her Magpie and putting diapers on her desk.
(Honestly, Maggie? Grow the fuck up already.) Meredith patiently listens and tells Maggie that she has her back, and the surgery sounds like fun, and wouldn't it be nice to save this women's life?
So they do. And during the surgery, Maggie gloats over the poor women's open chest about how the women had listed no one on her emergency contact sheet, and clearly had no one in her life and life came with consequences. And I wanted to smack her.
This character spent a whole season being angry at Meredith because Riggs, who Maggie had a crush on, liked Meredith more -- hence the reason Meredith was worried about De Luca. And another season angry at her mother for not telling her about her cancer, until her mother died on her. Then half a season raging on Avery for not sharing his problems with her, when she refused to share any of her own.
Ugh. Despise this character.
* Teddy and Tom are my new ship. I love the two of them together. They rock!
* Amelia has grown on me. But Owen is grating on my nerves. And the baby/foster child storyline just got really interesting with Kyle Secor and Jennifer Grey guesting as the parents.
* Meredith continues to rock -- and thank you, Meredith for ditching Link for De Luca. I'd have done the same.
* Alex Kirev continues to be my fav -- I like him so much better as chief than Bailey, who I think made it too much about herself and her own ego. Thank you, Chief Webber for forcing her to see that.
* A Million Little Things
Still only like Eddie, Gary, and Maggie. Everyone else still gets on my nerves. Ugh.
Also no progress made on the mystery with only two episode of the season left. Really?
The best scenes were anything with Gary, Maggie or Eddie. Also this is clearly a show written by men -- we're mainly in a male perspective and women are depicted oddly.
* This is Us -- a better episode than the last one. I really liked Rebecca in this episode, and found Kevin to be interesting. Randal continues to grate. But I felt both Kate and Kevin were explored in interesting ways, while Kate romanticizes her Dad and he can do no wrong, Kevin is furious with his and internalizes it. Kevin has inherited the addiction and self-hatred. Rebecca sees it in him...even if his father didn't. I liked how Nick's story furthers the others, specifically Kevin and Rebecca who both have different recollections of the same day, as does Kate and Randall. We don't quite see it through Kevin's perspective, except that his reaction to Nick and how his father dealt with Uncle Nick ages ago -- leads Kevin to take more than a couple of drinks..falling slightly off the wagon.
When Rebecca tells him how proud she is of he handled it, he looks troubled out the window and a bit lost.
6. Somewhat productive day. Feel better than yesterday. Had a nice long chat with Wales, which made me feel less lonely and more connected. (Wales is similar to some ways to Rebecca Bunch in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and in an odd way, watching Crazy Ex has made it possible to reconnect to Wales or figure out how to -- establish firm boundaries.) Also, renewed my Brooklyn Library Card -- so I can now check out books online and check out videos etc. I haven't used the library since 2003. Needless to say -- it's changed a bit since then.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 07:57 am (UTC)Yes, that's the primary objection I've heard from most people. It's Freddie as his co-workers saw him and how they wanted themselves to be seen on screen.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 01:43 pm (UTC)But it doesn't really tell us that much if anything at all about Freddie himself.
My friend who loves Freddie and Queen really wanted to see this movie badly, then after reading the reviews, chose not to. As did I. I decided to wait until it came out "On Demand" and was cheaper. I'm glad I did. It's not a good movie.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 02:22 pm (UTC)I think it works better to have Walter dead and Jesse on his own.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 04:59 pm (UTC)As to Bohemian Rhapsody:
What would I have done differently?
As you said, Freddie was an intensely private person, and a lot of the offstage scenes in the movie were (extremely biased) guesswork. So... do you cut that material and just go with the band's story? Personally, as a Queen fan, I could go two hours exploring their dynamic. But that might be too "inside baseball" for anybody who isn't already into the band.
Do you do an Adam McKay (a la Vice) and say to the audience "we don't know" and dazzle the crowd with multi media razzmatazz?
Or do you do a "micro biography" and focus on the making of the Night of the Opera album and "Bohemian Rhapsody" in particular, and use flashbacks to show what the song means to Freddie?
There's been a long-standing theory that BR is Freddie's elaborate metaphor for coming out as a gay man. I don't necessarily buy it, but what a great hook for a movie. Would be just as valid as anything that actually made it onto the screen.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 05:50 pm (UTC)GT: It's totally possible that Walter White survived. We did not see him die.
Randy: True, he was lying there. Just lying. They could have called an ambulance.
GT: You can almost see Jesse doing a U turn and racing him to the hospital.
Randy: No, he was racing to the hospital to bring them to him.
GT: Or he calls the EMT's from his car.
Randy: exactly, and then races into the desert.
GT: If Gilligan wants to have Walter White alive, he'll do it.
Randy: Did you listen to how he said he had many possibilities in mind in the writer's room chat...
[And they go on and on and on..about all the ways Walter White could have survived. This is NOT their first conversation on it. They've also had extensive conversations on the scene itself. On the intent behind it. The writing of the show...Honestly I don't think they've watched anything else but BB, and/or discussed anything else.]
Personally? I think WW is dead and it doesn't work story thread wise if he's not.
Bohemian Rhapsody
Date: 2019-02-17 06:04 pm (UTC)Do you do an Adam McKay (a la Vice) and say to the audience "we don't know" and dazzle the crowd with multi media razzmatazz?
Or do you do a "micro biography" and focus on the making of the Night of the Opera album and "Bohemian Rhapsody" in particular, and use flashbacks to show what the song means to Freddie?
Funny you ask. Because I was thinking about this, this morning after watching a video with all the things that weren't true in the film:
1. Mercury did not tell anyone he had AIDS until 1991, about 24 hours before he died of it (it was the 1980s and 1990s, it was career suicide back then to do otherwise), and did not show signs until late 1989-1990 of being sick. He contracted it in 1986.
2. We Will Rock You was heard on albums as early as 1977, not 1980 according to the film.
3. Freddie didn't break up the band -- nor did his pursuit of a solo album affect the band. Freddie was by no means the only one doing a solo album at that time, all the band members pursued one, including Roger who claims Freddy is breaking up the band. That's a total cliche and BS. And they released an album during that period.
4. They didn't fire EMI, they issued albums with them for years after that.
5. Nor was there any question about them performing for Live Aid or any uncertainty -- they had only been separated for less than a year and had gotten back together long prior to Live Aid (Live Aid didn't bring them back together) and had done a tour of the US and released an album prior to Live Aid.
6. I also found out that Freddie didn't join the band after Tim Steffle left, nor did he do it in the way they portrayed at all. He actually met Steffle in an art class long before that and Steffle invited him to join the band, then Steffle left to pursue a career in animation. The film told it all wrong.
A lot of dramatic license was taken with this film. And they relied heavily on rock biopic cliches.
That doesn't even begin to discuss how horribly the film dealt with Freddie's sexuality and how difficult it was to come out during the 1970s and 1980s. There's a lot of bits here that do not make sense. This film pissed off a lot of LGBTQ critics and I can see why. It sort of condemns Freddy's lifestyle while painting his straight band-mates as being upstanding. (I rolled my eyes. Please.)
All of the above by the way -- is why I despise bio-pics.
So what to do differently? Hmm...
While the Adam McKay approach is tempting -- it only really works for satirical political bio-pics like Vice or The Big Short, where the person is less important than what they stood for or what happened.
And like you said, the two hour in-depth depiction of the band's dynamic would bore the general audience. (Basically anyone who isn't interested in watching a pseudo-docudrama about how the glam-rock band Queen created their music and iconic style. Personally, I would have been interested in that...but most people probably wouldn't.)
I think the movie would have been better served if the band members revealed more about their personal lives and how Freddie influenced and affected them, then say Freddie himself -- but I can see why they didn't go that route. (For the same reasons as they didn't go into a two hour docu-drama about how the music was made. Let's face it -- most people only know Freddy, not the rest of Queen.)
So..I'd have to agree option three works the best...
Or do you do a "micro biography" and focus on the making of the Night of the Opera album and "Bohemian Rhapsody" in particular, and use flashbacks to show what the song means to Freddie?
This is also the only moment in the film that seems to be backed up with actual data outside of the Live Aid performance. By the way for the Live Aid performance? They recreated Wembley Stadium as it existed in the 1980s -- because apparently that stadium no longer exists? (This depressed me. I went to that stadium and saw Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush perform there in 1987. I loved that stadium. It's all grass.) They also recreated that performance down to the last detail, along with the stage, the pepsi cups, etc...to the point that one of the original organizers of Live Aid was blown away by it.
But everything before the Live Aid performance and before the Bohemian Rhapsody bit is complete conjecture and didn't happen like that. Ugh. The best two bits in the movie, the one's that resonate and feel real, are because...they are the ONLY two real bits in the film.
So you have a choice -- either go into detail on Bohemian or go into detail on putting on Live Aid. Since it's about Queen? And the Live Aid bit is easy to watch on Youtube as it was originally done, I'd go with Bohemian Rhapsody.
Re: Bohemian Rhapsody
Date: 2019-02-17 06:20 pm (UTC)Gets across how smart the band members are, and talented. Freddie was in a band before Queen.
Re: Bohemian Rhapsody
Date: 2019-02-17 06:40 pm (UTC)Freddie wrote "Bohemian Rhapsody" and many others.
Brian May wrote "We Will Rock You" (and many others).
Bassist John Deacon wrote "Another One Bites the Dust" and "You're My Best Friend."
Drummer Roger Taylor wrote "Radio Gaga" (among others).
They were never scared to bounce musical ideas off each other because they had complete confidence in the others' abilities. Queen was a great environment for Freddie to blossom, because he knew the other guys were capable of following him into unexplored territory (even if they didn't quite understand what Freddie was going for until it was finished!).
The interplay of these four different personalities and how they formed a cohesive unit is fascinating to me. I wish we had more of that in the movie. But maybe that's just a Queen fan talking.
Re: Bohemian Rhapsody
Date: 2019-02-17 06:44 pm (UTC)Also my brother loved the movie...so..maybe I just wanted more? I don't know. I find it boring when it wasn't focused on the music and the bouncing of ideas. But I feel that way about most rock biopics.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 06:22 pm (UTC)Next time they get into the "he's alive!" conversations, ask your associates one question:
"Has Vince Gilligan ever pulled this shit before?"
The answer is NO.
On BB, dead is dead. Hank Schrader did not fake his death and is not working deep undercover for the FBI. Mike Ehrmentraut is not popping up out of that ravine. Gustavo Fring did not have a doctor and plastic surgeon on hand to fix his chronic condition of "blown off face."
Gilligan doesn't pull that shit. He is a very careful writer, and when he comes to the end of the road with a character, the road ends. Period.
(If they're really big BB fans, your associates should know that by now.)
The memory of Walter White has a role to play in Jesse's story, but it'll be Jesse's story.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-17 06:28 pm (UTC)I gave up. The above hour long discussion was pretty much the same thing again. (Sigh. I put in my earbuds and tried to block it out. Wishing they'd go elsewhere.)
They aren't Vince Gilligan fans really. To my knowledge they haven't seen anything else by him. GT talked me into watching BB -- but he and I didn't agree completely on the last season. He disliked the last four episodes, while I loved them.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-18 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-18 12:53 am (UTC)But, I think it would be nice to stop buying electronic books.
(Although as my mother states -- the books I've been buying are most likely not available at the library. ;-) )-- Just did a quick search -- turns out I was wrong, the book I want to read next is electronically available at the library. I may start doing this. My book buying habit really needs to be curtailed.no subject
Date: 2019-02-18 03:00 am (UTC)My only regret about using the library for most of my media consumption is that I'm always a season or two behind for television. I have season one of Star Trek Discovery finally waiting for me at the library. We can't renew it because it's got a queue a mile long and we'll never get through the entire season in four days. I am no good at binge watching. One episode a night is about all I can digest.