Bohemian Rhapsody vs. Rocketman

It is the showdown that many other people have already discussed: the story of the LGBTQ young man who became Freddie Mercury, who was the lead singer of the band Queen and the story of the LGBTQ young man who became Elton John. In comparing the two, I hope to provide a balanced review and not just laude Rocketman at Bohemian Rhapsody’s expense.

Well, that’s the kind of songs teenagers can crank up the volume in their car and bang their heads to. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ will never be that song.

Do your worst. In fact, take me to court. You signed contracts with me years ago, so I’ll still be collecting my twenty percent long after you’ve killed yourself.

Criteria:

1. Music – Taron Edgarton (Elton John) sang, and did a great job. On the other hand, Rami Malek did not. There is nothing wrong with using the original music people loved.

2. Amount of cheesy dramatic irony jokes – The above quotation from Bohemian Rhapsody is an example of these jokes. When the studio exec allegedly said that to Queen there was no immediate punchline. It only becomes funny because of hindsight and audience’s knowledge. Rocketman did this too, like when Elton John wanted to change his name from Reggie to Elton Dean, which was the name of a bandmate of his. The audience knows he settles on Elton John, and that name has already been mentioned. It is still played for humor, but there is at least an edge to it. Both are guilty, but it’s somewhere Bohemian Rhapsody chooses to spend a lot of time.  N.B. Thanks to my friend Jon for helping to name this criterion.

3. Title – Rocketman – makes sense. Bohemian Rhapsody – the name drags that song into the focus of the plot for a bit, but it’s really not the focus.

4. Costumes – Rhapsody was less absurd. But making the John therapy costume canon paid off.

5. Teeth – Wow.

6. Real & Stage Names – Reggie vs something way cooler than fn Reggie. Elton John vs Freddie Mercury. Obviously Freddie Mercury is cooler. Plus, Elton stole his, which was super rude.

7. A-Hole Abusive Manager/Love Interest – What a parallel. Rocketman’s was almost 2D, which makes him better than Bohemian Rhapsody’s abuser.

8. New Information – Elton John still works with Bernie Taupin. Freddie Mercury was of Pakistani descent!

9. Length & Pacing – Rocketman felt well paced and Bohemian Rhapsody felt out of sorts with time. On the whole though, both felt a bit rushed.

10. Compared to Amadeus – Just an excuse to mention an amazing film. It is not fair to compare these to that 5 star gem.

11. Editing – I saw a video criticizing the editing in Bohemian Rhapsody as unduly frenetic in low energy scenes. Whereas some of the transitions in Rocketman were phenomenal.

12. Lead Acting Performance – Rocketman incorporated its musical elements wonderfully, and Edgarton deserves a ton of credit for making them work. Whereas Rami Malek won for best actor in Bohemian Rhapsody? Seriously? I hope he’s better in No Time To Die.

The more I pile on my criticism of Bohemian Rhapsody, the clearer it becomes that I really preferred Rocketman and how disappointed I was with Bohemian Rhapsody. If you agree, feel free to tell me I’m right, and if you disagree, please tell me what I missed.

****½ for Rocketman; **½ for Bohemian Rhapsody

Mamma Mia!

***

Typical isn’t it? You wait 20 years for a dad and then three come along at once.

For those like me who were unfamiliar with the play on which this movie is based, it is about a wedding where the bride invites her three potential fathers without telling her mother. Also, they sing songs by the 1970s Swedish pop group Abba. I will admit that this is a deeply flawed movie, which if one wanted to tear apart, one certainly could. It is silly and the acting is a mixture between melodrama and light slapstick.

Dominic Cooper and Amanda Seyfried, as Sky and Sophie, singing Abba’s “Lay All Your Love on Me”, which was the surprising high point of the movie, Mamma Mia © 2008 Universal Pics.

Yet for all of the movie’s flaws I cared about the characters. Amanda Seyfried—Cosette, Les Misérables—strikes just the right balance of ingenuity and naivete to lead the story, while in the hands of a lesser actress her plan would have driven me mad. Fortunately, she is the one who interacts with all the other characters. Through her I became invested in the story and wanted to find out the payoff of the premise. Who is her father? Will the potential dads talk to her mom–Meryl Streep? Will one of them wind up with the mom in the end?

But by far the biggest question that this movie left me with was, does Abba exist in this universe? I mean, let’s examine the facts. All the main characters break into songs from Abba’s catalog. It is not just one, or one group, it is all of them. These songs are sung in the first person and they apply to the circumstances these characters face. At no point in the movie are the voices of the band Abba heard. I see this as leaving two possible circumstances. The first is that Abba exists, as a band from the 1970s, and people know their music to a greater or lesser extent. These people, by their own volition, use the most appropriate Abba song for their situation every so often. The second is that there never was an Abba in this universe, but their music and lyrics are so potent that they manifest themselves through this certain collection of people at this point in time. Perhaps it goes farther than that and this phenomenon occurs around the world, much like how the alien ships in Independence Day communicated synchronously. Let’s take my favorite song in the movie, “Lay All Your Love on Me“¹, that song begins with Sky looking for his missing fiancée, Sophie, and as she runs to him he starts to sing that song. They sing to each other, which can be explained in either Abbaverse. Then a squad of men swim ashore and carry Sky off, so that they can synchronized dance to the song before hopping into the water, which abruptly leads to Sky departing on a mystery jetski. This is absurd in a world with Abba songs, and a little less odd in that second world where Abba songs erupt from people. But the song continues on with Sophie finishing the song that night. The song never stops, so, did time pass? Does she know that time has passed? Is she supposedly singing this same song for a second time? If so, did someone else sing the male vocals? For every conclusion I make I have three more questions! Movies are supposed to make us think, and that is especially true in excellent art and unintentional comedies.

¹ I hope this YouTube link works forever. I do not even know how to download videos from YouTube, plus, what is the payoff for me to do? It would generally be illegal anyways. ↩

Into the Woods

I was raised to be charming, not sincere.

This movie’s fate rests on the usually steady shoulders of Meryl Streep. Even as the movie bounds off with the excellent “Into the Woods” song, her appearance as “Witch” jarred and quickly disappointed me. Her singing was okay, particularly in her song to Rapunzel—Mackenzie Mauzy—”Stay with Me”. But even then her bi-polar shift by banishing Rapunzel was done exceedingly poorly. The thing that I have heard more than anything was that the Baker—James Corden—acted wonderfully. Great performances do not come across as “acted”, which was how Streep came across several times. Either she has gotten worse as an actress or Rob Marshall–Chicago–made some terrible choices. And Corden was very good as the Baker, which explains how he got the leading role in a sea of more famous co-stars.

The Witch (Meryl Streep) holding Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy), in Into The Woods, © Disney 2014.

But I have gotten ahead of myself and begun to review this as if everyone has already seen it. The story of Into the Woods is an amalgam of Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Bean Stalk, and Little Red Riding Hood. The addition of a Baker and a Baker’s Wife tie all of these stories together. Then in Act II we see how misleading “happily ever after” can be.

Returning to the opening song, the voice that impressed me most belonged to Daniel Huttlestone’s Jack. This should not have been the case, as I had already seen him as Gavroche in Les Misérables and my girlfriend Megan told me this before seeing the movie. Well I have not seen Pitch Perfect, but Anna Kendrick demonstrated here how she got that leading role by singing and bringing Cinderella to life. Her step-family—Christine Baranski, Lucy Punch and Tammy Blanchard—were all fine, but she was probably my favorite fairy tale protagonist in the movie. Her love interest, or her prince, was played by Chris Pine—new Star Trek’s Captain Kirk. He gets the award for best overall performance. His singing, looks, humor and longing were all great. I had heard the song he shares with his brother–Billy Magnussen–called “Agony” and found it cloying. Seeing them perform it made me laugh out loud and engaged my interest through the end of Act I.

Billy Magnussen, left, and Chris Pine singing “Agony” in Into the Woods.

Well, it engaged my interest until either Streep’s performance or Marshall’s mismanagement of pacing knocked me out of it for a moment, despite the climax of the movie coming right about then—which was an interesting change from most movies. Act II suffers more from this than Act I. Chris Pine and Emily Blunt’s “Baker’s Wife” share a good scene that is followed up by a dragging song that simply does not fit into the tense feel. It was like un-comic…whatever the opposite of relief is. And Emily Blunt was very good through most of the movie, too, which made that scene, “Moments in the Woods” so disappointing.

This makes giving Into the Woods a rating very difficult. I have many damning criticisms, but the good definitely outweighed the bad. For guidance I looked to my ratings of Les Mis and Phantom of the Opera. Those musicals shared similar flaws to this. They each had one excellent song, in addition to several other fine ones. The production values on Les Mis, and even Phantom, were far higher than here. There were more times that this felt like a play than a movie. But neither of those movies engaged me as fully and coherently as this did, at its peak. ***½

Rent

My favorite scene in this adaptation was “The Tango Maureen.” It did not have the big stars in it—Jesse L. Martin, Rosario Dawson, or Taye Diggs. It barely advanced the plot, but it stemmed from a very real place, with a twist. It has the current girlfriend and ex-boyfriend meeting for the first time when the lady who connects them is nowhere to be seen. From this relatable point singing and dancing erupt with a dream sequence, or head trauma induced hallucination sequence, featuring fancy costumes and music. By itself it could have made a nice short-film.

Tracie Thoms and Anthony Rapp dancing “The Tango Maureen,” © 2005 1492’s Rent.

Taken as a whole I do not really approve of the plot. But it did raise awareness of AIDs. And it showed the variety of people who have contracted AIDs. On the other hand it showed characters who were pleased that other characters had AIDs for sexual and relationship reasons, but failed to explore how disturbing that reaction is, while also being an honest and human one. This could have been something a lot deeper and more interesting instead of what it was. What that really is, or what its creators wanted it to be, I still do not know.

**

Oh, no. Please, no. No. Not tonight. Please leave.

As a post script, the above was spoken by the Life Cafe Manager as he fails to keep the main characters out of the Cafe. I sided with him. I imagine that the creator did not want the audience to root against his characters but look at the facts. They pay infrequently, take up space, dance on tables, yell, fight, stand on the bar, and erase the specials. The fellow patrons seemed to like it, but had I been in that cafe I would have been so annoyed. And then would have felt guilty when I learned that most of them had AIDs.