Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek 03.18.09 Rock Biopics Week 2
Posted by Jordan Bruns on 03.18.2009
Week 2 of Rock Biopics is here with a couple of interesting choices...
Welcome to this week's Mad Ramblings of a Movie Geek! Last week I touched on the topic of Rock Biopics, and I'm continuing that theme this week. It's the norm for a Hollywood Biopic to take certain liberties with the truth, but what about documentaries. There's a documentary on this week's list, as well as a TV miniseries. I thought I'd diversify the field a little, choosing to discuss only two movies this week.
This week Mad Ramblings presents Rock Biopics: Week 2…
My Mad Ramblings
The Temptations are The Beatles of Soul. Their story was dramatized in this 1998 TV-miniseries. BUT… A TV mini-series is still a movie. Here we see a moving story of friendship and perseverance that turns into a tragic tale of one man's struggle to keep his dream alive. As usual, truth takes a backseat to drama, but it's the story that matters. The music compliments the narrative as The Temps endure struggle, triumph, ego, addiction, and self-sacrifice, as well as more line-up changes than one can count. Although filmed in Pittsburgh, the old Hitsville building in Detroit is meticulously created (I know because I've been inside the place, and it looks exactly as it does in the movie). Told from the point of view of founding member Otis Williams, it serves as both a christening and a eulogy. Maybe sometimes legacy is more important than life… This movie airs on VH1 all the time, but I recommend watching it on DVD where it's not broken up into two parts and there are no pesky commercials. Uninterrupted, the running time shrinks from four hours to just under three.
My Mad Ramblings
This is the first documentary I've ever talked about on 411… milestone…milestone… OK, no one cares. There have been several documentaries about The Beatles, Elvis, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, and a couple on The Rolling Stones, but this is the only feature-length documentary ever produced about The Ramones- actually, it's the only film ever produced about The Ramones, period. To my knowledge, anyway- there could be a million "unauthorized" bootleg docs out there for all I know. The Ramones deserve to have their story told on film, and it's only fitting that End of the Century allows them to tell their own story through interviews and archival footage. Named after their 1979 album produced by nut job Phil Spector, it's a fascinating tale of a band who never achieved commercial success but arguably influenced more artists than any band since The Beatles. Here we not only get a biography but a glimpse into the fictitious "brothers" as real people: Joey loved pop music, had a learning disability and a weak immune system, and suffered from OCD; Johnny was anti-social and not much fun to be around, and Dee Dee was a heroin-addled lunatic. Tommy, Marky, and Richie were the drummers. And CJ- well, CJ was always the new guy. This film really doesn't touch upon the band's camaraderie, because they had no camaraderie. These guys apparently didn't get along very well most of the time, which makes it all the more unique that they lasted for 22 years. End of the Century is definitely one of the better music-related documentaries I've seen. Also, being a documentary instead of a dramatization allows it to avoid having to take dramatic license. This is the real story, straight out of the horse's mouths.
That's it for this week's Mad Ramblings! Next week I'll be back to finish things off with more Rock Biopics.
