Review: "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Freddie Mercury was a beautiful, beautiful man. He had the voice of an angry angel and the strut of a smirking devil. The songs he created with his band, Queen, have already entered the hall of ages. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is an exuberant celebration of the man and the music.

But not just Mercury himself.

One of the things I appreciated about the film, directed by Bryan Singer from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten, is that’s not a simple biopic of the lead singer. The other three members of the band -- lead guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee), drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) and bassist John Deacon (Joseph Mazzello) -- are fully represented as living, breathing people and not just “the other guys.” They regard Mercury as a brother and equal, and aren’t shy about calling out his self-centered behavior.

Rami Malek embodies the soul of Mercury, capturing his ineluctable showmanship onstage and retiring nature off it. For the songs, the filmmakers combined Malek’s vocals with those of Mercury and Marc Martel, a professional sound-alike. It’s an effective innovation, sounding like Mercury’s own voice while authentic enough to not seem like just canned playback.

The story follows Mercury for about 15 years, from a kid of Persian ethnicity who moved from Tanzania to the U.K. as a teenager, to the height of his fame and ego. It’s a mesmerizing, bravura performance by Malek, one that I hope is remembered during the awards season.

We witness Queen evolve from a college pub band into something more, selling their touring van to pay for studio time to cut an album. Born to conservative parents and with a protruding overbite caused by extra teeth, Mercury hungers to break out of his assigned role.

He wanted to play for the weirdos in the back of the room, because he was one.

Fame and fortune soon followed, but Mercury was kept grounded for many years by the companionship of Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), his onetime fiancé and for whom he wrote “Love of My Life.” Eventually he came out to her as bisexual, which ended their romance but not their friendship.

Queen deliberately blurred gender lines in their act, slapping each other’s bums and dressing in drag for a music video. At a time when being openly gay could literally be fatal, they toyed with our proscribed notions of attraction and thereby made breaking them seem less dangerous.

The movie contains many of the hallmarks of the rock movie -- shady producers, spats between the band, a sycophantic personal manager (a slimy Allen Leech) who worms his way into the star’s life and sows the seeds of dissension.

But the film never feels rote or predictable. We celebrate the live recreation of Queen performances -- if you don’t inadvertently start stamping your feet during “We Will Rock You,” you can’t be helped -- and marvel at the collaborative creativity that went into making them.

We don’t just feel like we’re observing Queen, but have been invited inside the bubble.

(Note: Singer was fired with two weeks left in production and replaced by Dexter Fletcher; however, the Director’s Guild awarded him sole credit.)

There are two mirrored shots near the beginning and end that encapsulate the film. They chronicle the moment when Queen was about to take the stage for the massive Live Aid concert in 1985, which was their big reunion after a split of several years. Both follow Mercury as he strides from his trailer through the backstage area and then prepares to leap out of the curtains to a live crowd in the hundreds of thousands, and a television audience of over a billion.

In the first, the camera follows Mercury alone from behind. We appreciate his singular flamboyant personality and eagerness to bask in the wave of adulation. In the second, the rest of the band follows him as together they take the stage as a group. In the first, he is Freddie, a virtuoso; in the second he is part of Queen, a legend.

That’s the lesson of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Even those blessed with superstar talent need others to reach their ultimate potential. Freddie Mercury found his onstage by joining his abilities with others, and offstage by looking to people who cared about him as a person rather than just as a rock god. I can’t wait to watch this movie again, and again.

Video review: "I Am Chris Farley"

If you looked at the average lifespan of “Saturday Night Live” alumni compared to the general population, you'd find it’s shockingly low. So many talented comedic fireballs have gone to early graves -- some to disease (Gilda Radner) or violence (Phil Hartman), but far too many to excessive lifestyles and a lack of self-control.

Anyone watching the show in the 1990s initially viewed Chris Farley as the reincarnation of John Belushi: a maniacal tubby guy with a natural grace for physical comedy that belied his girth. “I Am Chris Farley” is the new documentary about his life, where he came from, why he was so popular on the show -- and why he was incapable of doing anything halfway.

Directors Brent Hodge and Derik Murray interview an impressive list of people who knew or worked with Farley, tracing his rise from class cut-up in a bucolic Wisconsin town to king of the Second City comedy troupe in Chicago up through the seemingly ordained call-up to SNL. We learn that he was a man who would literally do anything for a laugh, even being suspended from his Catholic school for exposing himself during typing class.

People like Adam Sandler, Dan Aykroyd, David Spade, Bob Saget, Mike Myers, Christina Applegate, SNL chief Lorne Michaels and many others weigh in with memories, regrets and praise. Farley’s brothers and childhood friends speak of a soul so innocent and pure that there was simply no nastiness in him. His inability to cope with alcohol and drugs was, they say, simply an extension of a man whose appetite for joy was unquenchable.

Myself, I was never a particular fan of Farley’s. He seemed to operate under the principle of “comedy by volume” -- that is, any line of dialogue becomes funny if you shout it loudly and repeatedly. The half-life he could wring out of material was regrettably brief; no doubt the reason his two films in a starring role both bombed as audiences couldn’t summon the endurance for 90 minutes of Farley’s pratfalls and mugging.

His act got old fast, and so did Farley. His death at age 33 of an overdose, compounded by his obesity, came as a shock to exactly no one, his friends say.

Still, if Farley’s brand of merriment wasn’t my bag, I appreciated the devotion he put into his craft. As this doc underlines, no one put more effort into looking like a screw-up.

It’s an insightful, affecting portrait of a misunderstood comedy giant who left us too soon.

As a straight-to-video release that’s also being shown on the Spike TV channel, there are no bonus materials.

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Review: "Shrek Forever After"

I'm not seeing blood red about having to sit through more ogre green -- mostly because the fourth installment in Dreamworks' 800-pound animation franchise, "Shrek Forever After," is reasonably entertaining. Certainly, it's a big improvement over the awful "Shrek the Third."

Still, it's clear the only reason this movie has for existing is also green -- the papery kind.

Consider this: Mike Myers (Shrek), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), Eddie Murphy (Donkey) and Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots) haven't starred in a single non-Shrek hit movie between them in the last few years.

Heck, Myers doesn't even have much of a career these days outside of voicing the un-jolly green giant. (I don't count "The Love Guru," since in time I wrote this sentence, you could have counted its entire box office gross.)

Let's face it, the "Shrek" machine was already growing tired by the first sequel, which at least had a frenetic energy and a boatload of pop culture jokes to keep the momentum going.

By the fourth go-round, the filmmakers are left to rely on rimshot one-liners -- Puss and Donkey call each other a "cat-tastrophe" and "re-donkeylous," respectively -- and overly familiar character quirks: Donkey sings! Puss preens! Fiona frets! etc.

To recap: In the first movie, Shrek learned to set aside his beastly ways and fall in love. In the sequel, he got to meet the in-laws and fight for his, er, woman. In the third flick, he came to terms with becoming a responsible adult and daddy.

So what's the obvious logical step? Yep, the mid-life blues.

Shrek gets fed up with being tied down by a wife and kids and makes a dangerous magical bargain to get a taste of his bachelor days. Of course, he learns to embrace domestic bliss in the end.

What's next? "Shrek: Curse of the Prostate Exam"?

About the only thing that's fresh is the addition of a whole gaggle of ogres. It has seemed awfully suspicious that, up until now, Shrek and his brood have been the only green-skinned folk we've seen.

Shrek bumps into them while traipsing through an alternate reality he helped create. He signed a contract with the mischievous Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) to have one day in which everyone is scared of him again. Of course, the sawed-off trickster finds a way to turn the tables so he's the ruler of the land of Far Far Away.

In this universe, Fiona is the chief brigand behind the ogre resistance. Her lieutenant is Brogan (Jon Hamm), Craig Robinson is the chimichanga-spewing cook, and Jane Lynch is the (apparently) only other female ogre.

Turns out Shrek, who we've thought of as a burly behemoth, is actually rather undersized for his race.

Donkey's around, pulling wagons for the army of witches allied with 'Stilstskin. So is Puss, though he's put aside his boots to live the life of a plump, pampered pet kitty.
It's all one big fun -- but pointless -- caper with old friends.

Sum it up this way: Imagine if "Shrek Forever After" were not the fourth movie in a series, but the first. Based on its mild amusements, do you think anybody would be dying to make another, and another, and on? That's wishful thinking.

2.5 stars out of four