"A major broadcaster replayed the 1985 Live Aid concert in December, while young singers from the nation’s enormously popular K-pop bands, who were not even born when Mercury died, staged a tribute ensemble in a televised year-end show. In Tokyo, the movie ['Bohemian Rhapsody'] is discussed endlessly in company cafeterias, bars and restaurants. Fans share their favorite scenes, including those that made them weep, and even trade tips on which movie theaters allow people to stand up, sing and dance along with the songs. That in itself is quite something in reserved Japan, where moviegoers usually sit in absolute silence, even through the credits at the end of films."
From "Bohemian Rhapsody fever sweeps Japan and South Korea" (WaPo).
January 3, 2019
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15 comments:
Cultural appropriation.
I sit in absolute silence when Yoko sings. I think her singing is a nerve block. And a coma-inducer.
It is a good movie.
Rotten Tomatoes scores it 62% from critics, 90% from audiences.
...fever sweeps Japan and South Korea
They should try group meditation...
From what I've gathered, the Queen movie strays pretty far from reality in terms of how stuff "really happened" versus what's depicted. Not that people seem to care.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMXyOSfKK8
Brian May was on the news last night as an astro-physicist with Newton hair.
A couple of days ago, I saw that he did the music for the first Mad Max movie (the cheesy one).
"From what I've gathered"
An interesting way to offer a critique.
In fact, from one who is reasonably knowledgeable about the band and actually has seen the film, it tells the Queen story well. The typical Hollywood screen writing to dramatize events, although not 100% chronologically factual, serves the artistic narrative.
And yes, even Queen historians are comfortable this story has been done so well.
Consider seeing it.
"From one who is reasonably knowledgeable about the band and actually has seen the film, it tells the Queen story well."
The Pitch Meeting show on Youtube would disagree:
https://youtu.be/1RajlWbY7uQ
If I remember right, Mercury knew the band members before he joined the group (unlike the movie, where he wanders into the club where they're playing under an earlier name), and he did not know he had AIDS before his Live Aid performance, but several years later, which kinda spoils the triumphant ending the movie posits.
For sure the movie strays significantly from reality for dramatic purposes, at least with respect to the band's history. (Dunno Freddie's private life.)
The most obvious spot is the narrative that Freddie had left for a solo career and so the band was out-of-practice going into Live Aid. In fact Queen's prior tour ended just two months prior to Live Aid. (In Japan, where Queen had been really popular since 1974 or so.)
Thought the movie's music was fantastic, but it's definitely a drama rather than a documentary.
Queen was/is garbage. Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most pointless and stupid things to have ever been produced by humans. The '70s music scene as a whole was pretty awful.
It's happening here, too. I've heard Queen music on about 4 totally unrelated ads recently.
The Rose Bowl half time had Ohio State's band doing a version of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was charming, and very clever. Too bad the network cut off just as the "guitar solo" was starting.
Dear Matt,
Whatever one's taste for Queen, the 70's was an extraordinary Rock decade.
Genesis Skynard Steely Dan Aerosmith
Zepplin Allman Brothers Who
Floyd Marshall Tucker Stones
Yes Little Feat Tull
Supertramp Credence Elton
And on and on and on......The list is exhaustive.
I love Pandora!
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