Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Note:  I love this film so much.  It made me understand Freddie Mercury more, and I appreciated Queen as a whole like I never did before.

Directed by	Bryan Singer and towards the end, Dexter Fletcher
Produced by	Graham King, Jim Beach, Robert De Niro, and Bryan Singer
Screenplay by	Anthony McCarten
Story by	Anthony McCarten Peter Morgan

When I was a young girl I was very vocal about my views on backmasking, and Queen was one of those I was campaigning against.  I still very much believe about the evils of the subliminal messages of backmasking, but I'm glad to see Freddie Mercury, my nephew's favourite singer, and his band, Queen, beyond backmasking(btw, I know a lot of people who used backmasking to insert good subliminal messages too).

This movie has mixed reviews from the critics, most of them would rather have Freddie Mercury as a good for nothing fag (I read somewhere that was what they called him), which was not widely accepted in the 1970s, 1980s, and even the 1990s.

Do I think that the movie was sanitized? Yes, but everything was tackled (drugs, alcohol, homosexuality, bisexuality, temptations, other lurid things, other sordid things), but the movie did not focus on the negative. I mean, it did not dwell on it.

What it did focus on was how Freddie valued his true friends...his family by heart.  It also showed that in the end, he also valued his family by blood and by heart too.

The movie was well acted, and exciting too.  I don't know what the critics were...are looking for?  Do they really want the viewers to see EVERY bad thing Freddie did, just like that female reporter who focused on everything he did in the bedroom, and wherever else he could do "it".

When Queen helped LIVE AID be super successful, I heard he collapsed after the performance, but it wasn't shown in this movie. According to Jim Hutton, his Aids was diagnosed in 1987, a year and a half after the wonderful Live Aid Performance, and not before, but there were speculations about it even before.

Maybe they also wanted to focus on the performance, not the aftermath.  After all, he was given by God, yes, I believe that, six years, more or less cinematically, or more than four years in reality, after what the human physicians' given time frame of the end of his mortality.

BTW, since I thought it was going to happen...to be shown in the movie, I was crying already even before the people watching LIVE AID at Wembley were in tears.  I also shed some tears in other parts of the movie. When it was just an afterthought, my heart was still wrung.  I have so judged this wonderful human being unfairly, in the name of God.

When his lifestyle gave him full blown AIDS, it allowed him to dig deeper in his life, and became a beacon of hope to the hopeless.

Oh, and I also wanna share this reviewer's point of view because I share her sentiments:

Colleen Baron:

2 days ago 

Tonight (Nov 2nd)  I hurried with excitement to see Bohemian Rhapsody, even taking along my 11 year old daughter.  Now before some of you cover your mouths with shock that I took an 11 year old - hold the phone!  As a mother I wanted her to see it - not for the drugs or sexuality, but for the humanity and artistry.  Freddie Mercury was a man with insecurities, uncertainty and demons.  But he was also a man of exceptional talent. I think its important to see movies that depict this sort of inner turmoil to show there are ways to combat negativity and come out on top.  Now onto the movie.

Yes, if your a Queen fan you will see the misrepresentation of some of the facts.  Like timing on the release of Fat Bottom Girls and clothing Freddie was wearing when recording We Will Rock You.  But put that aside for a second.  This movie was made as a biopic - a biographical cinematic picture to tell the basics of how a band of "misfits" came to be loved by other misfits.  It is a store of the beginnings of Queen and Freddie.  It tells the love story he had with Mary - which is true cause he trusted her even with his death (she is the only person who knows where his remains are so he can rest in peace).  And you dont necessarily see the wild side (the allegedly small people carry trays of cocaine at his parties or sexual exploits of his parties), it touches on that. But if you let your mind fill in the blanks, you can figure it out they were rock stars from the 70s, 80s and early 90s - they partied hard, especially Freddie.  What you do see is the impressive way they produced music and contributed to their success.  They supported each other as band members.  

If you walk in the theater wanting to here grear Queen tunes, you'll get that.  If you go in there wanting dark secrets, well save your money. There were many aspects to what made Queen who they were.  But look at the body language, the words spoken, the angles of the film and you'll get the small pieces that make it make sense.  If you pieced together everything to tell the story of queen and Freddie Mercury, then you'll have a sore arse from sitting in a theater for over 12 hours - it would be Titanic times 4.  It tells beautifully the store of music, love, life, tragedy, happiness and sadness.  I loved it.  

I was so excited to see this movie (and so was my daughter).  She loved it.  And i did explain the homosexuality thing to her before the movie - the language of the time about Freddie calling himself a "hysterical queen" and men liking men, etc.  I would rather her hear from her mother than some school yard garbage.  But I wanted her to know that Freddie Mercury had flaws like all of us.  He wasn't perfect and had his own issues to work through, but that never stopped him from being the best entertainer that he could be - the best person he could be (in the end).  I think the PG-14 rating drives that home.  Go see this movie with an open mind about the topics it tackles and you will come away with an understanding of a group of men who gave the world some wonderful music and memories, in particular one man that we lost too soon.

Rami Malek Dating 'Bohemian Rhapsody' Co-Star Lucy Boynton!

Cast:

Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury, lead vocalist of the rock band Queen

Adam Rauf as young Freddie Mercury


Lucy Boynton as Mary Austin, Mercury's girlfriend and fiancée
Gwilym Lee as Brian May, Queen lead guitarist
Ben Hardy as Roger Taylor, Queen drummer
Joseph "Joe" Mazzello as John Deacon, Queen bass guitarist
Aidan Gillen as John Reid, Queen's manager
Tom Hollander as Jim Beach, Queen's lawyer turned manager a.k.a. Miami 
Allen Leech as Paul Prenter, Mercury's personal manager (someone we would love to hate)
Mike Myers as Ray Foster, an EMI executive
Aaron McCusker as Jim Hutton, Mercury's love interest
Dermot Murphy as Bob Geldof
Meneka Das as Jer Bulsara, Mercury's mother
Ace Bhatti as Bomi Bulsara, Mercury's father
Priya Blackburn as Kashmira Bulsara, Mercury's sister
Dickie Beau as Kenny Everett
Max Bennett as David, Mary's new boyfriend
Neil Fox-Roberts as Mr. Austin, Mary's father
Jack Roth as Tim Staffell, vocalist of the rock band Smile
Philip Andrew as Reinhold Mack
Michelle Duncan as Shelley Stern
Adam Lambert in a cameo role


The Soundtrack




Jim Hutton & Freddie Mercury: The Real Love Story Bohemian Rhapsody Leaves Out


Thanks for your time.  :-)