Bohemian Rhapsody- the film

[shoes]

Has anyone else seen this yet? I thought it was very good and while some factual liberties were taken (dramatic license), I thought it did a good job of capturing the essence of the Queen/Freddie Merciry story.

[PonyGirlJCM]

I saw this film....was insightful.....enjoyed it....

[spanky126]

Have not seen but plan to...thanks for the comments. Right now I've boiled it down to this movie or The Grinch...lol...Pixar movies are never disappointing!

[1hooper]

Have not seen it shoes. But you prompted me to go back and revisit the Let It Be film yesterday. Tonight might be the early 70’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen.
Renaldo and Clara

[shoes]

hooper- do you own Let it Be? It has been unavailable for years. I had heard that neither Yoko or Paul wanted to release (re-release it). I saw it twice when it was in the theaters. I am always fascinated with insight on how music gets made. That was the thing I liked about the Brian Wilson biopic too. At the theater for BR they showed a preview for an Elton John biopic as well.

For those that are interested, based on my not necessarily foolproof research, these are some of the fact vs fiction aspects for Bohemian Rhapsody.

I did some research and have concluded that the movie did a great job of capturing the true essence of the story due no doubt to the fact that guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor were heavily involved in its making. Some dramatic license was taken. Here are the key differences:

Freddie knew the band, then Smile, and it's bass player, lead singer for awhile before the bar concert shown in the film and tried to get into the band for sometime. He met Mary Austin, a key figure in the film, at her place of work, not the bar.
The Mike Meyers record exec character, who was down on A night at the Opera and resisted releasing Bohemian Rhapsody did not exist, he may have been a composite of several characters.
They did not part on bad terms with their manager, it had nothing to do with solo work offers.
The band never really broke-up. They mutually agreed to do some individual projects which they all did.
Live aid was not a reunion concert, they had released an album and been touring in the year leading up to it.
Fredde did not find out they he had aids until a year or two after the live aid concert.

The movie showed that the band was furious with Freddie for pursuing solo records and that Live Aid was a reunion concert , and implied that he took the stage shortly after learning he had Aids. Queen was in fact a late add on to Live Aid but that was more due to disputes with Bob Geldolf.

Key things that were pretty spot on:

Mary did stay a lifelong friend after they split. Freddie left half of his considerable estate and his home to her. She and her family live in his home till this day.
Paul, a manager/lover really was a first class jerk but wasn’t fired until after Live Aid and not because he didn’t tell Freddie about the fact that Queen had been requested to play in it.. He had a party without Freddie in Freddie’s house and the house had gotten trashed.

Freddie told the band he had aids a couple of years after Live Aid but he didn’t publicly disclose it until one day before he died.
He did continue to have sex with women (as well as men) after he split from Mary.

He met Jim Hutton, his partner at the time of his death, who stuck by him, not when he was a waiter at a party, but at a bar, Hutton was a hairdresser from Ireland.

As I've said, I enjoyed the movie and think it is well worth seeing.