Posts Tagged ‘Mike Myers’

Michael

Director:  Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Jafaar Jackson, Nia Long, Colman Domingo, KeiLyn Durrel Jones, Michael Andrew Baker, Zach Kenney, Miles Teller, Mike Myers, Kendrick Sampson

Running Time: 2 hours and 7 minutes

Film Rating: 8 out of 10

Training Day and Southpaw director Antoine Fuqua turns his attention as a director away from the hugely popular Equalizer action franchise to direct a musical biopic of Michael Jackson simply titled Michael.

The main actor who plays Michael Jackson in this film is the famous singer’s nephew Jaafar Jackson son of Jermaine Jackson who does an excellent job of playing the King of Pop as he slowly emerges out of the restrictive confines of the Jackson Five to become one of the biggest pop stars in the world in the 1980’s.

Michael focuses on the early years of Michael Jackson from his time as the youngest of the Jackson Five who is repeatedly a target of his abusive and power hungry father Joseph Jackson, a stand out Oscar worthy performance by double Oscar nominee (Rustin, Sing Song) Colman Domingo.

Domingo is excellent as Joseph Jackson the patriarch of the Jackson family who is determined to emancipate his family from poverty and elevate them into wealth and stardom. Michael is different and has a close relationship with his mother Katherine Jackson well played by Nia Long.

What makes Colman Domingo’s chilling performance as the pushy father so brilliant is that it is so against type compared to some of the more flamboyant roles that Domingo has played.

Oscar nominated for screenwriting for The Aviator, Hugo and Gladiator, John Logan’s brilliant script holds Michael together complete with superb direction by Antoine Fuqua. Fortunately what John Logan does in his screenplay is to focus on the music and not the peculiar lifestyle that Michael Jackson led.

Jaafar Jackson is brilliant playing a version of his famous uncle in a film biopic that focuses on the catchy music including the absolute hits like Thriller, Billy Jean and Bad.

Audiences should watch out for a fantastic cameo by Mike Myers as CBS record producer Walter Yetnikoff who is persuaded by Jackson’s manager to put the music video Thriller onto MTV in the early 1980’s, the decade of the music video and one of the reasons why Michael Jackson become so famous so quickly.

Despite his setback when his hair caught on fire shooting a commercial for Pepsi at the Shrine auditorium in Los Angeles in 1984, Michael Jackson succeeded in becoming a mega popstar in the decade of excess. Jackson’s later fame soon eclipsed his famous family and eventually he had the courage to stand up to his controlling father and finally let his own light shine through.

Jaafar Jackson and Colman Domingo are both excellent as the breakout kid that wants to escape to Neverland and the overbearing ruthless father that wants to stifle his son’s creativity.

Featuring excellent music numbers, polished production design by Barbara Ling and glossy cinematography by Dion Beebe, Michael is worth seeing as a musical biopic and gets a film rating of 8 out of 10.

See Michael on the biggest screen possible as the music numbers are brilliant held together by a competent script by John Logan. Highly recommended viewing.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Aiden Gillen, Mike Myers, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Aaron McCusker

What The Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer’s semi biopic about Freddie Mercury Bohemian Rhapsody lacks in shock value, rising star Egyptian American actor Rami Malek makes up for in sheer acting talent. Malek’s superb performance of Freddie Mercury holds the entire fantastical film about one of the 20^th century’s greatest rock bands Queen together.

Bohemian Rhapsody taken from Queen’s six minute rock opera which catapulted them to international superstardom is a fascinating portrayal of the rise and decline of the most outrageous and notorious lead singers in music history – a sort of 1980’s version of Jim Morrison of The Doors fame.

Malek’s tour de force of a performance as the mercurial and super talented Freddie Mercury as he swiftly shrugs off his immigrant persona to embrace the counter culture which swept through British rock music in the 1970’s and 1980’s which originated in the lead singer antics of Sid Vicious of the Punk band The Sex Pistols.

As fame and fortune engulf Queen, the fellow band members are eclipsed by the flamboyant and androgynous performance of Freddie Mercury who is afraid to admit to the world publicly of his real sexuality yet is quite willing to risk all sorts of deviant pleasures under the decadent influence of Irish homosexual companion Paul Prenter wonderfully played  against type by Allen Leech last seen as the Chauffeur in Julian Fellowes hit TV series Downton Abbey.

What director Bryan Singer cleverly avoids is alienating the mainstream audience that will no doubt rush to watch Bohemian Rhapsody by making this rock biopic too risqué but he rather hints at Mercury’s off stage antics especially in London, Rio de Janeiro and Munich. Nothing is going to shock the audience beyond a couple of kissing scenes.

Fortunately, Malek’s performance is not the sort of disturbing viewing generated by the Emmy winning performance of Darren Criss as the gay serial killer Andrew Cunanan in the Ryan Murphy TV series The Assassination of Gianni Versace.

Instead, Rami Malek dazzles as Freddie Mercury in every frame of the film, convincing the audience that Mercury was the ultimate performer. Bohemian Rhapsody’s success belongs to Malek’s electrifying performance.

As Queen becomes phenomenally successful in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s to their tremendous difficulty in not only staying together as a band but also resolving differences with music executives and more significantly keeping the outrageous and utterly flamboyant Freddie Mercury in check.

Bohemian Rhapsody charts the course of a music sensation which broke all conventions and become the innovative chart topping British band. As the film’s narrative heads towards Queen’s sensational performance at the 1985 Live Aid Concert in Wembley Stadium, which broke all audience records, Singer points to the testament of Queen’s continuing popularity even after Mercury’s tragic diagnosis in the midst of the 1980’s AIDS epidemic.

Audiences should prepare for tears and enthusiasm for Queen’s music but most of all, come prepared to be blown away by the sensationally transformative performance of Rami Malek as Freddy Mercury.

Bohemian Rhapsody gets a film rating of 8 out 10 and will definitely score Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.