Review of Velvet Goldmine (1998) by Christopher S — 14 Nov 2008

This movie had intrigued me from afar for some time now, and I finally managed to watch it. I didn't expect a film quite like this, however. Let's dissect this puppy.

First of all, I was not aware that Velvet Goldmine is essentially a musical, and a warped one at that. There is a ton of music and singing, but if you like glam rock the songs are all good I suppose. The structure of the movie made it somewhat hard for me to follow. There are constant time jumps with no clarification of the era that we jump into. Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it is confusing.

I think that Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyers both sing all their songs themselves, at least they sound exactly like them, which is pretty awesome. They are both on fire with their performances, and are clearly the best part of the entire film. They really are the characters. And again, for the ladies I must disclose that you can see Ewan's pecker quite clearly in this movie. And he is bouncing around too. I'll wait while you picture that in your mind. Good, now on with the review.

There is also a strange little green jewel, that has some sort of mystical meaning, and apparently belonged to Oscar Wilde. I didn't fully understand its significance, but I think it gave the rockers some powers or something. The movie is way too long for my attention span, as I am not a huge fan of everything glitter. It amazes me that it even got made, as I'm almost certain this kind of movie will never make much money. Yes, after a quick check I can tell you it only made a little over a million in the box office.

I guess this movie is an homage of some kind to the glamorous 1970's rock period or something, so fans of that period and music will get a lot out of this. I liked it to a degree, but it gets a bit too weird and confusing for me towards the end.