The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Gay Joke Involving 'Mercury' And 'Rising'

I've pretty much made peace with everyone thinking I'm gay. This happens when you are much more attractive than everyone, and you just have to live with it [Ed. - LOL]. It doesn't help that, as a schoolkid, I carried a copy of A Picture of Dorian Gray around in my coat and the first band I got into was Queen. Speaking of Queen, Brian May the curly haired guitarist mentioned to The Daily Express (a terrible newspaper from England) that a biopic of Freddy Mercury is in the works. Yay!

Freddy Mercury was born in Zanzibar which is in evil South Africa, kind of, and was an awkward child, possibly because of having so many teeth, then stuff happened and he wrote Bohemian Rhaspody and that's more than enough biogrpahical background thank you. The point is the current trend of biopics (like Ray and Walk the Line) are terribly serious-minded, respectful hagiographies mythologising musicians into iconic representations of a generation. Freddy's life doesn't really fit the template. Maybe they could show how seeing his black servants oppressed when he was a kid led him to hold champagne parties with naked models covered in liver while late 70's England suffered from blackouts. Maybe they could show how being the son of a middle ranking cashier at the British Colonial Office led him to write the line "Scaramouche, Scaramouche will you do he fandango". Maybe they could show how his struggle with society's homophobia led him to record an album as shit as Hot Space.

Brian didn't mention any details about stars, directors or release dates, possibly because it is a big secret, or possibly because a crappy tabloid newspaper took some idle conversation about future projects out of context, but what should be remembered is that We Will Rock You, the musical based on Queen's music, is really shit. What's interesting is that the posters for it have a picture taken from the stage out at the audience at the big finale- in order to show how everyone really loves the show - and the audience look like the sort that would go to a Toby Keith concert. Or get lost trying to find one. Either way they don't like the sort that would enjoy a film camp enough to accurately depict what Queen got up to during their career. These are the sort of people who would not see the irony of pumping their fist in the air at hearing the news of this biopic. We can hope for an accurate recreation of the set for Flash Gordon, but I fear the best we'll get is the set from Highlander.

Dream casting? Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) as Freddy, directed by John Cameron Mitchell (Shortbus, Hedwig And The Angry Inch). To be honest, you could just splice together scenes from those three films, put Queen's Greatest Hits over the top and you'll have a better film that the one we'll get.

More dream casting? Darren Aronofsky directs Christian Bale in a tale of how cocaine and the 1980's will lead to a downward spiral of debauchery, AIDS and disco inspired rock albums.

Even more? Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg. They don't really fit, but that bit in Shaun of the Dead when they thump the zombie with cricket bats to 'Don't Stop Me Now' is aces.

That's enough.