biopics - which ones are good?

Young Mr Lincoln is a fine film, but it 1) basically covers one of Abe's cases and 2) is 99% fiction. I don't think of it as a biopic anymore than My Darling Clementine is one of Wyatt Earp.

Andrei Rublev (See, this is where I have problems with the word. Too imaginative to be called a biopic. ditto on Bonnie & Clyde)
The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser

Not necessarily on the "good" list:

Those endless Hollywood bios of scientists/lit figures in the '30s (usu starring Paul Muni or someone who could be mistaken for him) or of pop songwriters/vaudevillians in the '40s and '50s (for which Yankee Doodle Dandy is the template -- and again, usu wholly fictional, ie Cary Grant as a hetero Cole Porter)

Malcolm X (in spite of Malcolm X)

Ok, not really, but I think it would be amusing to ponder biopics that are sabotaged by their own source.

Malcolm X fits in pretty well with the school of Attenboroughesque high-school filmstrips (save for Spike's usual camera jazz flourishes).

there's an edvard munch biopic that played here some months ago--produced for norwegian television in the 70's or 80's i think?--and it was actually quite good. lots of repetition of images to formally conjure the claustrophobic feel of munch's canvases, and period oslo (er, christiania) was evoked in the same kind of muted colors. overlong, maybe.

I'd second Coalminer's Daughter and Vincent & Theo and add:

The Pianist
The Straight Story
Raging Bull
The Night of the Shooting Stars
A World Apart
Purple Rain
The Right Stuff
Seabiscuit
Shattered Glass
In the Name of the Father
Ed Wood
Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Lumumba

(just going off the last three decades)

See, I think the subject has to be famous *already*... and too short a period. That's just Based On A True Story.

>Purple Rain

No, fictionalized self-mythology is disqualified.

Wait a minute. You're telling me that Malcolm X feels fraudulent?!

Bette Midler, pushing 70, to play Mae West in her 30s and 40s under the direction of William Friedkin:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/william-friedkin-to-direct-bette-midler-to-star-in-mae-west-biopic-for-hbo-films-20131210

The age doesn't bother me as much as that it's fucking Bette Midler.

Oh this will be good.

this is a p good, relevant column

These sorts of movies are popular for the same reason that fat tomes of historical fiction by the likes of James Clavell, James A. Michener, and Leon Uris used to be the only fiction that you’d find in houses otherwise devoid of books: there is a significant segment of the American public that thinks this business of making characters and stories up out of thin air is a little suspicious and possibly effeminate. Backers gravitate towards True Story film properties because, like superhero movies, franchise reboots, and genre work, they utilize recognizable icons and known quantities—though, unlike all of those examples, true-life stories of famous people triumphing over honest-to-God hardships are widely and erroneously considered to belong to a higher category of morally improving works...

http://filmcomment.com/entry/bombast-the-black-list

Yeah, like I think I said on the other thread, biopics let their subjects' obvious prominence do all the heavy lifting.

Heavy, masculine, non-effeminate lifting.

Hawking biopic excepted, obvs.

Chadwick Boseman cast as Thurgood Marshall, en route to playing Every Famous Black Man Ever

http://jezebel.com/why-does-hollywood-keep-casting-chadwick-boseman-in-bio-1748584019

http://variety.com/2018/film/news/flamin-hot-cheetos-movie-devon-franklin-fox-searchlight-1202707879/

Nico 1988 - possibly the best film that is also a rock biopic that I've seen. Recommend highly.

Here we go:

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/universal-rock-hudson-biopic-all-that-heaven-allows-1203155807/

I guess it's only fair after Ray Kroc that the Flamin' Hot Cheetos guy get one

Eva Longoria To Direct Cheetos Movie ‘Flamin’ Hot’ For Fox Searchlight & Franklin Entertainment https://t.co/iDu0VGpCdj pic.twitter.com/GpPJhj02br

— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) August 27, 2019

(I have never heard of Flamin' Hot Cheetos before today)

Let's go with these musical biopics.

https://variety.com/lists/greatest-rock-music-biopics/control-2/