Velvet Goldmine (1998)

Description[from Freebase]

Velvet Goldmine is a 1998 British/American drama film directed and co-written by Todd Haynes. The film is set in Britain during the days of glam rock in the early 1970s; it tells the story of a pop star based mainly on David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust character. Sandy Powell received a BAFTA Award for Best Costume Design and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. The story follows a British journalist, Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale), who revisits his own past while writing an article about the mysterious disappearance of a former glam-rock star, Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), for an American periodical. Slade's career had ended during backlash from a publicity stunt: he faked being murdered on-stage, after which he gradually disappeared from the public view entirely. Stuart locates and talks with people connected to Slade, trying to find out what happened to him, and recalls the glam-rock scene of the '70s in a series of vignettes, which recreate the stories of Slade, Slade's collaborator and one time lover Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), Slade's former wife, Mandy (Toni Collette) and others involved in their lives.

Review

Todd, you've done better than this. In Velvet Goldmine, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers stars as, well, Ziggy Stardust in the era of Glam Rock -- bisexual with McGregor's Curt Wild (think Kurt Cobain if he was into glitter) and wife Collette. 15 or so years after the death of glam, the drippy, mopey reporter Bale is sent to do a 'whatever happened to...' story. Haynes is obviously very in love with this era to have invented this little story. Too bad the script is so dumb and lifeless (the alien origin of Oscar Wilde is even alleged) that none of that emotion comes across. Snooze.
by Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
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