JeffTheAlpaca

Why not one of the best?

I watched it again last night on HDNET.

I thought it was a great movie and maybe the only Greg Kinnear film worth watching.

Did the subject matter turn off most people?

iamiam

Amadeus
Last Emperor

Ash Ketchum

Larry Cohen's THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER (1977)

Also, the double bill of YOUNG TOM EDISON (1940), starring Mickey Rooney, and EDISON THE MAN (1940), starring Spencer Tracy.

coli

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

TheySentYou

Milos Forman, Martin Scorsese, and Julian Schnabel are the only directors that come to mind when perfecting the biopic.

my favorites:

The Last Emperor
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (even though only portraying the character's final days mostly)
Before Night Falls
Basquiat
The Basketball Diaries
Raging Bull
The Prince of Egypt (questionable... but it does tell a life story, an amazingly animated one at that)
Goodfellas
Man on the Moon
Amadeus

arminius

The Sullivans
Der Stern Von Afrika, more for the subject than the movie.

lawyer goodwill

Ed Wood is definitely the best biopic in my book. I wish there would be more done in similar fashion. Hadn't considered other favorites outside of Ed Wood, but after reading other posts, I would say Patton and La Bamba - very enjoyable flicks.

Another one that has risen up my charts is Young Mr. Lincoln, the John Ford film starring Henry Fonda. Heck, I would rate that up there with Ed Wood.

And while I really liked Walk the Line for what it is, as a very big Johnny Cash fan, I was disappointed with its approach. I thought it would've been a no-brainer to include him actually knocking out the stagelamps at the Grand Ole Opry (he joked later that "the lights were in his eyes," or something of that nature, which I always found hilarious) and his iconic performance at the state pen in Huntsville, TX, in the rain. But I guess those were just "concert" scenes, and the movie went the romance route, which was certainly a fine plan.

Still, making his first wife such a bitty was dirty pool; apparently in "real" life, she was very supportive of his career but he just fell in love with June Carter. I believe it would have made for better drama if he were torn between his supportive wife/mother of kids and his new love, but I reckon they wanted it to be cut and dry.

I have similar issues with Rudy (reality vs. fiction), but that movie worked with the material much more effectively and kept the important truths intact, in my opinion.

Maybe these reasons support my preference for Ed Wood: The facts of a relatively obscure character, mixed with flashes of fantasy and over the top performances = good entertainment!

Biopics are just dangerous territory, I guess. I should probably just stick with documentaries for certain subjects.

hasslein

The Agony & the Ecstasy

Double_Oh_7

Ed Wood
The People vs. Larry Flynt
Amadeus

toddly6666

inri222

Bird
Andrei Rublev
Control

Brack

Biodome

NoirFan

My personal favorite is probably Ed Wood, although I wish they hadn't glossed over his later years. It's more of a fantasy fairy-tale than anything factual. Then again, the same is true of Wood's films, so it's an appropriate approach in that regard.

Travis McClain

I'd have to double-check, but I'm not entirely sure the incident at the Opry occurred during the span of the film, to be fair. Having read Cash's Man in Black, however, I have become disillusioned by Walk the Line's depiction of his relationship with his dad. And, trivial though it may be, I'm still annoyed that the film suggests that "Folsom Prison Blues" got him Sam Phillips's approval.

I just can't understand why these (and other) changes were deemed necessary. I mean, really, why alter the truth when the truth is already 1) on record and 2) interesting?

The answer, of course, is that the film was really John Carter Cash's version of reality; his attempt to insert his idea of how things were, or even should have been, into the Cash mythology. It's sad, really, that this guy's entire identity seems to hinge on his being the only child Johnny and June had together.

Oh, and to respond to the thread itself, my answer is Lawrence of Arabia.

rw2516

Throw in a couple oldies

Pride of The Yankees
Man of A Thousand Faces

Those of you choosing Ed Wood do realize the movie is almost entirely fiction?

TheySentYou

i've had 'Control' sitting in my collection for the past 4 months... but haven't watched it. being a fan of that era of music, i REALLY need to get on my game and watch this.

Neeb

Good movie, but tough to get into.

dino88

Most of the ones I was thinking of have been named, so I'll just go with some of my favorites that haven't been listed....

Chopper
The Doors
Young Guns

NoirFan

Are you telling me that meeting between Ed Wood and Orson Welles never happened??

lawyer goodwill

Good points. I had completely forgotton about the treatment of the Johnny's father; I know a lot of the Cash family weren't too happy with that, either.

Regarding the stagelamps, I thought some of the music producers late in the movie mention him kicking out the lights or something - maybe I don't recollect it correctly. I remember thinking, "Oh, why didn't y'all show that!"

MR Round

Amazing Grace for both

gglass4269

I really enjoy Walk the Line.

Anonymous2008

Marion Cotillard in her phenomenal performance in La Vie En Rose.

beckham

I am really shocked no one hasn't mentioned I'M NOT THERE. I thought it reinvented the genre and showed a person's life in a far more superior and interesting way.

Dr Mabuse

Can't pick just one.

'Andrei Rublev' - Probably my favorite.
'The Passion Of The Christ'
'Patton' (just watched it again this morning and it gets better every time I see it. One of the finest performances in film history by Scott, and he was drinking a fifth a day during shooting.)
'Lawrence Of Arabia'
'The Aviator' - amazingly good film.
'Catch Me If You Can' - My pick for the best film Speilberg has made.
'Rob Roy'
'Donnie Brasco' - first rate.
'Goodfellas'
'Raging Bull'

There's a few.