Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyer in Velvet Goldmine.

  Gold is not the word for this movie. A better word would betin or one of those less precious items. This movie is about the English rock scene, in the glam era, circa 1974. Brian Slade( Jonathan Rhys Meyer) was biggest music star of his time (late 60's and early 70's). Another big star of the time is Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), who is a very good stage performer.They are both very good musicians so they decide toperform together, but they are also lovers.  The story of the movie is about a reporter, around 1984, who is sent out to find this Brian Slade ten years after an infamous incident which ruined his career. The incident involves Slade setting up his own fake assasination which causes all of his fans to hate him. This reporter has to start from scratch. He interviews his ex-wife and band members. This really gets him nowhere except it lets the movie include some dumb flashbacks the reporter who was a huge fan of Slade. There really no way to explain the rest of this movie. It involves the new big band in the 80's and there conection to Slade. It makes pretty much no sense.

    The whole movie is pretty much concerts and performing. The music is good but it's just a mishmosh of old 70's songs. Here's my main criticism besides the actual movie sucking; McGregor, an english actor tries to act American. The movie is probally based on the lives of 70’s British rock stars like David Bowie (Slade) and Iggy Pop (Wild). The man who played Slade, Christian Bale, was very good. The rest of the acting in the movie was not so good. Actually it was very weak and bad. This movie wasn’t to bad but I think it would have been better if the reporter role was played better. The reporter was someone trying to act but showing his inner dorkiness. It was a very annoying characther that kind of acted like a little kid. 1.5/4 Stars.

- Buscemifan

Back to TCH

Back to Reviews