films | reviews | interviews | news | images | posters | store | links | webmaster |

Nuggets from rock's 'Goldmine'
from USAToday, 12/01/98

Velvet Goldmine, a grandiose if overwrought ode to glam rock's glory days, blasts off with a cheeky admonition to play the film at "maximum volume." And this surreal musical pastiche swathed in satin and boas certainly boasts one of the maximum-volume supporting performances of the year as Ewan McGregor dives head first into his part of Iggy Pop-ish American rocker Curt Wild.

Half rabid mutt, half mad imp, he rages from the stage with sparkles on his sweaty chest and his pants around his ankles. He's sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll personified.

But what to make of the far more self-serious rest, including a prologue that takes us to Dublin 1854 for the birth of that master wit and homosexual icon Oscar Wilde, complete with a spaceship delivering the baby on a doorstep.

Wilde is presented as a pop-idol ancestor to the dandified '70s chart-toppers. The supernova of those stars is Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, slim of body and light on expressions beyond a pout). He's a David Bowie-esque messiah for the sexually confused and overdressed youth of drab ol' England, and his chameleonic rise and decadent fall form the movie's core.

Alas, it's a hollow one since Meyers and director-writer Todd Haynes (Safe) fail to make this flamboyantly bisexual enigma half as intriguing or talented as Bowie himself. The songs, staged like Frederick's of Hollywood's idea of grand opera, don't come close to the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am energy rush of the originals.

Still, there is a three-ring circus worth of Ken Russell-like spectacle to revel in. Velvet cleverly employs a Citizen Kane framework as a doleful reporter in 1984 investigates what has become of Slade on the 10th anniversary of his faked-death publicity stunt. Christian Bale embodies this onetime glam fan with a fine-tuned sensitivity as he revisits his flaming youth. The teen need to worship a musician your parents absolutely abhor is perfectly personified.

Also spot-on is Toni Collette as Mandy, Velvet's version of ultra-groupie Angie Bowie. When Slade transfers his affections to McGregor's Wild, complete with cartoon candy hearts flashing in his eyes (one of Haynes' more playful touches, the light goes out of Mandy like a candle without a wick.

Pop lore is mixed and mingled to mind-boggling effect (wasn't it Mick Jagger, not Iggy, who was found in bed with Bowie?) and high-minded suggestions about the power of art are proffered. But when Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2 has been transformed into a macho anthem at sporting events, it's good to be reminded that these tight-trousered rebels once had the might to shock the world.

 By Susan Wloszczyna, USA TODAY

Article originally appeared here.