| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 12/29/2009 : 16:09:40
Telstar: The Joe Meek Story
This is the third R&R biopic up for the BAFTAs - and, good as were those about Ian Dury and John Lennon - this is in a class of its own.
A big-screen version of James Hicks's successful stageplay, Telstar not just tells the story of the legendary R&R producer Joe Meek, it assaults you as though you were one of Meek's records, set upon the turntable, and spun and spun until all the music is knocked out of you.
Reproducing his award-winning role is an actor who's always attracted attention here in the UK, Con O'Neill. Let's hope this film catapults him to a Telstar orbit.
After inhabiting Meek onstage, O'Neill has almost transcended acting. Every gesture, every covert glance, every lustful opportunity taken or denied, every eureka moment of madness or genius ... O'Neill delivers with bells on. He's hardly off the screen, and when he is, we have such amazing support as Kevin Spacey as an old-school British businessman, Pam Ferris as the landlady of Joe's make-do recording studio set up above her handbag shop, and such UK television faces as James Cordon, Ralf Little, and in teeny-tiny moments so brief you almost miss them - Marcus Brigstoke, Jimmy Carr, and Rita Tushingham.
The film is the feature debut of director Nick Moran, better known as an actor, most particularly for Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels.
For starters, Moran has created one of the funniest, most beautifully choreographed, controlled chaos openings since Richard Lester's The Knack. in fact, Moran has managed to recreate as convincingly the atmosphere of the era as those contemporaneous films. And Joe Orton seems forever hovering nearby. It's almost ironic that O'Neill is the actor who took over for Matt Lucas in Prick Up Your Ears after his husband committed suicide.
Telstar's opening is paced so fast it can hardly catch its breath, and sets us up perfectly for what's to come. Because who can keep up that pace and mirth for long? Not even the Marx Brothers.
What Moran and O'Neil do, though, is pull you in to the astonishing mind of Meek. It's never a comfortable place, and by the end, you may have guessed what's to come [or lived through it, or just read the papers at the time], but it still comes as a shock and in the end you're none the wiser. That life itself, that old con artist, should pull a trick of timing on Meek is tragic, but, bite my tongue for saying - almost fitting.
We've got a terrifically flawed genius. Tone-deaf. Mentally unstable. Gay in an era when gay meant jail. A terrible businessman, but with bi-polar conviction his grand ideas would sell. And sometimes, often they did. Bigtime. His ability to predict stardom for boys who rose to international stardom wasn't always accurate. True, he passed on the Beatles, Bowie, and Rod Stewart, but he saw the potential in Tom Jones, and worked closely with The Tornados, Screaming Lord Sutch, Petula Clark, Lonnie Donegan, Humphrey Littleton, Diana Dors, Frankie Vaughan, Shirley Bassey - the list goes on.
And occasionally he really got his fingers burned backing the unworthy likes of Heinz, who shone much more brightly in his bed than onstage.
Meek was also completely paranoid that he was being ripped off. And sometimes he was. When a French songwriter alleged Meek had stolen a hit song from him, Meek, already unstable, was driven beyond madness.
It really doesn't matter which details, if any, of Meek's life you know going in, the film takes you further than biopic. What's so clever is that Moran and O'Neill chart your rough journey as a viewer to match Meek's. Trust me, you won't want to look away.
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| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| MisterBadIdea |
Posted - 12/30/2009 : 17:01:39
Joe Meek is a fascinating failure of a man -- not the first person I could think of who needed a biopic, but you know what, he's got a very very interesting life story. And "Telstar" is a great goddamn song. |
| ChocolateLady |
Posted - 12/30/2009 : 10:31:55
Wow, this sounds extremely interesting. But... I have my doubts it will ever reach me here. {sigh!} |
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