This movie did recall the 1970s for me, but not in the way intended--it brought back completely plastic bad films of the era like "Viva Knievel!," "Roller Boogie" and (the Casablanca Records-affiliated) "Thank God It's Friday." I didn't even realize some of the cliches utilized were still in anybody's memory bank.
The idea of a movie about Casablanca and its founder had a "Boogie Nights" type appeal in that it could show the good, bad and ugly of the Me Decade at its most flamboyant and decadent. They apparently had major-league talents (including Spike Lee) involved at various points. Yet somehow it ultimately fell to the subject's own surviving family members to make it. So this ends up the worst possible case of exactly the wrong people making a dumbly idealized portrait of a complicated figure, without having the filmmaking chops even to pull off that kind of sugar-coating well.
This movie immediately hits notes that are meant to be big, bold and splashy, but instead come off as incredibly simplistic and ineptly done. Not to mention the performers cast as famous recording stars who look and sound nothing like them (hello, "Donna Summer"). The guy in the lead is tasked with playing Neil Bogart kind of as "The Music Man," in that we're supposed to think of him as a tiny bit of a con man but a terribly charming, persuasive one. Admittedly, this actor gets no help from the awful script, and for all I know he's fantastic in Broadway musicals (where he was recruited from). But this movie bets heavily on a star turn with oodles of charisma, and instead right away have the same allergic reaction you do when a parent says "Look how cute!" at the antics of their bratty child: You grimace and think "Please god get me away from this obnoxious little twerp as fast as possible."
I'll admit I didn't make it all the way through--it was just too painful. Even the music isn't redemptive, because I don't think they used the original recordings (or at least just the backing tracks, with new vocals). This movie may ripen into camp gold one day, because it certainly has the wall-to-wall cliches, bad dialogue et al. Required. But for now it's just a grotesquely ill-made (and very, very long) slog that wastes a potentially good real-life music industry story no one will likely ever try to dramatize again. Which is a pity.
The idea of a movie about Casablanca and its founder had a "Boogie Nights" type appeal in that it could show the good, bad and ugly of the Me Decade at its most flamboyant and decadent. They apparently had major-league talents (including Spike Lee) involved at various points. Yet somehow it ultimately fell to the subject's own surviving family members to make it. So this ends up the worst possible case of exactly the wrong people making a dumbly idealized portrait of a complicated figure, without having the filmmaking chops even to pull off that kind of sugar-coating well.
This movie immediately hits notes that are meant to be big, bold and splashy, but instead come off as incredibly simplistic and ineptly done. Not to mention the performers cast as famous recording stars who look and sound nothing like them (hello, "Donna Summer"). The guy in the lead is tasked with playing Neil Bogart kind of as "The Music Man," in that we're supposed to think of him as a tiny bit of a con man but a terribly charming, persuasive one. Admittedly, this actor gets no help from the awful script, and for all I know he's fantastic in Broadway musicals (where he was recruited from). But this movie bets heavily on a star turn with oodles of charisma, and instead right away have the same allergic reaction you do when a parent says "Look how cute!" at the antics of their bratty child: You grimace and think "Please god get me away from this obnoxious little twerp as fast as possible."
I'll admit I didn't make it all the way through--it was just too painful. Even the music isn't redemptive, because I don't think they used the original recordings (or at least just the backing tracks, with new vocals). This movie may ripen into camp gold one day, because it certainly has the wall-to-wall cliches, bad dialogue et al. Required. But for now it's just a grotesquely ill-made (and very, very long) slog that wastes a potentially good real-life music industry story no one will likely ever try to dramatize again. Which is a pity.