All ten episodes of season one over two nights with Dave in Coffs Harbour. Emma Stone. Jonah Hill. Justin Theroux channels William Shatner. Gabriel Byrne. Sally Field. And many others. A mashup of retro themes: a drug trial, a depressed synthetic mentality, an odd couple, Lord of the Rings, The Sopranos, Total Recall, etc. etc. Things get weird, but not gripplingly David Lynchian weird, and don't really congeal. Compelling like a car crash?
With Dave at the Sawtell cinema, 12.15, perhaps half full, $17.50 each. (Belonging to their movie club brings that down to $9.50 a ticket for $25 a year.) The cinema has a modern fit out.
Better than I expected. The cast are dead ringers. Produced by Taylor and May and therefore sometimes hagiographic: Deacon is a bit nobody, perhaps because he retired from the band in 1991. Was Taylor really the pants man? The first half is pretty funny. Freddie is into cats, and it is generously made clear that the title song was his thing. Some themes were underplayed, like the processes of songwriting. There's nothing here about the band's meeting David Bowie in Germany that resulted in Under Pressure, though we get half of it as background noise to some scenes. The last twenty minutes is a reconstruction of Queen's set at Geldof's Live Aid from 1985. Their post-1985 material is largely ignored; we get just a whiff of the Highlander soundtrack. Mostly directed by Bryan Singer until he flamed out.
A. O. Scott found it a pale imitation of the band he remembers. Jeffrey Bloomer. Ellen Stein's fact and fiction article makes the many departures from history seem pointless.
Poor sleep: Coffs near the coast is on the flight path! Late start. Cleaners. Dave and I went to Sawtell to catch the midday session of Bohemian Rhapsody and some lunch at the same fish and chips shop as near the beach. Dave went to his tango class. I drove Bonnie over to Bunnings and by accident Coles during a heavy storm which didn't last too long. Afterwards pizza at Fiasco with Dave, Rob, Esther from Dave's tango class. Beaut day for the most part; so much for the BOM forecast.