The Buddy Holly Story

Buddy Holly (who really had his life together until that terrible accident) is portrayed here by Gary Busey who really had his life together until that terrible accident. Is it better to burn out than Not Fade Away? Ooh wee ooh he looks just like Rivers Cuomo! Honestly, a great dispersing of the songs until the end when they go full greatest hits medley.

Strictly by the numbers biopic but Busey surprisingly pulls off the title role and the story is quite entertaining.

The beginning of Gary Busey's madness.

This seems to be the ur-text for generic musician biopic.

Busey's great. Music's OK. Film's meh.

Perhaps the Buddy Holly story was formulaic in real life, because it sure translates that way into this film. It gets the emotions of the music right and reveals some clever inversions of the social climate of the setting, but it's otherwise a yawn-inducing bio-pic with not much new to add to the genre. It also has the problem with other films centred on music -- too much time spent on them, which is great if you're into this type of music, but just tiring if you're not.

The music in this is excellent, obviously, but at the same time Buddy Holly is made out to be the white Malcolm X or something. It's completely ludicrous the way they try to paint the" Crickets" as these racially progressive pioneers just because they have some black friends and well-wishers. Busey acts alright, but his crazy shines through as usual. In summary: Great music, ok biopic, outrageous pandering politics.

Hokey script (and sometimes direction, especially of audience reactions), but a winning performance from Busey. Also Richwine is very good (along with Janis). Truly hilarious moment with stage manager (a nice spoof of the Sullivan show). Nice touch to stop before the crash, thus emphasizing his life. An awful lot of liberties taken with real events though. And Busey's memory for lyrics was like a sieve (maybe he should've written them on his hands, like John Lennon did).

It seems unfair to grumble about elements that probably only became musical bio cliches later but some of the moments here (inspiration for 'True Love Ways', Buddy's last goodbye to his wife) seem SO rote. Busey looks like Holly and gives an energetic performance.

A história de Buddy Holly estreava há 45 anos em Seattle. É uma cinebio bem quadradinha, cuja força reside mesmo na performance do Gary Busey, tal como boa parte das cinebios retratando músicos por aí se valendo muito mais de quem as protagoniza do que sua qualidade artística. Box Versátil Música no Cinema Volume 2.

Excellent.

Fairly decent biopic, but I can tell where they 'embroidered' history, some parts were rather boring, and that ending was so abrupt it was jarring.