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Velvet Goldmine

Velvet Goldmine

1998
Drama, Music
1h 58m
In 1984, British newspaper reporter Arthur Stuart is investigating the career of 1970s glam rock star Brian Slade, who was heavily influenced in his early years by American rock singer Curt Wild, whose show was quite crazy for his time. (imdb)
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Velvet Goldmine

1998
Drama, Music
1h 58m
Your probable score
Avg Percentile 54.73% from 1091 total ratings

Ratings & Reviews

(1091)
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Rated 27 Jan 2007
97
97th
Ewan MacGregor. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers. Christian Bale. Eddie Izzard. I love these men, and some of them DO IT WITH EACH OTHER. This film, to me, is revered the way the vast majority of straight boys I know revere the film Bound. I LOVE IT.
Rated 08 Apr 2007
86
98th
Takes the model of Citizen Kane and projects it on glam rock era. The opening shot is very meaningful. Haynes adapts Oscar Wilde into his story with a scifi connection. Most of the performances are amazing, especially Meyers. When the lights are gone, there are always new popular phenomenons to turn the spots. Cinematic preferences are masterfully made similar to seventies movies.
Rated 24 Oct 2015
75
74th
Less the reimagined biographies of Iggy Pop, Bowie, & Lou Reed than that of Haynes himself, who articulates his own sexual awakening, coming-of-age, and disillusionment -- the formation of an identity, illusory, splintered, dissonant -- through their sexually transgressive pop sounds and sensibilities. It's modeled after Citizen Kane -- but it's Citizen Kane without a Rosebud: no mystery to be solved, no revelatory event that serves as a self's "true" core, just turtles all the way down.
Rated 06 Jul 2007
59
26th
I feel like I was drunk when I watched this, making no sense. Or I could actually have been drunk. Does Batman really take it in the trademans from Obi-Wan Kenobi?
Rated 14 Aug 2007
90
88th
Filled with glam-rock glitter and *coughboyskissingcough* flamboyance, this movie has a great soundtrack and a genuinely confusing plot. I had to watch it over a few times to understand what was going on. But I love it!
Rated 14 Aug 2007
65
31st
A very strange film. This massively campy film is based on the glam rock movement in the 60's/70's, focusing mostly on a David Bowie-like character. The jury is still out on whether or not this is good or bad.
Rated 27 Aug 2007
90
95th
FINALLY, some who sees david Bow wow the same way I do! While the cast is awesome, Christian bale was Astounding for me in this. I should try track down the DVD. Toe knee :-)
Rated 14 Aug 2008
94
96th
Like 'Querelle', this another brilliant queer film that seems to be hated or misunderstood by most gays and straight liberals. This is a film for the sexually fluid, a rare celebration of the BT in LGBT. Sweaty, glittery rock spectacle.
Rated 27 Sep 2010
57
59th
Rhys Meyers is androgynous, sure, but he brings nothing to the role that couldn't have been done by a vacuous model. Only McGregor and Izzard possess the energy that was needed to make this project work, in the face of a fractured narrative that fails to cohere as a tribute or a parody. In the end, all this will be remembered for is a scene where Obi-Wan fucks Batman while a flying saucer drops glitter on them.
Rated 28 Dec 2010
2
21st
There are plenty of themes to kick around here, like the superficiality of the glam movement and the fickleness of pop culture. But on a purely visceral level, this movie just irritates the fuck out of me.
Rated 18 Feb 2012
96
98th
Immaculately extravagant and perfectly cozy. Has all the grace of an overblown production value period piece, and it's quite the ultimate Wilde adaption. I really learned to appreciate it with time... I suppose meaning's just not in things, it's in between Kurt Wild's legs.
Rated 11 Apr 2013
30
17th
From the guy who made the excellent musical about bob dylan comes a film starring total and utter nonsense. And Ewan McGregor's Penis.
Rated 08 Mar 2015
75
66th
Overdose of glittery decadence gives this a thick layer of artificiality that works well with the story. The glaring pop-pastiches make this a very personal film despite the obvious similarities with the real glam rock scene of the 70s & 80s. Dangerously close to pretension at times and the relentless intertextuality makes you constantly feel like you're missing something. Very stylish, clever and heartfelt work that lacks in some directorial restraint and focus.
Rated 29 Jul 2015
60
23rd
All of the exquisite visual compositions usually associated with a Todd Haynes production are on display, but the structure of the plot is uneven. Watchable more because it is visually appealing than the plot being compelling.
Rated 30 Jan 2007
96
96th
Tudo que o Haynes faz acabo considerando obra-prima, esse foi a minha primeira paixão dele, visto pela primeira vez quando foi lançado em VHS em fins dos anos 90, assim que foi lançado em DVD no início dos 2000 fiz uma cópia em VHS que gastei de tanto assistir. Assim como ninguém fará um filme melhor sobre Dylan do que I'm not there, ninguém fará nada melhor sobre Bowie do que Velvet Goldmine. Box Versátil Música no Cinema Volume 1. Revisto para o curso da Marina Costin Fuser.
Rated 01 Mar 2007
50
35th
Not bad.
Rated 15 May 2007
63
46th
If the script had given the Bowie avatar even an ounce of an interesting character, this could have been a great one.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
55
44th
I have a positive image of this in my mind, but it has otherwise escaped my memory. I should probably re-watch it some day, because I trust Todd Haynes.
Rated 14 Aug 2007
60
10th
The semi-recognizable portraits of glam-rockers supplies what life there is to this movie. But what is this stuff about the gay spirit of Oscar Wilde doing here? Oscar a glam-rocker? Bowie a crucified poet?
Rated 12 Jan 2008
73
60th
This movie makes a lot more sense now that I'm not 15 and can clearly recognize who the fuck they're actually talking about.
Rated 15 Feb 2008
45
22nd
The movie is pretty forgettable, but the soundtrack was superb.
Rated 14 Jun 2008
85
85th
If Todd Haynes is, as Kent Jones says, "a mildly talented art-school conceptualist", than this film succeeds so well (despite being in a sense wildly self-indulgent and perhaps more than a little pretentious) because here the conceptualism feels so uniquely personal. A remarkably private work disguised as a flashy glam-rock expose. Yes, it's basically a work of fanboy geekery (full of obscure, winking references), but it brings fandom to the level of personal exorcism.
Rated 01 Jan 2009
60
43rd
Neat idea, kind of scattered and aimless.
Rated 01 Feb 2009
85
26th
Excellent soundtrack, great acting and visuals.
Rated 02 Mar 2009
40
44th
I can never remember the title of the movie, but the lighting is brilliant.
Rated 22 May 2009
59
62nd
okay movie
Rated 25 Mar 2010
87
75th
A glam rock "Citizen Kane," extremely good looking and very entertaining. Filled with much enthusiasm about alternative sexuality and transgressive art, it often becomes confused in its themes. But Todd Haynes is a poet with this camera, and makes it all worth it in the end.
Rated 13 Jul 2010
90
90th
Here's looking at you kid.!
Rated 13 Feb 2011
40
19th
Listen, all I ended up really wanting to see was the Bowie-like music videos or concerts. Everything else was slightly less interesting. Anything Christian Bale related was the least interesting of all. I can see why this is a bit of a cult movie, and I'm a huge Bowie fan so I expected to like it, but there was too much boring stuff. If Haynes had cut the journalistic plot and just done a fictionalized biopic I may have liked it a lot more.
Rated 30 Mar 2011
60
47th
A sequins extravagnza that eventually becomes depressing and plain. That's the nature of extravaganzas, I guess. I stil appreciate the shameless overdose of glitter.
Rated 15 May 2011
99
99th
POP ate my heart, and had me stuck with this twisted-glamorous philosophy forever. It's got so many charming quotations and redresses that I don't mind if this is a Z-movie. You love and despise almost everything about them heroes it's hard to separate between the characters and the atmosphere. Very dark at some points, and very sharp. And I haven't said a WORD about the stunning amazing music! Notice Toni Collette with her graceful forsaken charm and the flaming Ewan McGregor.
Rated 17 Dec 2011
69
53rd
You want this movie to be better than it is. In the end, it's a total incoherent mess. It's a fun mess though, despite the nonsensical plot.
Rated 28 Dec 2011
87
72nd
Very cool film. A Citizen Kane rock 'n' roll story of straight sex and gay sex and excess played out with an awesome glam visual aesthetic. It's strung together by good music and Bowie-esque music videos to go along with them.
Rated 15 Jul 2012
88
75th
Seeing it for 5 times, yea, you can see its flaws. But i love it for how refreshing it was for me with every single viewing. Truly glam and velvety and golden and vibrating and theatrical and so full of priceless musical references. Thumbs up for the awesome cast and big thumbs up to Michael Stipe for the soundtrack.
Rated 12 Aug 2012
53
44th
Haynes' glittery, flamboyant, outrageous, campy, theatric, gender-confused movie might be a good representation of glam-rock craze that swept Britain in 70's, but just like so many things about glam-rock it's so overblown that it gets tiresome and slow. It's interesting to see Bale and McGregor before their big-breaks (put Obi-Wan Kenobi has sex with Batman joke here), but Rhys Meyers steals the show.
Rated 25 Jun 2013
60
32nd
Great song sequences and well-integrated sex scenes but the structure is confusing and the plot is all over the place and not in a way that necessarily suggests depth, subtlety or scope.
Rated 31 Jan 2014
69
44th
Haynes gives a real kinetic, kaleidoscopic style befitting of the glam rock setting, but some rather suspect performances take away a little of the serious and add a bit of the camp - and with a film with so much intentional camp, unintentional camp is pushing it. The film is however a very good sort of tone poem to the glam career of David Bowie and the surrounding scene, and it's done in a way that nails emotions and feelings better than any standard biopic could.
Rated 21 Aug 2014
90
81st
Mixes styles, eras, genres, real people and fictional ones into a glam-rock kaleidoscope of exhibitionism and exploration, to the point where identifying real-life inspirations is immaterial. But what I ultimately come away with isn't just the delirium of the atmosphere and style, but the infectious likeability of its cast despite the narcissism of their era, because that narcissism comes from a palpable yearning to belong, and it takes them a lifetime.
Rated 06 Feb 2017
74
40th
A colourful and energetic film with some interesting characters, but the era and content doesn't do anything for me so there's no emotional resonance with the material, only curiosity at the showmanship before me.
Rated 15 Mar 2019
75
64th
I won't say that Velvet Goldmine is a movie that should be remembered for it's brave telling of history and interestingness, but it entertains me just as much as a real life Bowie and Iggy love story would. Not only does it's cast encapsulate the characters they are meant to emulate very well, but the soundtrack that came out of this movie is absolutely killer glam rock. This is a definite must for any Bowie, Bolan, or Velvet Underground fan.
Rated 20 Apr 2020
65
5th
Film that overstayed its welcome after 40 minutes.
Rated 23 Feb 2021
65
18th
https://esperwatchesfilms.tumblr.com/post/643868342635118592/velvet-goldmine-1998
Rated 15 Feb 2022
84
70th
What a joy to see 90s film and pop royalty intermingling. There is a skillful play in the investigation of artifice, decadence and surface within the meaninglessness of it all. So interesting to revisit now (re-watched 2022) in a culture that celebrates drag culture as mainstream.
Rated 27 Aug 2023
94
77th
love love love baby christian bale, amazing music? incredible! love yummy delicious

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