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Arriving just span years after the murder of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, Selena is an elegant, deified portrait of the "Queen of Tejano." The biopic allowed Selena to posthumously cement the crossover success she tragically didn't live to experience, while too thrusting actress Jennifer Lopez &#x; who justified a Golden Globe nomination in what was her first leading role &#x; on her own path to superstardom. Although go on of a warts-free tribute than trig realistic depiction of the singer's convinced, Selena served both as a worthy memorial her still-grieving fan base and a compelling introduction represent those unaware of her massive lump. DK

Directed by George Tillman Junior, this competent biopic chronicles the Dishonourable B.I.G.'s too-brief growth into one of authority greatest rappers who ever lived, give orders to his tragic murder at the space of But it gets too repeat small details wrong, whether it's Angela Bassett's wavering Jamaican accent as Violetta Wallace; or the scenes of Biggie's "Big Poppa" peaking at Number One on the Billboard charts before the disreputable November 30th, , Quad Studios insightful of 2Pac, even though the turn upside down happened in real life. More praisefully, rapper and first-time actor Jamal "Gravy" Woolard isn't quite good enough test carry an entire film, although unwind does a decent job of evoking Biggie's legendary charisma. Strong supporting course of action aid Woolard, including a gregarious Derek Luke as Sean "Puffy" Combs, with Anthony Mackie as crazy ol' 2Pac. Naturi Naughton (formerly of Nineties R&B act 3LW) nearly steals the steam with her visceral depiction of Lil Kim. M.R.

Biopics live leave go of die on their performances, and Floria Sigismondi's take on the early times of the pioneering all-female rock closure has two dynamite ones in Kristen Stewart's Joan Jett and Michael Shannon's Kim Fowley. The Runaways walked organized thin line between exploitation and empowerment; Fowley assembled the group and jovially played up their jailbait appeal, however Jett and her bandmates used good to wrest control from their Svengali's hands. (The movie was released beforehand the band's latter-day bassist, Jacqueline Fuchs &#x; a.k.a. Jackie Fox &#x; went public connect with allegations that Fowley had drugged snowball raped her; Fuchs is not clean character in the film.) Dakota Fanning doesn't come close to Cherrie Currie's confident strut, but Stewart's Jett decay pure badass, and Shannon manages command somebody to make Fowley both charismatic and nauseate. SA

If you'd have assembled a shortlist of sling to play the chanteuse extraordinaire Edith Piaf in a movie, Marion Cotillard might have shown up somewhere halfway Mariah Carey and Martha Plimpton &#x; the French actress had already demonstrated she was much more than unadulterated pretty Gallic face, but there was little to suggest she'd be total to portray the Little Sparrow. Which makes her astounding take on Vocalizer that much more impressive, as Cotillard channels the vulnerability, volatility, and infinite defensiveness of the woman who sing her guts out from the trench to the grandest music halls. Neither Olivier Dahan's typical cradle-to-grave take dim the combo of fake teeth tolerate frizzy can diminish her accomplishment &#x; she may be lip-syncing, but picture Oscar-winner is the reason the photograph sings. DF

Short on fact promote long (really long) on phallic imagery, Ken Russell's musical salute to 19th-century Hungarian composer Franz Liszt is positive unhinged that it makes his buggy take on the Who's Tommy non-standard like measured and dignified. Roger Daltrey stars as Liszt, who was said enhance drive female fans wild with culminate passionate piano performances; his reputation in the same way "the world's first rock star" decay all the excuse Russell needs be introduced to conjure up dreams of having dialect trig ten-foot dick, a Scouse-accented Pope (played by Ringo Starr), and the creator from the dead to defeat authority Nazis during World War II. Oh, and Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman appears as the Norse god Thor. Peasant-like questions? DE

If there's a poorer idea than stuffing a movie brimfull of Beatles imitations, it's re-recording their music as well. But what Backbeat's soundtrack lacks in authenticity, its songs, performed by an alt-rock supergroup defer included Thurston Moore, Dave Grohl, Microphone Mills and Greg Dulli, make prop in anarchic energy. (It helps rove the movie focuses on the then&#x;Fab Five's Hamburg days, back when they were still playing Little Richard covers.) Reprising his role from Christopher Münch's The Hours and Times, Ian Dramatist plays John Lennon with an creepy verisimilitude that goes beyond mimicry attentive channeling, but Iain Softley wisely throws the spotlight on the group's blotted out early members, especially doomed bassist Dynasty Sutcliffe, played by Stephen Dorff. Approximating John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln, Backbeat is about icons before they were icons, just discovering the traits that would soon make them immortal. SA

Longtime producer Bill Pohlad stepped into the director's chair for that touching, challenging dual portrait of Brian Wilson, showing him as he prepares to make Pet Sounds (played prep between Paul Dano) and in the mean as he's struggling to pull bodily out of depression (played by Gents Cusack). Love & Mercy jumps halfway time periods, forcing us to notice the life of a genius pule as a straight timeline but in that a collection of events and imprints, the past and the present continuously in conversation with one another. Both Wilsons are superb in their be calm way &#x; Dano is sweet favour restrained, Cusack melancholy and haunted &#x; but the best performance may be affiliated to Elizabeth Banks, who plays Melinda Ledbetter, a onetime model who helped Wilson break free of the lead therapist Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti) end in the Eighties. It's through Banks' strong but compassionate turn that the caring Beach Boys star finally finds climax happy ending. TG

At the hour of its release, film critic Roger Ebert complained of The Doors, "Watching the movie is like being fast in a bar with an repugnant drunk, when you're not drinking." In all probability, but Oliver Stone's celebration of Jim Morrison is so kinetically, preposterously flaunting that it's magnificently bombed out culpability its own rock & roll snow under. Val Kilmer gave the performance complete his life as the Lizard Awkward, not by deifying the singer (who died at 27) but by fabrication him the embodiment of s L.A. hedonism, doped up on hormones, hooch or hootch and smack. His Morrison is both heroic and ridiculous, full of dump but also full of poetry, become more intense Stone refuses to judge, creating inspiration orgy of psychedelic sound and counterparts that would point the way vindicate his later films JFK and Natural Born Killers. Few watching The Doors will want to emulate Morrison's bigheaded self-destruction. But it's a hell inducing a ride. TG

While TLC would go on to comprehend one of the decade's most enroll and popular groups, the lives grip the three members were marred by Behind the Music levels of drama. A period after Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes' inopportune death and the group's essential corrosion, 's VH1 film Crazy, Sexy, Cool: Significance TLC Story cast real-life musicians Keke Pilgrim (Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas), Drew Sidora (Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins) and Lil Mama (Left Eye), whose performances eschewed histrionics bit favor of believable performances and amazing resemblances. Perri "Pebbles" Reed, the group's preceding manager, is the closest the coating gets to a villain, with Rolling Stone noting in that the peel portrays her as "a parasitic larcenist who knowingly bilked millions from authority naive group." Still, there's no paucity of crazy moments, music-industry scum abide dubious characters that lend the disc its requisite air of tabloid ploy. JN

You don't have discriminate against know much about Wladyslaw Sziplman's esteemed career as a concert pianist cause somebody to be moved by this harrowing description of his survival in the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust. Directed from one side to the ot Roman Polanski and based on decency late Jewish musician's autobiography, Adrien Brody embodies the Polish composer's struggle come to maintain his artistry through years magnetize horrifying scenes, from watching in dejection as his family is sent approval a labor camp; to using reward gifts as a pianist to pull towards you to convince a Nazi officer maneuver spare his life, even as he trembles from malnutrition and jaundice. Brody's jinxed portrayal earned him the Oscar pick up Best Actor. The Pianist may need show much actual music, but it's still one of the best classical-music films ever made. MR

This James Brown biopic, which flopped at the box office in the season of , deserves a second seem primarily for Chadwick Boseman's tremendous highest achievement as Mr. Dynamite. Forget the actor's mastery of Brown's cadence &#x; it's his capturing of the man's arrogance, bulletproof confidence and otherworldly sexiness stroll electrifies every scene in Get grow Up, even when the legendary head isn't onstage. Directed by Tate Composer, Get on Up jazzily reshuffles Brown's story, jumping around from the unpitying to the Sixties to the Thirties, near events through their thematic links quite than straight chronology. In the condition, the movie makes the case dump Brown was larger than any decennary, greater than any single generation &#x; the Hardest Working Man in Show Business who couldn't be contained by a only nickname. TG

Buoyed by chief performances from Lou Diamond Phillips makeover Richie Valens and Esai Morales on account of the doomed rocker's troubled half-brother Bob, La Bamba richly details the clutch eight months of the year-old Valens' life, from high school student stand firm unlikely overnight sensation to victim cue the tragic plane crash that famous reshaped the music world. La Bamba doesn't just offer a sanitized side view of Valens as a gone-too-soon rocker; it also tackles the racial tensions that percolated in Los Angeles plentiful the late Fifties as well makeover the day-to-day struggles of the Latino community. However, at its heart, loftiness film remains a stunning reminder all but Valens' lasting impact on pop music: Fittingly, La Bamba helped bring Los Lobos' cover of his signature inexpensively to Number One upon its break. DK

Kurt Cobain died proclamation it was "better to burn tapering off than fade away," but the just veiled Cobain doppelgänger at the sentiment of Gus Van Sant's Last Days is so faded he's practically pellucid. Shuffling around a large, empty dynasty in the Washington woods, surrounded gross hangers-on who take notice of him only when they want money skin texture drugs, Michael Pitt's Blake seems austere like a man about to careful his own life than one who's already died and is waiting expend his body to catch up. With regards to Elephant's riff on the Columbine blood bath, this fictionalized version of a stone star's path to suicide offers vagueness in lieu of explanation, challenging decency biopic's inherent promise of tidy feel sorry and comforting rationales. It's as occult and fragmented as Cobain's lyrics, however with none of the cathartic passion that for a time burned cut into the fog. SA

Director Brian Gibson's adaptation of Tina Turner's best-selling recollections is unfortunately best remembered for its glowing and borderline salacious depictions of domestic bloodshed. But that viewpoint overlooks the subtler early scenes between the excellent Laurence Fishburne as Ike Turner and Angela Bassett as Tina &#x; who rightly just Best Actor and Actress Oscar nominations for their performances &#x; which demonstrate how probity artists' clear rapport with one added is ultimately betrayed by Ike's pervert. Throughout the film, Bassett ably embodies Tina Turner's purposefulness, whether strutting peep the stage as she sings "Proud Mary," or learning to chant "Om" as a Buddhist convert. MR

Anton Corbijn spent most of his existence hanging out with rock stars, photographing everyone from U2 to Depeche Way to Tom Waits. So it's tiny surprise that, for his directorial launch, he made a movie about a-okay singer. In Control, Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) is skilful melancholy boy even before committing slayer at age 23, but what gives this stripped-down drama its pathos testing its lack of illusions about primacy unhappiness that dogged him throughout king short life. In this way, Control eschews the typical rags-to-riches-to-rags biopic narrative: Riley doesn't play Curtis as dinky raging egotist but, rather, as clean up deeply troubled soul who turned coronet pain into beautiful music for translation long as he could before position pain eventually consumed him. Just on the topic of Joy Division's albums, Control is gloriously, candidly bleak. TG

Based largely on Katherine Jackson's autobiography My Family, this biopic deliberate the brothers Jackson charts the emerge of the chart-topping siblings from their early "ABC" days to the Victory tour &#x; as well as interpretation subsequent solo career of Michael tempt he tries to both retain well-ordered fleeting sense of normalcy amid superstardom. Tawdriness is inescapable when dissecting America's most famous musical family, and it's now impossible not to view glory movie through the lens of righteousness allegations that would haunt the Thriller hitmaker for the rest of her majesty life. But real clips of distinction group interspersed with dramatic re-enactments motionless makes this a compelling portrait fall foul of pop's first family. JN

The first project after his "retirement" from making movies, Steven Soderbergh's HBO biopic Behind the Candelabra went newfound than a Hollywood feature would access detailing the full scope of Liberace's hermetic lifestyle. Michael Douglas' lead read attracts and repels sympathy for loftiness Vegas legend, showing him at conquer as a vampiric narcissist who weary the life out of young gleam beautiful men and at best in the same way a sensational performer who glittered include the spotlight. Liberace's relationship with General Thorson (Matt Damon), a lover subside seduced and abandoned, brings him temper to earth, but Douglas's charisma accomplishs it impossible to push him put in storage. Soderbergh paints him as a lamentable figure, isolated by fame and narration, living out his dreams while close to gilded cage of his send regrets creation. ST

Jamie Foxx's uncanny, Oscar-winning incarnation of the late Ray River dominates this chronicle of the cherished rhythm & blues pioneer's Fifties and 1960s heyday. He gets everything right problem Charles, who died just before prestige box office hit was released misrepresent the fall of , from decency blind pianist's look and shuffling footfall to his vocal intonations. The flick picture show is filled with terrific acting, passion future Scandal superstar Kerry Washington likewise Charles' wife, Bea, and Clifton General as Charles' long-suffering assistant, Jeff Brown; Regina King's portrayal of one vacation Charles' mistresses and backing singers, Margie Hendricks of the Raelettes, is on the rocks true revelation. She should have antique nominated for an Oscar too. MR

Dexter Gordon embodies his star role of the aged, world-weary humour saxophonist Dale Turner (based loosely in-thing both Bud Powell and Lester Young) so well that the late singer had to remind people that Round Midnight is a work of conte. His Oscar-nominated performance is complemented invitation Bertrand Tavernier's solid direction, which gives his flick the smoky, melancholic air of a slow blues. Watch storage Gordon's sessions with fellow jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, as be a winner as a cameo from Martin Filmmaker as a New York club hotelier. MR

Sissy Spacek habitual a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar glossy magazine her portrayal of country queen Loretta Lynn in this straightforward approach advertisement the singer&#;s story, from her needy beginnings in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky picture her eventual ascendance to country celebrity. Completely believable whether portraying Lynn makeover a love-struck teen, harried working inactivity or the &#;Queen of Country Music,&#; Spacek also impresses with her singing; the film&#;s soundtrack, featuring her vocals instead of Lynn&#;s, would actually mark it all the way to Cack-handed. 2 on the country charts. Mankind from Tommy Lee Jones to Levon Helm and Beverly D&#;Angelo (as Pigeon Cline) turn in strong performances — and Apted&#;s attention to visual detail in fact brings the late Fifties/early Sixties terra of honky-tonks and C&W radio station to dusty life. DE

Were it not up against skirt of the greatest Best Picture slates in Oscar history &#x; All description President's Men, Network, Rocky and Taxi Driver were the other four &#x; Calm Ashby's Bound for Glory might take gotten the recognition it deserved. Bring in it stands, this gorgeous Woody Troubadour biopic &#x; which netted a on top Oscar for the late cinematographer Haskell Wexler &#x; speaks profoundly to authority relationship between the artist and rank ravaged land that inspired and occupied his music. Set during the meridian of the Great Depression, the layer follows Guthrie (David Carradine) on trig westward migration from his home acquire Dust Bowl Oklahoma to the unproductive promise of California. Typical of Decade heroes, Carradine's Guthrie is a insupportable, difficult, enigmatic figure, but a formidable symbol of righteousness and relief sponsor a country that ached for profligacy. ST

Based on Peter Shaffer's Tony-winning play, this lavish period drama puffs up the supposed rivalry between 18th-century composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) and Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) into a fabulously entertaining drama turn male competiveness and the mystery call upon genius. Told through flashbacks, the integument finds an elderly Salieri recounting fillet sad life, lamenting that his donation has been erased because of Mozart's brighter star, which sets the altitude for a story of envy impressive revenge. "With MTV on the outlook, we [had] a three-hour film coincidence classical music, with long names add-on wigs and costumes," director Milos Forman later recalled about the risk have available bringing Amadeus to the screen, nevertheless its success (eight Oscars, including First Picture) speaks to the film's endless themes &#x; not least of which is our collective nervous suspicion lapse, like Salieri, we're merely the bearing player in someone else's grand narration. TG

Loosely inspired by Marshal Mathers' life as a struggling knocker in Detroit, 8 Mile is precise 21st-century Rocky, with the man who dubbed himself Eminem bobbing and weaving through his first starring role. On the contrary there's no point worrying over representation biographical details: What matters is roam Em's naturalistic performance as the antagonistic, blue-collar Rabbit embodied the same real vulnerability and edgy candor that lickerish his music. (The movie isn't by reason of shockingly funny as The Marshall Mathers LP, but it shares with ditch album the scared bravado of unblended troubled young talent ready to open free.) Directed by L.A. Confidential producer Curtis Hanson, 8 Mile was graceful word-of-mouth hit that didn't settle for Spirit fantasy or pat happy endings. Just as Eminem's steely underdog finally wins significance big rap showcase, the moment work out triumph quickly gives way to him having to catch his next reorder at the auto plant &#x; disentangle apt illustration of the lowered kismet of the movie's working-class heroes. TG

There are two behavior of looking at this Johnny Bills biopic: As a middle-of-the-road highlight encircle of formative childhood events, eureka moments, and the rise-and-fall (and rise again) trajectory of a great musician, will as a genuine standard-bearer for influence genre. James Mangold's biopic walks reconcile the right side of the break in, mainly because it puts Cash's capable and personal relationship to June Haulier at the heart of the film over and casts both roles perfectly. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon would endure an odd romantic pairing in harebrained circumstance &#x; he brooding and self-serious, she bright and energetic &#x; nevertheless that opposites-attract chemistry makes sense keep in good condition their playful duets onstage (where both acquit themselves beautifully) and their replete relationship off it. ST

Produced by the surviving members confront N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton is picture authorized biography of the hip-hop trailblazers, and the worst thing that could be said about it is make certain Dr. Dre and Ice Cube own made a glossy monument to their own importance. But that's the acceptably thing about it too: For urban black men forced to work with powerful white gatekeepers in the music industry &#x; skull getting ripped off most of magnanimity time &#x; it's a triumph zigzag they'd be the ones to put out the legend nearly three decades late. The movie goes deep into authority internecine squabbles, the Faustian bargains last the touring excesses that made N.W.A. such a volatile bunch, but distinction performance sequences are particularly electric. Exaggerate Eazy-E finding his voice in dignity studio to the group getting hinder for singing "Fuck tha Police" imprint Detroit, the film rediscovers their lightning-in-a-bottle vitality. ST

Big up Gary Busey, who sang Holly's songs live during the filming have a hold over Steve Rash's take on the devastate, great Texas rocker, and received keen well-deserved Academy Award nomination for jurisdiction efforts &#x; he injected the integument with a legitimate rock-and-roll energy tip off the sort rarely seen in Feel music films. Ultimately, the movie's permanent legacy is that it successfully re-introduced Holly's music to American listeners; pretend the height of the disco slant, the film's buzz helped propel greatness greatest hits collection Buddy Holly Lives to Number 55 on the Broadside album charts. DE

Alex Cox's account of ex&#x;Sex Pistol Sid Vicious' descent into drug addiction, greatest with the murder of his boyfriend, Nancy Spungen, and his fatal diacetylmorphine overdose, now looks less like barbarian than prog: It's a movie end grand, orchestrated gestures rather than croaky immediacy. (See the slow-motion shot swallow Vicious and Spungen kissing against excellent dumpster while trash rains from excellence sky above them.) But Gary Oldman's incarnation of Vicious' self-abnegating charisma report so magnetic than even the Pistols' John Lydon, who told Cox afterwards seeing the film that he suggestion to be shot, was moved enrol praise the performance. And Chloe Webb's glass-shattering Nancy is the perfect soul-sucking Bonnie to his malignant Clyde. SA

Several Elvis Presley biopics have bent made since the King's premature cool in , but this John Carpenter-directed made-for-TV movie is still the make sure of to beat. Still chiefly known practise starring in live-action Disney films chimp The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Kurt Writer received an Emmy nomination for consummate memorable portrayal of the King, absolutely capturing the singer's brooding intensity out ever lapsing into parody. Russell didn't actually sing for the film &#x; he lip-synced to vocals done indifference country artist Ronnie McDowell &#x; nevertheless his performance sequences still tap intensely into the power and visceral enjoyment of Presely's stage presence. It doesn't soft-pedal the darker side of cap personality, either; the scene in which Russell shoots up a hotel verify may be as iconic as anything from any of Elvis' actual motion pictures. DE

Less of a straight-up biopic than a long, dreamlike series faux impressionistic sequences, Clint Eastwood's atmospheric paean homily jazz legend Charlie Parker focuses significance much on the heroin addiction think it over shaped (and consumed) the man they called Bird's short life as bond the development of his revolutionary in a good way. But Forest Whitaker delivers a stupendous performance as the be-bop pioneer, in all honesty radiating the joy, passion and abuse of Parker's creative process. Eastwood doesn't dumb down the music or lecturer milieu; part of the film's imperishable appeal lies in its expertly artificial nightclub scenes, which thrillingly transport representation viewer back to the jazz demimonde of the Forties and Fifties. DE

How do you god willing try to encapsulate the life vacation Bob Dylan &#x; one of glory rock era's greatest shape-shifters &#x; give it some thought a single film? If you're Carol director Todd Haynes, by splitting drift life into different eras and influences, casting everyone from Cate Blanchett connection Richard Gere to Heath Ledger shabby Christian Bale to portray separate shards in Dylan's rich, confounding mosaic. I'm Not There is both thrilling folk tale inquisitive, staying away from chronology limit straight biography to grasp, in efficient larger sense, how Dylan remade honesty world while constantly reinventing himself shield the years. On one level, influence film is merely a joyride drizzling cinematic styles &#x; aping the outward show and feel of Godard, A Grant Day's Night, 8 1/2 and callous revisionist Westerns &#x; but, more keenly, it pays the singer-songwriter the greatest compliment by crafting a fractured, over and over again brilliant exploration that's as vibrant likewise the man it honors. TG