A biopic that's both fake and real (which allows for several "Citizen Kane" references) with a number of earth shattering performances.

“During the Festival sequence where Brian sees Curt perform for the first time, Ewan McGregor was only due to moon the disgruntled crowd. But inspired by the antics of Iggy Pop, he improvised, and ended up gesticulating wildly while flashing the audience, leaping about with his trousers around his ankles.”

Nice memory of glamrock, Bowie and others, but Christian Bale was so boring there. This character was inconsequential in this film. Ewan was given little space and I think that this theme could have been worked on more.

Good or bad, it's like a 2 hour hallucinate music video. It's a nostalgia of glam rock in 70s, but now watched in 2022, it appears like a pure 90s film with those talented actors from UK. Directed in the Citizen Kane style. It's not a bio, the main character is fictional, a mixture of the iconic figures of that era, and I kinda feel cheated to hear those iconic songs played at once. (and no Bowie) BTW, the director made a documentary about Velvet Underground in 2021.

Where have I been? This film is a gem! I love the sociological insights of the story. I love its amazing casts. Jonathan Rhys, Ewan Mcgregor, Christian Bale really gave very beautiful, raw and soulful performance in this vivid film.

The most memorable performances in this film, I felt, were from Christian Bale and Toni Collette. It was also nice seeing Eddie Izzard in this film too - he also does well in his role as Jerry Devine. Its a diverting, entertaining enough watch I suppose, with some amusing moments but I didn't feel there was very much in the way of a clear plot narrative/structure as such. Its alright but not a film I'd personally speciffically recommend as such, no.

Connects "Citizen Kane" to "Rocky Horror Picture Show", and had the "Hedwig" ending before "Hedwig" was on screen. The music is great, Rhys Meyers is at his Dorian Gray-beautiful-best, and for those who need to know...McGregor lets it all hang out like Iggy Pop. Might I suggest "The Ballad of Maxwell Demon"?

Cinematic eye candy. A glorious celebration of that short lived era that will keep the faithful coming back for more. Also one of the best soundtracks ever!

Because this movie talk about Bowie & Iggy lovestory...

Eye candy of the highest order.

drown me in velvet baby, Ben Stiller got his dirty mitts over this so it was instantly unwatchable.

90s over the top story of Brit rock stars that bend sexual norms. Young Bale, Rhys Meyers and McGregor hold it down.

Pure eye candy and a fabulous soundtrack to boot. Ewan McGregor and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are fantastic in these roles. A great tribute to the Glam era riddled with all sorts of Easter eggs that will keep revealing themselves with each viewing. A++

A- A stylized, nearly documentary-style look at the years of glam rock with great cinematography, even if its ending feels laggy.

It was good bud a bit of a romslomp , here's a bunch of material ....you figure out the rest ! And did Bale finally meet Brian Slade or knows what happens to him ? ...i guese not . SOMDVD

Glittering with psychedelic verve and hypnotic magnetism, Todd Haynes' inspired biography of David Bowie is really a bittersweet reminiscence of glam rock from a bygone era and its onstage legends.

The glam rock era of the 1970s was a time of sexual experimentation, gaudy fashion, and surprisingly ballsy music. Coming at the tail end of the free love hippie movement of the 1960s, it was a period that was characterized as being seemingly fearless and disapproving of societal normalities, curious about gender fluidity and about as obsessed with exterior glamour as the '20s were at their most roaring. It's among the most instantaneously recognizable movements in music history - good thing much of the work remains to be timeless. Then all the free-wheeling would be for nothing. 1998's "Velvet Goldmine," a bouncy pleasuring of bonkers visual patina, is arresting in the way it captures the glam era's flamboyancy. Though inevitably capturing the darkness of certain aspects of the time, it retains the romanticism we place upon it, from its incessant self-indulgence to the pulsating confidence of its defining figures. It's a biopic of sorts, revolving around a central figure that is suspiciously quite a lot like David Bowie. Bowie is, of course, smarter, less periodically legendary, and more calculated in his theatrical showing-offs. But I think "Velvet Goldmine" isn't so much intent on telling the story of a fake pop idol as it is intent on paying homage to glam rock's insanity, using the characters as placeholders to make it all seem like more than just inspired, kinetic style. It is set in 1984, where the days of Ziggy Stardust and KISS are long gone and where cynical grit has replaced the exciting (and perhaps cinematically bloated) liberties of the 1970s. Such a year does not mean much to most people unless we're talking about George Orwell's literary masterpiece, but to Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale), a tabloid journalist, it means a great deal. It marks for the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a bodacious, bisexual rock icon who staged his own assassination (later proven to be a hoax). Arthur, gay and introverted, looked to Slade during his youth as though he were a sort of god. Growing up in a conservative household, the musician's music and image were the closest thing he ever felt to social acceptance. And so Slade, whose false murder he witnessed, is perhaps even more important to him than his own father, being a symbol of the boundless self-expression he's never been able to emulate. Since that traumatic event in 1974, it's assumed that Arthur has had a hard time recovering. So lucky for him that his boss assigns him to investigate the hoax further, to discover why Slade did what he did and maybe even find out where the rocker currently plays house. He gets leads from several of Slade's closest confidants, most notably his ex-socialite ex-wife Mandy (Toni Collette), and is given information that any fanatic would kill to discover. Most compelling is his relationship with Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), a comparatively batshit idol with whom he had a brief but influential professional and personal affiliation. Finding Slade, though, is a challenge, possibly even an impossibility. It's as if he were banished from a land where the citizens actually wanted him, as if the progression from superstardom to reclusiveness were more natural than simply announcing a hiatus or a permanent retirement. In essence, I've just relayed the general gist of "Velvet Goldmine." Like director Todd Haynes's similarly challenging "I'm Not There" (2007), a Bob Dylan biopic that employed six actors to play the man, it doesn't much have a necessarily streamlined plot. Slade is only seen through flashback. Every time Arthur interviews someone, their memories are fashioned into the form of a memory, giving us diverse tellings of Slade that are more investing because of their musical sequences and their orgies of visual opulence, not because the elusive character is so multifaceted and interesting himself. Admittedly, "Velvet Goldmine's" breakneck speed and habit of getting too lost in its mystique makes it seem ethereal instead of grounded. It feels more like an exercise in style than a meaningful work, which is disappointing considering the dramatic possibility that could grow from material of its caliber. But it's so lusciously rendered and so fetchingly tuneful that resisting its superfluities is a losing fight. Haynes has all the right moves, and Meyers and McGregor are astonishingly good as would-be glam rockers; Meyers easily could have fit into the era had he been born earlier and had he tried. "Velvet Goldmine" gets a little carried away; but there's nothing wrong with an explosion of color when the occasion arises.

Flamboyant mess. And too long. But some great moments.

Great movie. Jonathan RM is so beautiful....

A really fun movie with excellent performances from the whole ensemble including Ewan McGregor, Johnathan Rhys Meyers, Eddie Izzard, Christian Bale, and Toni Colette. I think this may be or at least tied with Carol my favorite Todd Haynes movie and the first time he really let loose and had fun with a movie. A lot of his movies are super serious or romantic but this is vibrant with excellent musical numbers, costumes, make up, hair, art direction, writing, and cinematography.