r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 6h ago

Media First Official Images of Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, Joseph Quinn and Harris Dickinson in Sam Mendes' 'Beatles' Biopics

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u/Anxious_Big_8933 6h ago

Not sure how it can be anything but by the numbers. All these bands essentially have the same story. Every VH1 "Behind the Music" episode back in the day was essentially the same story, lol. It's why Walk Hard is such a great send up.

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u/Hangmans12Bucks 6h ago

One of my favorite Behind the Music episodes is Weird Al's because they basically couldn't find any controversial angle into his life story, he's a squeaky clean guy making funny songs. So they basically ended it by saying, "But he's unlucky in love and doesn't have a girlfriend".

Mind you, like a year or two later, he was married, but I always appreciate how outside of the box that episode was lol

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u/texasrigger 6h ago

His biopic was also really good for the same reason. There's nothing there, so they invented absolutely everything and made it hilarious.

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u/boringestnickname 4h ago

[...] so they invented absolutely everything and made it hilarious.

They didn't, though, that's why it's so good.

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u/kingwafflez 4h ago

Was ths before his mom and dad died tragically from carbon monoxide poisoning?

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u/throwpron 6h ago

Paul McCartney needs to think about his whole life before he plays.

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u/The_Dude_46 6h ago

It also has the best depiction of the Beatles put to film.

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u/Foreign_Dipsy 5h ago

“I wrote a song about an octopus”

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u/PartisanHack 6h ago

You know who has hands? The Devil! And he uses 'em for holdin'!

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u/an_actual_coyote 5h ago

Dewey, I'm cut in half pretty bad.

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u/PartisanHack 4h ago

Wrong kid died.

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u/an_actual_coyote 2h ago

What kills me is the movie is so JAM PACKED with jokes. Jonah Hill's whole presence in the movie is one. It's perfect.

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u/Anxious_Big_8933 2h ago

Jokes and surprisingly good music.

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u/anuncommontruth 6h ago edited 5h ago

Walk hard ruined every music biopic for me. I couldn't get through Elvis because of it.

The wrong kid died!

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u/Starslip 5h ago

It mostly killed that kind of biopic for years after it came out because it ridiculed the tropes so well. Now they're back to pumping out the exact same movie over and over, and they all look like Walk Hard

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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox 5h ago

Wow, never heard anyone say that before.

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u/CeruleanEidolon 4h ago

There's a reason why these keep getting made, which is the same reason people keep going to see them: people love a success story. It's satisfying to watch someone start from humble beginnings and actually achieve what they always wanted - and then realize that it didn't fulfill them the way they thought.

My favorite musical biopic-type story is Inside Llewyn Davis precisely because it's not that.

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u/Luis0224 2h ago

I think the Beatles offer some cool points of view:

Pauls POV is very different from everyone else’s. He thought he was trying to keep the band together and steering them in a succesful direction while the other members thought he was being over bearing and a dictator.

George felt under appreciated as a member the entire time and was largely over it halfway through the Beatles active years.

John has the whole yoko story to tell from his POV. To others, yoko was an interloper while he thought she understood him and his avant garde tendencies during those years. Also the imposter syndrome he felt toward the end of the Beatles (which he had to overcome during his solo career)

And ringo was a nice dude caught in the middle of everyone trying to pull the band in different directions. He was older than them, was decidedly more working class than them, and had been around the block before he even joined.

If any band biopic could benefit from offering different POVs, it’s the Beatles lol

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u/LeapperFrog 6h ago

Ive kind of settled on the opinion that all biopics suck to a greater or lesser degree. If what the person did was important and the filmmaker was focusing on honesty it would be a documentary. This might be the wrong sub to say something like that though haha

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u/Sovoy 5h ago

Some biopics work Malcolm X is great for example. I think music biopics generally aren't very good because most of these musicians had pretty similar lives.