This is a fairly entertaining (if rather silly) film that is very loosely based upon David Bowie's career as Ziggy Stardust and his relationships with Iggy Pop, Angie Bowie, etc. Some of the scenes depicted, such as Bowie's performance for the actors from Andy Warhol's Pork, ARE based on true events. The writer, Todd Haynes, incorrectly portrayed other true events: for example, it was probably Lou Reed Haynes was thinking of who received shock treatments to supposedly discourage homosexual behavior; Iggy did NOT, nor did he even HAVE a brother; he is the only child of schoolteacher parents. He DID grow up in a trailer near Detroit, although at the time trailers were more of a novelty, not the symbol of white trash that they are today. Ewan McGregor didn't do much for me trying to portray the Iggy character, Curt Wild (and the Rats? Ha ha ha, there WAS actually a glam band called The Rats but Iggy's band was, of course, The Stooges). Apparently Iggy co-operated at least to an extent with the filmmakers since they used the Stooges' song "T.V. Eye". Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who plays the part of the Bowie character, Brian Slade, does a terrible job singing it; the New York Dolls "Personality Crisis" is also butchered. David Bowie refused to allow his music to be used (showing his usual intelligence and taste). Some good tunes from Roxy Music, Brian Eno, and Slade (the actual glam band… not the fictional title character) are used, however. "Needle in the Camel's Eye" is especially effective for the opening of the film. All in all, this COULD have been a great movie but instead is just so-so. There are some great tunes and clothes to admire; glam rock fans will enjoy those! But perhaps one should just watch footage of Ziggy Stardust or the New York Dolls or Marc Bolan...

I've actually been looking forward to seeing this film for a really long time, and finally got round to it this weekend. It should have been great! It had all the right ingredients; great cast, fabulous outfits, it's about GLAM ROCK for goodness sake! But alas, what this film was seriously lacking in was plot. Velvet Goldmine tells the tale of Brian Slade, a pop icon in the 1970s bearing an uncanny resemblance to David Bowie, whose career takes a severe nose-dive after he fakes his own death on stage. The picture revolves around a newspaper reporter ten years later (Who was once a fan of Brian Slade, and was at the gig of the 'shooting hoax'), assigned to find out 'exactly what happened'. What follows are an hour and a half of confusing and seemingly irrelevant flashbacks, poorly scripted and dull interviews, leading to a dull and fairly predictable finish. I should stress again that I am a big fan of both the Glam Rock era, and all of the actors in this film, so I didn't begin watching this film with any preconceptions of bad-ness. Worth a watch if you, like me, are usually into this kind of thing, but only so you can say that you've seen it, and perhaps for the cameo from Placebo (Probably the high-light). A generous five stars.

This is the second review I've written, but it won't differ essentially from what I wrote in the first, which was that Velvet Goldmine seems to me more a film for gays and something of a gay manifesto more than anything else. That is not to criticise the film particularly or to denigrate it, just to suggest that in many ways I suspect homosexual men (and perhaps women) will gain more from it than heterosexuals. And I suspect what one takes from the film will, in general, be very different depending upon one's sexual orientation. Although it was made in 1998, by which time the situation gay men and women in the Western world was somewhat easier than it had been ever before (I gather it's still pretty dire in Africa and other parts of the world), Velvet Goldmine strikes me as being a document of gay liberation presented in a manner which likes to see itself as rebellious. Perhaps that has to do with the age of the film's writer/director Todd Haynes, who has made gay proselytising his life's mission and who will have grown up when being gay was not as easy as it might be today. I am not gay, which under the circumstances, is relevant, so I think that should be taken into account in the following comments. It is difficult what to make of the film. It has been said that the central character, Brian Slade, and his career were based on David Bowie in his various incarnations, and Haynes makes a good fist of evoking the whole early Seventies glam rock scene when sexual ambiguity became for some just another fashion and a release for others. And if it is based on Bowie, who had several different pop personae just as Brian Slade had Maxwell Demon, the appearance right at the start of the film and then later on of a 'spaceship' at least has context, however spurious. But over and above that, that spaceship makes no sense and in many ways demonstrates what doesn't really work in Velvet Goldmine. There is a cryptic reference to Oscar Wilde (who was not a foundling as is suggested by the film) and some of his poetry, and some play is made of a sapphire tie pin (or something) which is said once to have belonged to Wilde and is then passed from gay character to gay character as some kind of talisman. All of this is, at worst, pretentious and, at best (which I think is a little more the case), merely rather muddled. And muddle seems to sum up Velvet Goldmine. It is patently not a fictionalised bio pic of Bowie and it is patently not just an account of the 'glam rock years'. For many minutes, interminably long minutes for this non-gay viewer, it is almost akin to gay soft porn, great for gays, I suppose, not so interesting for non-gays. For Haynes those scenes are, presumably, important for the film he is making, but in the overall arc they drag a rather. There is rather less cohesion than one would like, and, it has to be said, whether or not this is a specific gay film or even one primarily intended for a gay audience, Haynes is obliged to make a film which is, at some level, accessible to all. My problem is that there is quite a lot about Velvet Goldmine which isn't half bad, especially the performances by Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ewan McGregor (as a gay Iggy Pop type of character), Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard and Christian Bale. The pastiche glam rock songs are generally as good as the real thing, the era is evoked very well, and for stretches Velvet Goldmine is very entertaining. I should imagine it would be enjoyed especially by young lads who know they are gay but are battling with how to come out (my brother was one such, and as I love and like him a great deal, and my heart goes out to others like him who found and find themselves in that situation). In the Christian Bale character they will have a good role model. But on another level Velvet Goldmine is a confused mess, neither fish nor fowl, a film which meanders a great deal and doesn't quite make up it's mind what it is. On balance, however, I would recommend that it is worth watching, whether you are gay or straight, but don't necessarily expect to understand what the bloody hell is going on.

I saw Goldmine years ago and it remains one of my favorites. Everything about this movie is amazing- from the music, to the costume and the actors. Here we get a young Christian Bale as a struggling kid trying to grow up in the age of glam rock. The confusion of trying to be who you are and the confusion of trying to figure out who that person is, something that is understandable to anyone who has ever been a teenager. Like so many, he finds himself in music- that of Brian Slade. Meyers is outstanding as a lowly boy who makes it with the big boys. He plays the climb to fame brilliantly and the demise of glam rock with emotion. Toni Collette adds the flare that is necessary and shows the true strength in what a woman will do/put up with for love. She is a delight and she plays well with Meyers. Ewan McGregor is also terrific as Curt Wild, the perfect half to Slade's glam. The music is what Goldmine is really all about. Meyers and McGregor sing some of the tunes themselves, but the addition of Radiohead's Thom Yorke to the mix as well as the boys from Placebo are an excellent addition to an already great soundtrack. Adding Lou Reed seems like over kill, but I'll take it- if there is anything that I learned from watching Goldmine many times- is that the bigger the better.This is a great coming of age movie- it is a bit adult. There are heavy issues here such as drug abuse, alcoholism, adultery, homosexuality, orgies...be aware-