The life and times of the rock band Queen - told in two parts covering in part one the 1970's and in part two the 1980's and beyond.
Director: Matt O'Casey
Stars: Brian May, Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon.
IMDb has 2 doc'ys with essentially the same title: 1991's has the word The, 2011 does not. I tagged both as in my collection, but I only have the 2011. I can't find hide nor hair of the '91 film, which is supposed to be 1.5h. So I watched this much too soon, yet appropriately the same week as the new film Bohemian Rhapsody ('18) is releasing wide. (Since the film covers events leading up to the Live Aid appearance ('85), nothing about FM's Barcelona ('86) album, nor his physical deterioration, will covered in depth.)
This is very good, but not complete. Glaring omissions: the Hollywood connections. Queen wrote 2 soundtracks for the films Flash Gordon ('80) and Highlander ('86), plus FM had a song in Giorgio Moroder's version of Metropolis ('27, '85); none of this is mentioned, not even when showing the Radio Ga-Ga music video, which uses Metropolis footage.
Lots of interviews of BM & RT from 2011-ish. BM shares getting his dad's approval after the Madison Square Garden concert; dad had always chided him for wasting his physics/astronomy education. (No mention that he completed his PhD in '07.)
The really gripping stuff was FM (b. '46) still recording video near the end of his life, and the raw footage showed how really ill he was, despite the makeup. And then describing how he recorded vocals for incomplete songs, so that the survivors could assemble another album (Made in Heaven) post mortem.
BBC & more, dir. O'Casey; 9
