Word: biopics
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...major figures have been conceived. There are times when one can't help feeling that the history most pointedly informing Michael Collins is not that of tragic Ireland but of lightsome Hollywood, making sure that past and principles don't weigh too heavily on a biopic's audience. You can see this in the bantering palship of Collins and his faithful sidekick Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn), and in the largely antic rivalry that develops between them over the affections of pert Kitty Kiernan (Julia Roberts). It's even there in the characterization of Eamon de Valera, President of the nascent...
...original old gold isn't good enough, now there's a heap of pretty paste imitations. Allison Anders' Grace of My Heart, a fictionalized biopic of songwriter Carole King, has '60s-type tunes for girl groups and beach boys. Hanks' new film That Thing You Do!, about the Wonders, an imaginary pop group from Erie, Pennsylvania, features songs in the style of the Beatles, the Ronettes, the Ventures, Jan and Dean, even a little bogus Bacharach. And the ultimate British rip-off group, the Rutles, are cashing in on the Anthology with their own Archaeology CD--satire...
...death in 1963 prompted a slow fugue of commemorative albums (including a bizarre set of postmortem duets with the also deceased Jim Reeves) and the stately 1985 biopic Sweet Dreams, with Jessica Lange as Patsy. Now the singer has become a legend that won't die. There's Patsy Cline: The Birth of a Star (Razor & Tie records), an audio collection of her TV appearances with Godfrey. A stage show, Always...Patsy Cline, played for two years in Nashville, Tennessee. The star of Always, Mandy Barnett, has just released her own album of Cline-inflected tunes. And for weeks...
...flight. Corrigan agreed to return to California--but once in the air, headed east. Touching down in Ireland 28 hours later, Corrigan, straight-faced but twinkle-eyed, attributed his detour to a faulty compass. This combination of chutzpah and heroism propelled him to international celebrity, leading to a Hollywood biopic (he played himself) and a lifetime of personal appearances...
...President of the television age. A better statesman than politician, a tireless but graceless campaigner, a successful salesman who was liked but not well liked, the man seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. The canniest moments in the three-plus hours of Nixon, Oliver Stone's dense, ultimately disappointing biopic, capture Nixon at his most pathetically endearing--the Commander in Chief as klutz. In a telling vignette lifted from Woodward and Bernstein's The Final Days, Nixon (Anthony Hopkins) gets so frustrated at his inability to remove a medicine safety cap that he finally bites...