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Post by kathryn on Sept 4, 2024 8:23:51 GMT
Ok, I have been tracking this one for a while but now it has officially premiered at Telluride I guess it’s time to start a thread. Coming out Boxing Day, Better Man is a musical biopic of Robbie Williams directed by Michael Gracey, of The Greatest Showman. In the film, Robbie is portrayed as a monkey via CGI, voiced by Robbie himself. It sounds, if you will pardon the pun, bananas. www.indiewire.com/criticism/movies/better-man-movie-review-robbie-williams-1235042892/As a Robbie fan, I am half eagerly looking forward to it and half dreading the absolute kicking that Rob’s going to attract for daring to play himself in a biopic, and to agree to such a weird concept.
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Post by anthony40 on Sept 4, 2024 9:35:42 GMT
Gosh, that is a little strange, isn't it?
I too am a massive Robbie fan and I know at one point they were trying to recreate the very successful swing concert that Robbie performed at the Royal Albert Hall concert when he released his Swing Both Ways jazz album for the film.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 4, 2024 11:29:13 GMT
They did some RAH gigs for the film, to get proper audience shots. They also did some in Australia to capture audience shots for 90s Take That scenes.
I’ve been reading the reviews and even the really bad ones (some people just cannot get on board with the monkey thing) are making it sound kinda bonkers amazeballs. It’s going to be total marmite.
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Post by lewis on Sept 4, 2024 13:42:43 GMT
Steve Pemberton, Alison Steadman, Jonno Davies from Clockwork Orange and Fraser Hadfield from Calendar Girls - good UK theatre representation in the cast!
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Post by kathryn on Sept 4, 2024 14:47:17 GMT
Jonno Davies did the chimp mocap so he won’t be visible onscreen.
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Post by hannechalk on Sept 5, 2024 14:57:08 GMT
I didn't realise there was a thread here about it.
I don't understand why people are surprised that Robbie is depicted as a monkey - I read about this before production even started.
It also ties in with his song 'Me and My Monkey' - charting his struggle with fame, addiction and life in general, the monkey being his destructive side.
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Post by lewis on Sept 7, 2024 8:37:01 GMT
I think it was just a long time since that was reported. And the fact it is just Robbie that is depicted that way - the reviews suggest there is absolutely no reference to it at all in the film
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Post by kathryn on Sept 7, 2024 10:16:14 GMT
Yeah, it has been a couple of years and it was an unconfirmed ‘rumour’ when first reported.
Plus a lot of people have this weird view of Robbie; the fact that he was so hugely successful has blinded them to just how off-the-wall he can be as an artist. Particularly if the only song they know of his is Angels. I’ve seen people describe his music as just ‘plodding MOR ballads’, which is absolutely wrong.
I don’t know whether there is some kind of collective amnesia going on or whether he just got talked down so much by a certain section of the press that people’s perception of him was warped. Or whether it is a basic generational thing, with a younger generation growing up thinking it’s music their mum liked and so must be boring?
It’s like when he turned up on Punk’s Dead, by the punk band Soft Play, and a lot of people were shocked - and I’m sitting here thinking, don’t you remember him doing that punk version of Back for Good where he would jump around the stage screaming during the chorus?
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Post by kathryn on Oct 3, 2024 16:34:00 GMT
Teaser Trailer is out!
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Post by theatrenerd on Oct 13, 2024 14:32:54 GMT
I think the teaser trailer looks really good! Will be looking forward to this one.
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Post by anthony40 on Oct 13, 2024 15:19:32 GMT
I love Robbie Williams. I really do. However I fear that at the press junkets and reviews upon its release a lot of time will be spent trying to explain why the audience are looking a a CGI chimp, and not Mr Williams himself!
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Post by kathryn on Oct 13, 2024 20:21:45 GMT
They have done a featurette about the monkey thing, released alongside the trailer.
It’s already had a lot of reviews - it’s doing the festival circuit in the US. Appears to be that around 1 in 10 are completely bouncing off the monkey and not getting it at all, and the other 9/10 say they got used to it after the first 10 minutes. Some reviewers absolutely love it and rave about it, a lot are in a middling-to-positive place, the minority really hate it. Vast majority of them have only vaguely heard of Robbie at best and sort-of-know maybe a couple of songs.
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