3/10
VELVET GOLDMINE (1998). What a mess. Todd Haynes (a talented director) makes a pig's ear of telling the story of a Bowie-clone, misusing the structure employed so brilliantly in Citizen Kane, and leaving us with very little. The trouble with rock music on film is that - like sport - the real thing is so much better, and it needs to be seen live. For all Jonathan Rhys Meyers energetic posturing, you're aware that it's so much worse than Bowie himself; and you wonder why non-American Ewan McGregor was cast as an Iggy Pop-alike. Meanwhile Christian Bale looks confused and miserable as a fan-cum-journalist.
