Stardust

Sure, there's none of Bowie's music here, so if that's why you may want to watch it, don't bother. Once you're past that, it's a pretty engaging little film - Flynn is great (and we all know he really can sing; the Brel stuff is fabulous) and Marc Maron turned in a great performance.

Terrible movie, Marc Bolan is a 60 year old woman in a black curly wig, Bowie looks like Noel Fielding's resurrected zombie twin. We couldn't watch it, turned it off about one third the way through, just dreadful.

It is sad when the most intriguing parts of a film are the vintage cars and hotel carpeting.

It's a shame the makers of this film ever invoked the name of David Bowie. It wasn't required by the script, and at the top of the film it is disclaimed as "mostly fiction."

Johnny Flynn as David Jones/Bowie presents an image I don't associate with Bowie: childish, kind of stupid, lacking direction or drive. We take a really long road trip with him and his road manager, and his flashbacks and daydreams add up to nothing much. I feel for Flynn. I think his role is poorly written and misdirected.

Mark Maron does a fine job as Oberman, Bowie's road manager. Perhaps the story would have been interesting told from hisp erspective -- what he saw and heard. Instead, the film tells about things it doesn't seem to know much about. It's mostly surface.

The parade of anecdotes lead nowhere, several music writers pass through to little effect.

Jena Malone delivers, but her wig is bad and distracting... and what happened to the big bump in her dress? I guess we'll never know. Nothing unites her character while pregnant with the slender post-birth iteration.

This film does not excel at complete ideas.

If I was giving the keys to direct a semi-true story about how David Bowie found his footing in the music world, I would never have taken this approach. What a buzz kills. You know you are going to get a slew of rabid Bowie fans to watch this; why make it look like Bowie is a stupid quack. I can't imagine much of this story is based on true events. Perhaps he had some struggles getting his music footing so don't spend 90% of the movie on that and leave your audience not excited about Bowie's rise to Fame; pun intended! There wasn't even any music or early tracks to hear even if they weren't big hits. This did try to paint a picture about Bowie's humble beginnings and how hard it was to reach stardom in America. And how he struggling to find himself in real life and trying to find who he truly is as an artist. It focused on his relationship with a publicist who believed that Bowie could be big in America. All solid points to build into a story. But the main problems were these: Zero character arc.

Zero enjoyment.

Zero Bowie music.

Zero new insights learned.

Who would choose to tell this story with a miniscule payoff or leave the fans excited to play some Bowie on the drive home?

The director and producer (rarely do I call out the producer) managed to make David Bowie uninteresting, flat and devoid of magic. I tinkled in a few rating points for cinematography, lighting and acting.

I'm obsessed with Bowie and I've also read many books about him. I'm actually glad, in a selfish way, that this movie has been panned critically because I went in expecting it to be terrible but it wasn't at all.

People need to get over the fact that the likeness isn't great ..the costumes, hair and makeup were very accurate.

Nobody looks and sounds like Bowie and I didn't expect to see that. The writers obviously know their stuff and are passionate about Bowie. There is plenty of great factually accurate moments mixed in there with the dramatic narrative. Much of it is beautifully shot with great care and attention to detail. In defence of the actor's portrayal and spoken voice not sounding like the Bowie we remember, this was a period where he was creating his identity and he actually did used to affect different speaking styles so this didn't bother me at all.

Bowie came to be known for his humour in later years, much of that isn't present in the film but I imagine that the whole first American tour was alienating for him (a central theme of his work) and this story does a great job of portraying that existential unease.

Real fans of Bowie's early career should not miss this. Those involved in making this film should be proud of it. The current IMDB score of 3.6 is outrageously unfair.