List Sunday - Favorite movies from a genre you hate
There are just some genres that individual cinephiles do not naturally gravitate to. I tend not to watch many horror movies or romantic comedies, but I still have examples from those genres that I love. My most despised genre has to be the biopic. I find these movies so boring and predictable that on the rare occasion I see one, I instantly forget it. Here are some of the exceptions to the rule, however.
Raging Bull (1980)
My favorite movie for the longest time. I kind of forget that this is a biopic because Robert DeNiro dominates the screen like a force of nature. This movie is so good that I still have no desire to know who the real Jake LaMotta is.
I, Tonya (2017)
I appreciate the risks this movie takes with its account of wildly differing narratives and that it doesn’t shy away from the subjectivity of the people involved. I personally wish that Margot Robbie wins best actress because even though she looks nothing like Harding, I seriously forgot it was her.
I’m Not There (2007) and Superstar (1989)
Both Todd Haynes’ efforts, they are like no other biopics I have ever seen. I’m Not There managed to cast Cate Blanchett as an incarnation of Bob Dylan and no one batted an eye. And Superstar, the infamously hard to track down account of Karen Carpenter, is reenacted with Barbie dolls, yet it’s completely serious and moving.
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007)
A silly and episodic movie, but the musician biopic was the one most in need of skewering, and this movie delivers in spades. “I think I’m doing okay for a 15-year-old with a wife and a baby.”