120 - Biopsy: ROCKETMAN "Robb Stark gets bottom billing"
from Sup Doc: A Documentary Podcast
This is the pilot episode of our new sidecar project Biopsy! Our new show format recaps BioPics in a loose, funny way and we'll drop occasional episodes into your regular Sup Doc feed. We think BioPics are the real life version of our game Cast This Doc. We hope you enjoy it and let us know what Bi-OP-Pics you want us to cover. On the premiere episode we look at Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019) about the life and music of Elton John. Yes THAT Elton John. Both George and Paco agree that Rocketman is a formulaic, paint-by-numbers biopic. One glaring problem was that the musical numbers are not in order of when the songs were released. Rocketman begins oddly at a moment of a huge crossroad in Elton's career, then backtracks to show us how he ended up there—a narrative device that already was a cliché when “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” parodied it back in 2007. Taron Egerton does an admirable job with what he's given. Paco and George also talk about how Rocketman is seemingly prepackaged for the Broadway stage, packed with Elton John hits you’ve known and maybe loved for decades. And of course what self-respecting biopic would not have plenty of montages: the obligatory scenes of Elton hits rising up the charts and racking up, all the gold records and the sex and drugs that go along with the rock ‘n’ roll. Correction: Not Bernie Maupin nor Armistead Maupin but Bennie Maupin and he's not a piano player but a reed player.
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What this episode covers
On the first episode of BIOPSY, a new format about biopics, Paco and George dissect the Elton John musical Rocketman.
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