If Gary Busey is the best thing you've got going for your movie, do us all a favor and shut that ish down! I'll give the man his due - this really is Busey's best acting job ever. And the fact that the actors are actually playing (and do a really great job) is pretty cool. But those are really the only nice things I can say about this movie.
The obvious lack of effort to make this film the least bit historically accurate is disgusting. Yes, he played the Apollo. Yes, he went on a tour with mostly black artists. Yes, he married a Puerto Rican. "Research done! Let's just fill in the blanks with live performances and made-up conflict between him and his bandmates and parents and ex girlfriends and Nashville producers and blah, blah..." Gag me.
I'm just saying, it's not really fair to Buddy Holly and his survivors to have such blatant disrespect (or at best apathy) for the ACTUAL events of his life and career. His actual Crickets bandmates were really cool, nice guys, not drunken semi-racist morons. Buddy Holly's parents were extremely supportive and proud of his music. A huge part of Holly's actual story was his producer Norman Petty, who of course is completely left out of the thing. I shudder to think that this POS is gonna be some poor kid's introduction to a rock hero. But at least said poor kid will get a somewhat accurate reading of what his music was like.
You can find "The Real Buddy Holly Story" (a documentary put together by Paul McCartney after being outraged at how phony this movie is) on Youtube. I would watch that instead. It's kinda cheap-looking, but at least you can ACTUALLY learn something about Buddy Holly.
...you know, if you can bear to pass up a performance by master thespian Gary Busey.
The obvious lack of effort to make this film the least bit historically accurate is disgusting. Yes, he played the Apollo. Yes, he went on a tour with mostly black artists. Yes, he married a Puerto Rican. "Research done! Let's just fill in the blanks with live performances and made-up conflict between him and his bandmates and parents and ex girlfriends and Nashville producers and blah, blah..." Gag me.
I'm just saying, it's not really fair to Buddy Holly and his survivors to have such blatant disrespect (or at best apathy) for the ACTUAL events of his life and career. His actual Crickets bandmates were really cool, nice guys, not drunken semi-racist morons. Buddy Holly's parents were extremely supportive and proud of his music. A huge part of Holly's actual story was his producer Norman Petty, who of course is completely left out of the thing. I shudder to think that this POS is gonna be some poor kid's introduction to a rock hero. But at least said poor kid will get a somewhat accurate reading of what his music was like.
You can find "The Real Buddy Holly Story" (a documentary put together by Paul McCartney after being outraged at how phony this movie is) on Youtube. I would watch that instead. It's kinda cheap-looking, but at least you can ACTUALLY learn something about Buddy Holly.
...you know, if you can bear to pass up a performance by master thespian Gary Busey.