Despite a reputation for conservatism that makes them chum for blunt-toothed Academy voters, music biopics have encouraged an awful lot of experimentation. Alex Cox’s Sid And Nancy uses two untalented but well-placed third-raters to construct a fantasia ruminating on what it could’ve been like to have had talent despite being at the right place and time. Chronological narrative is of no interest to Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould . I hesitated between Velvet Goldmine and I’m Not There. As much as I admire Todd Haynes’ admixture of tones and (im)plausible what-ifs in his attempt to corporealize the eponymous wisp of a Dylan outtake, I still can’t place what irritates me fourteen years later. It has marvelous sequences, for example the Heath Ledger-Charlotte Gainsborough relationship and Calexico and Jim James’ cover of “Goin’ to Acapulco” that compensated for Cate Blanchett’s lauded turn as a version of the man himself.
The acceptance of identity as a perception of others — there is no Real Me — binds these pictures together, their sharpest insight; even Yankee Doodle Dandy matters less as a biography of George M. Cohan than as a transfiguration of Cohan into a symbol of American might, worthy of FDR’s admiration. But conventional biopics like Coal Miner’s Daughter, Sweet Dreams, and Ray compensate for visual blahs with dynamic imitations of Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, and Ray Charles that do more to validate Great Person theories of art and history than a Paul Johnson tome of choice. Finding coherence in Bird (1988) and The Doors (1991) is like finding a pony in a stack of manure.
NB: No Susan Hayward pictures here.
1. Sid And Nancy (1986)
2. The Buddy Holly Story (1978)
3. Bound for Glory (1976)
4. Lady Sings the Blues (1972)
5. The Doors (1991)
6. Ray (2004)
7. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
8. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
9. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
10. Nowhere Boy (2009)
11. Velvet Goldmine (1998)
12. Sweet Dreams (1985)
13. Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1994)
14. Bird (1988)
15. ‘Round Midnight (1986)
16. The Pianist (2002)
17. Amadeus (1984)
18. Liztomania (1975)
19. Control (2007)
20. Cadillac Records (2008)
Humanizing The Vacuum 
“Lady Sings the Blues”? Really? Are you kidding me? You might as well add “The Glenn Miller Story” if you want a story that doesn’t have anything to do with reality … at least that movie got the music right!
& what about “Delovely”? I love that movie, although I can’t stand Sheryl Crow’s cover of “Begin the Beguine”.
Don’t mind the truth bending. Look at some of my other picks!
If it wasn’t for the latter quarter of the film fallin in soap opera chliches, “Grace of My Heart” would be in mine, too. The way the film starts to decodified the songwriting proccess of the 45 era in the early 60s -including a thrilling sequence about a hit for a Lesley Gore stand-in- is something I had never seen before. It’s lovely and unadulterd joy until the Brian Wilson stand-in begun to take on drugs and the Carol King stan-in emerges as saviour of his lost soul until he couldn’t be save him no more. Apparently, that’s why she went recording for herself.
Ileana Douglas is always lovely in spite of the script.
A solid showcase for Illeana Douglas though.