✧ Movie Review: Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (2008)

Welcome to Carcass talking about a Movie for a while. This is my very unprofessional attempt of being a very unserious film critic.

Obviously spoilers ahead - I tried being subtle with them though so even if you plan on watching it, I feel like this review can be read beforehand. I wouldn't reccomend it but you know. Who am I to actually stop you.

For everyone that does not know Joe Meek, the centre of the whole movie, he was a drug addicted control freak, gay in the wrong decade, and a tone deaf musical pioneer - a true combination that makes you feel like you stepped foot into a rollercoaster as soon as you watch the movie.

Without spoiling too much, this is truly a movie about a man trying his hardest and putting his all into what he has envisioned to be his own future, failing and having to face the disastrous consequences of it all.

Con O'Neill was at first the only real reason I started watching the movie. Being on somewhat of a binge of movies featuring actors I just /need/ to see more from made Telstar fall right into my open arms. I knew vaguely about Joe Meek, heard about him for sure and I'm positive I looked him up at some point before even knowing a movie about him exists, but it was truly wonderful to see how incredibly Con O'Neill dominates this film with his manic performance that just captures everything that Joe Meek  stood for. The chaotic feel of the acting - a recording studio right above a handbag shop in central London - was conveyed so nicely in my eyes that it was overall delightful to watch. But Con wasn't the only one that has a job well done in this piece, a range of good actors helped this movie be what it is now - in particular I'd like to mention names like Kevin Spacey (Major Banks), Pam Ferris (Mrs Violet), JJ Feild (Heinz), and even James Corden (Clem Cattini). They were all perfect for their respective roles.

The movie does look like an 60s disaster film in the first 20 minutes, before it picks up to be something darker once Joe gets some No.1 hits in the charts, which seems to be the main critic point of the movie. Seeing reviews that state "the movie doesn't know what it wants to be" and I do agree, it is chaotic and looks and feels like a proper mess but that's what Joe Meek was. He was messy, a drug addicted paranoid man, and having the movie /about his life/ being something other than a chaotic and insane mess would honestly feel wrong for me personally.

So yes, I totally understand why people might not enjoy the chaos and I see why some might also not finish the movie due to that (it took me a lot longer to finish it myself than I'd like to admit), I personally thought it to be very fitting the way it is.

In my absolutely unprofessional opinion it's a true must watch in my book, even if just used as background noise while working on something more important. It's a beautifully manic story about fame, paranoia, love, and music. It's a great character piece with some very nuanced comedy between the darker elements of the film and it was very well executed. All my respect and love to Nick Moran for this movie. I will definetly be watching it again.

And that's a wrap on my end. Having rambled about this 2008 musical drama for way too long now (i really wanted to keep this short, my rambling nature just got the better of me once again) and i will go back to looking for more movies to watch.
not sure if I'll continue this; it's honestly quite theraputic to just ramble about a movie for a while,,,

Everyone is /more/ than welcome to ramble about the last movie you watched by the way, I'd honestly love to hear about a few other movies and I think we as a whole don't just talk about movies enough, like in general.
So please, tell me about the last movie you watched in as many or as little words as you want.