Telstar

[Joe Wiz]

Anybody seen this yet? It's the strange story of Joe Meek, adapted from the pretty successful stage play of the same name.
Con O'Neill is fucking outstanding as Meek himself, watching the madness take over from the genius is genuinely moving, his gradual decline is beautifully handled.
Some of the casting is a bit bizarre, Carl Barat as Gene Vincent is puzzling, his attempt at an American accent has to be seen to believed. And Justin Hawkins as Lord Sutch is underused. The actor playing Meek's songwriter, Geoff Goddard, is perfectly understated. And I can even stand James friggin Corden as drummer Clem Cattini.
If you've got no interest in the man or British pop or Meek himself, i imagine it'll drag a bit, but there's enough energy and verve in the early part of the film to keep you interested.

Here's the trailer if your still not tempted..

[Sundeporino]

Telstar

The stage show was excellent.

[historyman]

Telstar

I must look out for this film. 'Telstar' and 'Johnny Remember Me' are two songs that I loved when I was a kid. My dad had the 45's, and would usually bring out the record player when he had a little bit too much to drink.

Those records still sound great today.

[delicatemoth]

Telstar

It's a good film, though it could do with more of Meek's music. The actor who plays Heinz is outstanding as well.

[Mumpo]

Telstar

Saw this the other night, and can't help but agree with what delicatemoth aludes to on this and other threads - there is simply not enough of the man's music featured in the story itself, or on the soundtrack. It's telling that a caption on the end credits reads along the lines of "Joe Meek produced over 600 songs..." - because you get absolutely no sense of his prodigious output from the select events portrayed in the film. In fact, you might be forgiven for thinking, on the basis of what's represented, that Meek spent years obsessively forging Johnny Remember Me, Telstar and Have I The Right, and nothing else. Furthermore, the film gives no indication whatsoever that he came up with some of the most madly inventive, chaotically beautiful music ever made (certainly within the loose, nascent pop framework). I mean, any Joe Meek biopic that fails to run I Hear I New World over the credits is just in a world of wrong.

As far as performances go, Con O'Neill is impressive as Meek, given the lack of much in the script to get his teeth into. It's perhaps a shame that he does resemble a cross between a fat Ben Miller and a camp Ronnie O'Sullivan. It's Tom Burke who is really outstanding, though, as the aloof, detached songwriter Geoff Goddard. Any scene featuring James Corden (and there are alot of them, as too much emphasis is placed on the session band) is rendered, predictably, unwatchable by the failed comic actor's very presence.

I guess what also lets the film down is that, being a relatively straight runthrough of the stage play, it stays too much within the confines of 304 Holloway Road, where events are often played out as a Carry On-style farce; all of which might work well as theatre, but the increased scope allowed by film should have resulted in a much more adventurous production.

[historyman]

Telstar

Finally got a chance to watch the film on DVD last night. Superb performance in particular from Con O' Neill as the tortured soul that was Joe Meek. Sometimes there's a fine line between genius and madness and I thought the film captured that well, especially as the darker side of Meek's personality began to take over his life and mind.

There were some great moments to lighten the mood though, in particular the recording sessions in the toilet of Meek's flat/studio which were so new and revolutionary at the time. Anyone for dropping marbles down the khazi?

Overall though I felt it was an intense and quite disturbing film, which is what you would expect if it's going to portray Joe Meek as the man that he truly was. Definitely worth seeing.

[Guest]

Telstar

I'd go mostly with my man Mumpo's comments. I was looking forward to this flick for a while - I'm a big Meek fan and I'd even sorta toyed with the idea of penning a script with Meek as a main character sometime in the early nineties (I never got past lots and lots of notes and a half-finished treatment). So when I read that Nick Moran was doing it I thought, nadgers, y'know, lock stock pillock gets his hands on a fashionable cult figure, game over. But I then read a few interview things with Moran in which he made a lot of the right noises and figured, hey, give the boy the botd. There seemed to a genuine passion for Meek's music and his tortured outsider status. Big letdown. The finished product is essentially crud with the odd flash of inspiration.

Moran has no control over his material, no voice; there are abrupt shifts in tone which seem almost arbitrary or desperate, like he's throwing everything at the screen and hoping something will stick. The casting is terrible and lazy - lots of BBC3 comics and pop musicians and a whopping great elephant in the room in the form of Kevin Spacey who provokes cries of "look its Kevin Spacey!" everytime he walks on (I'd make one exception here: I liked Nigel Harman's turn as Jess Conrad. He really looks the part and captures Conrad's uniquely slimy awfulness with a few lines). There's also the usual monkeying around with chronology and structure for no good reason other than in a post-Tarantino cinematic world it's apparently de rigueur. Sure, flashback and forward if you must, but know why are you doing it, have a reason. The pacing is all to cock as well.

The photography is very good in the sense that it has a great period look and feel to it. Like mumpo says, there's not enough music in there. Meek was prodigiously prolific but we only get a handful of hits. As for Con O'Neill in the lead role, well, I s'pose he's good. He certainly imposes himself. But his voice goes through me like fingers down a chalkboard. Really quite odd and unpleasant. To top it all the thing was produced by the orange crystal palace cunt Simon Jordan, who's all over the extras making you feel slightly nauseous.

[MsD]

Telstar

I think this is a great film. If you want a film with more Meek tracks in it, why not make the one you started to write? There's plenty of room for another. Seriously.

Nick Moran isn't a "pillock", he's an intelligent and witty man who is passionate about music. He's made this film to bring Meek the visionary to a wider audience, and succeeded. Maybe a bit too broad for the esoteric Meek enthusiast, but that would be another film.

I agree with the OP on most points, including Con O'Neill, I think he's outstanding in the role.

To add .. although I think he generally researched well, and has a great fondness and respect for Joe Meek, the sexual relationship with Heinz appears to have no basis in fact, and I don't think added anything, so upset his family (wife and son) for no reason. That should have been left out.