20
On paper, fine; on celluloid, a Rocky Horror Show of nightmarish proportions.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
70
Haynes sets out to demonstrate the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to fashion themselves into anything they please.
70
Chicago Reader by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Conceptual to a fault, writer-director Todd Haynes (Poison, Safe) realizes one of his oldest and most cherished projects -- a celebration of the glam-rock era and the bisexuality it turned into an opulent circus -- with wit, glitter, and energy, but with such a scant sense of character or period that it leaves one feeling relatively empty as soon as it's over.
90
There are moments when Velvet Goldmine threatens to collapse under the weight of writer/director Todd Haynes' (Poison, Safe) ambition. But, sometimes amazingly, it doesn't, becoming in the process one of the year's freshest, most exciting films.
70
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
Dazzling and dizzying, confusing and even annoying, Velvet Goldmine is a feverish dream of a film, a riot of color and attitude that is all pop decadence, all night long.
83
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
Velvet Goldmine is no masterpiece, but, at its best, it's a ravishing rock dream.
50
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
It wants to be a movie in search of a truth, but it's more like a movie in search of itself.
60
Now the big question: Does this whole thing actually work? Some of the time.
89
Austin Chronicle by Russell Smith
In terms of sheer, unrelenting visual invention, Velvet Goldmine is a wonder.
A dizzying bisexual fever dream dusted with glitter and cocaine, this movie holds a special place in my heart as one of the first few queer films I watched shortly before coming out. This is fitting, I think, especially since the film is permeated with a sort of shame and angst, eventually serving as the basis for the campy stardom of the Bowie-esque Brian Slade. This intermingling of shame and glamor is one of the most compelling (and gayest) aspects of the film in my opinion, even when the characterization falls flat and the plot seems to lose itself in its own labyrinth of nostalgia.