As The Guardian noted in his obituary Rickmans success started on stage and theater was a natural fit for his powerful charisma. When he crossed over into film he started with a bang. His famous Die Hard villain was his first on screen role and he snagged it only two days after showing up in Hollywood. Years later Rickman left us with an exciting diverse filmography full of highlights and bold unusual choices even if some of the films did not exactly match up with his incredible performances. Lets take a look at his major movies counting down from the worst to our pick for number one.
For years the New York club CBGB hosted some of the most significant and cutting edge music around. Far Out notes some of the performances that helped define CBGB Patti Smith Talking Heads The Ramones Blondie and a complete list would be overwhelming. This is where music happened.
The best way to celebrate CBGB's punk music legacy is to listen to some of the clubs greatest hits and not under any circumstances, watch its aggressively anemic 2013 biopic. CBGB takes an electric milieu humming with musical genius and squeezes all the life out of it resulting in a movie that per Flavorwire is not even interesting enough in its badness to become a camp classic. Its not even redeemed by its lead performance from Alan Rickman who plays CGBG founder and revamper Hilly Kristal. Rickman is certainly competent in the role but he does not bring anything to the table we have not seen from him before in better movies. If you have to go anywhere near this one, just pick up the soundtrack and call it a night.
All of that should add up to a moving bittersweet romance, especially in the hands of three actors as capable as Richard Madden Rebecca Hall and Alan Rickman. Hall and Rickman do manage to bring a much needed liveliness to the proceedings. The Guardian calls Hall as coolly measured and affecting as ever and Rickman dependably jaded with one of his line deliveries serving as the saving attraction of this drab affair. Madden is unusually weak though and his chemistry with Hall amounts to nothing more than a damp sputtering out. You can not have a memorable romance with this little on screen chemistry.
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