Description
Background: While this film is known for fantastic reviews when it originally premiered on UK Television’s BBC 2, it’s subsequent release on DVD ran into licensing issues with the original soundtrack preventing all of the original music that was used in the TV version to be released on the DVD Version.
TV Version Broadcast Premiere Release (on BBC 2 16th of May 2010): This version is the original edit of the film as it was meant to be seen. The DVD version as listed below has not only a completely different soundtrack (with the exception of four songs) but also has entire scenes that were omitted and deleted. This version you will hear all the music that was not on the standard DVD release in the UK nor it’s subsequent release in the USA. You will hear music from “David Bowie” and “Bow Wow Wow” and over 17 other songs and artists. You will see the three deleted scenes that were removed from the movie including the “Fade To Grey” scene where George try’s to turn off the radio because he dislikes hearing “Visage” becoming popular on the radio.
The version offered here is the **TV VERSION BROADCAST PREMIERE RELEASE on BBC 2 WITH THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK**
TV Version Premiered Release: Original Soundtrack for TV- Track Listings: Go Wild in the Country Performed by Bow Wow Wow, Das Model Performed by Kraftwerk, Heroes by David Bowie, Hiroshima Mon Amour Performed by Ultravox, My Guy Performed by Mary Wells, Empire State Human Performed by The Human League, Vienna Performed by Ultravox, Will You Performed by Hazel O’Connor (from “Breaking Glass Soundtrack), Memorabilia Performed by Soft Cell, Venus In Furs Performed by The Velvet Underground, Stand and Deliver” Performed by Adam and the Ants, Beauty And The Beast Perfomed by David Bowie, Always Crashing In The Same Car Performed by David Bowie, Fade To Grey Performed by Visage, White Boy and Do You Really Want to Hurt Me Performed by Culture Club, Electricity Performed by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), Hong Kong Garden and Happy House Performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Anarchy In The UK Performed by Sex Pistol
DVD Version Release:
The scene when Kirk is singing on stage “Original Sin” with the band for about a minute and also when George is lying on the bed in his room painting his finger nails as he gets out of the bath we see him wearing a towel wrapped around his head. George is getting ready to go out. He hears “Steve Strange and Visage on the radio singing “Fade to Grey” George instantly tries to turn off the radio but he cant, simply because his nails are wet, so he is seen battling with the radio trying to turn it off.
Description: WORRIED ABOUT THE BOY (a/k/a Karma Caméléon, 2012, Dir. Julian Jarrold, 92 minutes, UK original screening May, 2010) is a classy biopic about a true hero of mine, George O’Dowd. We all know him as Boy George. Sadly confined to only a few years’ time, this classy, well-executed and artful work is probably the only Boy George biopic I will live to see – thus I am ecstatic about it.
And it is the best biopic of its kind.
Beginning in Boy George’s youth in 1980 (he’s played by a far too skinny Douglas Booth, who is a Johnny Depp clone), this pings back and forth between the five unsettled years when music was super-hot and the artists were just the opposite. Until the other side of that timeline, when Boy George brought true beauty to music. In 1980, however, Boy George is trying his best, but he can’t seem to break out and move beyond his ‘fashion photo’ appearances.
He meets Steve Strange (Marc Warren, a Strange clone!), who gives him his first job as coat-checker at Strange’s Blitz Club. Pinging forward in time, we see the Boy under what is apparently house arrest, though I couldn’t tell. From the date shown in the film (mid-1980s), he had just left Culture Club and I do not really recall him being in trouble with the law then. That part is completely confusing.
Backward in time – 1980 – he meets a cocky and corrosive Jon Moss (Matthew Horne), who as we all know will be Culture Club’s controversial drummer boy. But in 1980, he was just another smart-ass kid. Odd that in this film Jon, who was quite handsome and very short, should be almost as tall as Boy George and quite ugly in comparison. That is just one of the inexplicable screw-ups here that put me off a little. It is as bad as the almost miscast Douglas Booth, who unlike Boy George is rather short, rail thin and beautiful … in another way than Boy George is.
And almost every actor here is obviously ten or twelve years too old.
In other words, somehow I didn’t ‘feel’ it. Don’t get me wrong: everyone is BRILLIANT, with classy, powerful acting and a touching bunch of moments in time are artfully presented. The trouble is, this life and music, the clothes and attitude, take me back to my youth. As I said, the performers didn’t make me ‘feel’ it.
I’d murder for a CD of the soundtrack (and this also makes me want to get the Bow Wow Wow songs that George sang).
Don’t let my grumpy mood discourage you. If you want to really be immersed in the world that gave birth to Boy George, if you want to learn about him, if you really don’t want to hurt him, then get this beautiful film. With the added talents of Francis Magee as George’s beloved father Jerry, Freddie Fox, Richard Madden, and Mark Gatiss as the legendary Malcolm McLaren.
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