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'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' thankfully tweaks and mocks conventional biopics ... an ode to those that walked a crooked time line before him

By Kim Morgan
Special to MSN Movies

There's a line in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" in which the alcoholic, game-playing Martha spits this doozy at her barb-swapping, history professor husband: "Truth or illusion, George; you don't know the difference." According to Martha, such ineptitude is his weakness, but, since part of their lives is built on a questionable history, I think she's on to something pertaining to the general human condition, especially the human condition on-screen: What is the difference exactly? And how should we process or perceive such truths or illusions?

This is where the biopic, a genre that tells stories of real people, can be messy. Always a problematic genre, pressured by running times, whitewashing or the tedium of by-the-book generalities, biopics frequently become stale exercises in a series of facts. Or half-truths.

Which is why any tweaking of the biopic is exciting. The most recent example, Todd Haynes' ambitious Bob Dylan study "I'm Not There," in which six different actors took on the Dylan persona, was thrillingly unique. And Jake Kasdan's "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story," a comedy poking fun at all those Oscar bait, "real" musical stories ("Ray," "Walk the Line") might make for a nice satirical diversion from so-called truth.

So with that in mind, let's celebrate 10 refreshingly off-kilter biopics, movies that approached their real-life subjects without the usual "and then this happened" turning of the page. For these movies, sometimes not knowing truth or illusion is part of the point -- and more true to life than anything else.

10. "Private Parts" (1997)
Following in the offbeat footsteps of Audie Murphy, Muhammad Ali and Richard Pryor, Howard Stern, self-titled King of All Media, actually played himself in the story of his own life -- even (most amusingly) while depicting his high school years. And it worked. It worked so well that one can't imagine anyone else doing Stern other than Stern. Sure, the radio shock jock is telling his story on his terms, and with an almost hagiographic devotion to his inherent goodness, but the movie is surprisingly fresh and alive, and like Stern himself, painfully honest. Directed by Betty Thomas, the movie shows our favorite foul-mouthed raconteur enduring his young, geeky life (and lots of beatings); his (at that time) strongly bonded marriage to Alison Stern (not played by his wife); his rise through the radio ranks, where he finds his own particular voice, his devoted crew and, of course, Pig Vomit (Paul Giamatti, brilliant once again). Like Stern in his prime, it's fun, incredibly perverse, oddly sweet, annoyingly potty-mouthed, mean-spirited but weirdly smart all at once.

9. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942)
There are moments in Michael Curtiz's "Yankee Doodle Dandy" that are so shamelessly patriotic, the chipper biopic lauding Broadway legend George M. Cohan becomes almost freakishly surreal. Indeed, so all-American was the picture that, released not long after the attack on Pearl Harbor, it reportedly served as a great morale booster as the United States entered World War II. And how could it not? "You're a Grand Old Flag," "Over There," and its signature tune, "Yankee Doodle Dandy," were such wartime classics that some forget that the lovable "Give My Regards to Broadway" was one of the picture's most famous songs. The musical biopic (an interesting subgenre that includes movies ranging from Mervyn LeRoy's entertaining "Gypsy" to Ken Russell's insane "Lisztomania") starred an inspired James Cagney as song and dance man Cohan, who begins his story as an oldster, ready for his comeback Broadway hit and gaining acceptance from none other than President Roosevelt himself. Using flashbacks to tell the story (some of it true, some not), we watch Cohan's rise to fame and prominence all the way to receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor. Yes, Cohan achieved a lot. And, yes, he was quite cocky, which in Cagney's able hands (and feet) is played to glorious, almost dizzying perfection. It also plays as a terrific double feature with another bizarre, all-American story, "Patton."

8. "Marie Antoinette" (2006)
I wish more people appreciated (hell, understood) Sofia Coppola's beautifully photographed, '80s New Wave-scored and, so obviously, overtly superficial "Marie Antoinette"; most critics and viewers missed the biopic's point. One problem was preconceived expectations. Even though the anachronistic, provocative trailer clearly showed Coppola's aim was very different than, say, W.S. Van Dyke's 1938 "Marie Antoinette," viewers expected something more political, more historical, more ... conservative. Instead they got "Barry Lyndon" by way of Vogue by way of Vivienne Westwood -- the effect was subtly shocking. Drawing from Antonia Fraser's famously sympathetic (and many historians say, accurate) biography "Marie Antoinette: The Journey," Coppola cast Kirsten Dunst as the delicate, bubbly, blond queen, moving her from the wide-eyed, prepubescent Austrian girl set up in an arranged marriage to Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), to young teen rebel challenging the Court of Versailles' isolating, smothering structure, to hated historical figure, to misunderstood party girl who stopped the giggling a little too late. What makes "Marie Antoinette" so interesting is that its gorgeous, flagrant superficiality is its politics (my lord, you can practically smell the picture's perfume), something that sly Coppola views as a refreshing jolt to convention and a path that can lead to destruction.

7. "I'm Not There" (2007)
Director Todd Haynes has always had a unique, controversial relationship with biography. From his look at the Bowie/Iggy/Reed-inspired glam music scene in "Velvet Goldmine" to his take on singer Karen Carpenter's tragic story in the underground, Barbie doll-populated "Superstar," the standard biopic is clearly not a note the filmmaker can play. So it wasn't entirely surprising that the musically inclined Haynes would approach his latest subject, Bob Dylan, with such shape-shifting invention (and reinvention). The very fact that he was given permission to dig into Dylanology and use the man's music in his film seems something close to radical, but watching "I'm Not There" (titled after a track from "The Basement Tapes" sessions), one can understand Dylan's approval. Using six actors to represent Dylan's varied personas -- Marcus Carl Franklin for his Woody Guthrie worship; Ben Whishaw represents young poet Dylan as Arthur Rimbaud; Cate Blanchett does slinky, skinny, drugged-out, D.A. Pennebaker '60s Dylan; Heath Ledger as James Dean-inspired heartthrob; Christian Bale as folky turned born again Christian; and Richard Gere as Billy the Kid -- Haynes films with varied cinematic styles to weave truth, myth, music and fame into not just a vision of Dylan, but also a stunningly ambitious vision of American iconography as well.

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