Bio-hazard

Page 2 of 2 -- The best explanation of bad bio-rhythms may be that the humble biopic is expected to employ a time frame and dramatic arc that would be out of place in any other genre. Nobody watching ''Shrek,'' or even ''Shrek 2,'' is expecting to get the full warp and woof of Shrek's life, from birth to death. Why should Frida Kahlo be forced to carry that dramatic load?

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Nobody pays much heed to the Aristotelian unities these days, but the full story of a human life, or even a years-long portion of it, still makes unwieldy dramatic material. Rather than passing along bulky tales like the TV movie ''John and Yoko: A Love Story,'' a skillful filmmaker would recount the story of the famous 1969 ''bed-in for peace,'' culminating with Lennon and Ono's legendary run-in with Al Capp (in which the pugnacious cartoonist surprisingly got the best of the otherworldly couple in an argument over the Vietnam War).

If some enterprising biopic-maker is looking for material, I suggest the tragicomic romance of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner (recently played by the pretty but un-Gardneresque Kate Beckinsale in ''The Aviator''), the only episode in history where anybody was able to make a monkey out of the Chairman of the Board.

In her great biography ''His Way,'' Kitty Kelley details the depths of public self-abasement Sinatra endured after the breakup, encapsulated in the story of a poker game at his apartment, as told by then-roommate Jule Styne. The poker buddies discover a boozed-up Sinatra, in a den that he has converted into a Gardner shrine, saluting a photograph of Ava. A few hours later, Styne hears crashing sounds coming from the den, and finds the enraged Sinatra ripping the same photo to bits. A while after that, another friend comes in to find Sinatra, now penitent, down on his hands and knees, frantically searching under tables and chairs for the ripped-up pieces of the photo.

Who wouldn't want to see that on the big screen? I'd pay good money just to see a movie about the poker game.

Tim Cavanaugh is the editor of Reason Online (www.reason.com). He lives in San Francisco.