My Week with Marilyn (2011)

No matter what you think of the term “biopic”, this movie – in my opinion – certainly should be classified as one.  It features a talented modern day actress portraying an iconic, world famous actress during a brief period in their life.  It might not highlight all the trials and tribulations that legendary figure made during their lifetime, but it serves as a window, a time capsule to attempt to show what they were “really like”.

Like most biopics, My Week with Marilyn features a performance that borders on imitation, with Michelle Williams portraying Marilyn Monroe as she works on the film The Prince and the Showgirl with legendary actor Laurence Olivier (Kennth Branagh).  Williams deserves much praise for her acting, as does Branagh, but the tale the film attempts to tell is nothing more than what amounts to a fluff piece about Monroe.  It’s decently made, but ultimately the story doesn’t really lend itself to numerous re-watchings.  See it for the performances, but don’t go in expecting to be wowed by the rest of the picture.  It’s pretty much Me and Orson Welles but far less entertaining.

3 / 5

J. Edgar (2011)

Sometimes I sit down to write these things and have no idea where to take them.  I know how I feel about the movie, at least in a ranking sense, but I don’t know really how to equate that to words.  Well, maybe fully formed interesting sentences would be a better descriptor.  Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar is a biopic of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio), Director of the FBI and the man most instrumental in turning the FBI into a world class crime fighting organization.  As well as Big Brother.

The acting is fairly good to great all around, although there is a tendency by DiCaprio to sort of devolve into tics to either remind himself or the audience that HE IS J. EDGAR HOOVER.  However, the storyline of the movie plays out in a somewhat flashback format, allowing us to see the major players at various crossroads in their lives.  Hoover and his co-worker/possible life partner Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) are shown as bright young men, and then doddering old men, in various levels of plastic make-up.  It’s disconcerting at best, laughable at worst.

There are numerous name actors throughout the picture, and despite what IMDb says, I swear that’s Gerald McRaney as the judge in the Charles Lindbergh’s (Josh Lucas) baby kidnapping trial.  Stephen Root gives probably his most serious performance ever, and hell, I didn’t even know it was Naomi Watts as Hoover’s personal secretary, Helen Gandy, until I saw the cast list.  I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or a damning indictment of the make-up.

Ultimately, J. Edgar feels like it wants to be one of those prestigious biopics that garner numerous awards and accolades.  It rings a bit hollow, which is unusual for an Eastwood picture.  I liked it, and though I’ll probably never watch it again, it is a historically significant portrayal of a man that really did change the world, and should be watched by many.

4 / 5

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

A billion dollars.  This unnecessary movie made over a billion dollars.  Fuck that.  What the fuck is wrong with movie-going audiences, where they will willingly slap their money down for something that they’ve seen before?  Something that isn’t going to challenge them, that’s going to be exactly what they expect it to be?  WHY?  OH WAIT.  This one was in 3D and had Ian McShane in it!  Ooooooh.  Goddammit.

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is pretty much the cinematic equivalent of a Rube Goldberg device.  Contrived action set pieces do not a good movie make.  I was going to say that the movies have been steadily decreasing in quality, but At World’s End was a fucking dreck of a movie, and this one is marginally better.  There’s just no point to them (and yes, you could argue that there’s no point to any movie’s existence) and they do nothing but make money and oh look I answered my own damn question.

I thought the first Pirates movie was quite good, that it told a great story and featured a wonderful performance from Johnny Depp, whom I normally have a distaste for.  Now here he is, eight years and three movies later still doing the same schtick.  Which is fine for him, he seems to enjoy it and makes scads of money off of it, but it’s not challenging anymore.  These movies are like the Easy setting on video games.  There are no challenges to them.  I’m sure they’ll make a fifth one, Depp will say it’s his last one, and four years later someone will suggest rebooting the franchise.

2 / 5

Nine (2009)

I generally don’t have a problem with musicals if they’re done right.  However, just because something was a hit Broadway musical does not mean that it will translate well to the medium of film.  The Phantom of the Opera from 2004 is an example of that particular phenomenon.  However, director Rob Marshall has experienced success with the formula before with Chicago, and that was kind of what I was hanging my hopes on in the case of Nine.  However, my opinion is with the other 63% on RottenTomatoes that says “this sucked”.

It’s not for a lack of decent performances or stunning production values.  Hell, look at that cast list, numerous Oscar winners and nominees in the bloated “main” cast.  I wish this were a case of “Monster Syndrome” where the lead performance elevated the entire movie to a higher level, but in this case, not even Daniel Day-Lewis could pump life into it.  He’s good, but not on a Daniel Plainview-level, and frankly, this movie was such an odd choice for him to choose to do.  I can’t picture him immersing himself so deeply into this role that he’d randomly burst into song when self-reflecting.  It just seems so… orchestrated, which is odd to suggest of a musical, I know.

Anyways, there are tonnes of other movies out there that are far more entertaining for you to watch, so don’t waste a couple hours of your life on this one.

1.5 / 5