excalibur107

I'm not even going to try to explain what it's about maybe because I'm not sure of it myself. Pain plays a central part in this Zemeckian experiment. And Zemeckis has taken me to the most unexpected worlds through imaginative and sometimes downright revolutionary visual feasts. Just think Return To The Future or Forrest Gump. Here we're not allowed to get close to our hero. Everything seems to be detached emotionally and every attempt to get closer is translated into sentimentality. It just doesn't quite work. My favorite of all Zemeckias films is, without question, Death Becomes Her the one of his films that gets better and better with the passing of time. Special effects age but not if they are intimately connected to the progress of the story and are based on multidimensional characters, Death Becomes Her is a perfect example of that. Welcome to Marwen is an interesting experiment but unfortunately it stands cold and distant.

Sunday was my niece's birthday. 16. I invited her and two of her friends to do whatever they wanted. They chose to stay home, eat cake and watch The Greatest Showman on HBO and I thought Oh no. But, I had cake with them and sat to watch this Michael Gracy, who? Michael Gracy to see the story of PT Barnum with Hugh Jackman. Sentimental and pretty, yes but also, engrossing, moving, beautiful and structured in such a way that doesn't fall into the usual biopic traps. It moves at a breathless pace with smart and unexpected transitions. Hugh Jackman is great and Michelle Williams truthful to a fault. She's never less than that. What a wonderful actress. Zac Effron gives, what it may very well be, his most convincing performance and the Swedish actress Rebecca Ferguson was a revelation to me. The script by Jenny Bicks and the remarkable Bill Condon tells a classic tale with contemporary rhythms and contemporary pace. Needless to say, I enjoyed it much more that I could possibly had imagine. So, thank you Lilli, happy 16!

Howard Hughes? Not really. George Peppard sketches a character without ever inhabit him. It's all effect. Carroll Baker, the brilliant Baby Doll, surrenders to the marketing demands and she revisits her aggressively sexual creature with more sparkle but less depth. Alan Ladd is the one that touches personal buttons and he is wonderful. Edward Dmytryck doesn't find a real center to Harold Robbins melodrama. Elizabeth Ashley's character exemplifies what I'm trying to say. Her journey is quite simply, absurd. She loves him and she hates him in a surprisingly unpredictable pattern. Absurd to such point that's not even entertaining but irritating. - As a side note, I had the experience to watch this movie on TCM with 5 twentysomethings - They laughed and laughed as if it was a hysterical comedy - I asked them what was so funny and their replay was, everything.