It’s easy to jokeabout how batshit crazy Howard Hughes was when it came to every aspect of his life, but Scorsese and DiCaprio do their best to try and humanize the larger-than-life figure in this ambitious biopic. The film begins while Howard is trying to finish his war film Hell’s Angels and shows his meticulous side and how it influences his entire life, from his relationships to his aviation endeavours, to how he copes with his Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that eventually turns him into an eccentric recluse.
The most interesting thing about this film is about how every aspect of Hughes’ life was intertwined with the next. There was no separation of his personal and private lives and each played for or against the other his entire life and in every facet. But, above it all, the film showed that despite how “crazy” he was he was exceedingly brilliant, focused, and he had the money to back up every dream he had. This film is a wonderful character study of a man everyone claims to have known but really didn’t.
Most Valuable Actor: One of the more focused arcs of Hughes’ story was his relationship with actress Katherine Hepburn, played wonderfully by Cate Blanchett. Though people not familiar with Hepburn’s style would see Blanchett’s portrayal more as a caricature, being familiar with her I find it a fitting homage to the late actress and a performance that does everything short of killing the titular character to steal the show.
Normally, I’m in the mood for a movie like this–a heartwarming story of overcoming adversity and stifling personal demons to move on with your life–but I couldn’t get full invested in this film. The story centers on Antwone Fisher (Luke), a hot-headed navy seaman who, after a fight with another crew member, is told to see the base psychologist (Washington) for an evaluation. The two of them forge a bond of trust and of understanding as they both dive deep into the issues that has brought Antwone to this stage in his life.
On the surface, this is a good movie. The story itself is well-structured (by the real-life Antwone Fisher himself) and well-directed (by Washington in his debut) and the acting is just fine. However, there’s something a bit off about the story. The characters, though based on real people, are not very well-developed and that’s sad considering there’s only a handful worth giving a damn about. The tales of abuse are horrifying and all-too real but the use of the flashback constantly was a bit disconcerting though it was the only way to efficiently tell the story.
Thinking about it, my issue is with the dialogue. I have noted before how sometimes dialogue doesn’t seem realistic because no one speaks in soliloquies and everything is too well-thought out to be natural. The same can be said for this screenplay. For a person and a character that was brutally honest about himself and his situation, the end result is something that is too artificial and too over-filled with emotion to make a widespread emotional connection to the viewing audience.
If you do watch this film, do so at face value as it will give you the best return for your time.
Most Valuable Actor: Derek Luke’s portrayal of Antwone Fisher was superb, giving a lot of pain and conflict to the role that seemed about as genuine as anything ever captured on celluloid. If only he had better dialogue with which to work.
Documentaries and biopics can get really old really fast. Most of the people who are worth making such films about are typically a rags-to-riches story with some personal drama and the struggle to cope with success and failure. The story of Harvey Pekar and his efforts to chronicle the life of an average loser (himself) is no different. But something had to be different just like Harvey’s comics were different. Instead of making up stories and adding drama, showing the real life experiences and allowing the reader/viewer to connect on a personal level instead of a visceral level makes it all the more powerful. That is what puts this documentary/biopic above many others, in my opinion.
Yes, Paul Giamatti plays Harvey during the dramatic scenes but Harvey narrates the film at times with voice-overs and with the occasional interview sequence where aspects of his life and the character of himself are elaborated upon in greater detail. We see the people Harvey surrounds himself in dramatic form (Hope Davis as Harvey’s wife, Joyce and Judah Friedlander as Harvey’s friend Toby) but we also get to meet these vividly plain and normal people as they actually are. The filmmakers take painstaking care to remind everyone that Giamatti is simply a stand-in for Harvey and that what is happening on screen actually happened in real life.
The best example of this is, in my opinion, one of the best strokes of genius in this type of filmmaking. When Harvey and Joyce go to New York so Harvey can appear on Late Night with David Letterman they show Giamatti as Harvey in the green room preparing to go on stage but, on the television that Joyce is watching in the green room we are treated to the actual footage of Harvey and Dave which adds an unbelievable layer of credibility to the film. The actor portraying the person walked out and the actual person walked back in. Granted, not all documentary or biopic filmmakers are lucky enough to have their source on-hand and willing to take such a proactive role in a film of their life, and that is what truly makes this films something. It is one thing to imitate Harvey, it is another to be Harvey.
To compare this film to other biopics and documentaries would be a disservice, not only to this film, but to the other films who have little to no shot at duplicating the feel and the authenticity achieved here.
Most Valuable Actor: Paul Giamatti is the only actor alive who could have played Harvey Pekar. Not only does Paul look like Harvey but is able to grasp his mannerisms and truly make it more of a reenactment more than a portrayal. At no time is there a sense of imitation or caricature in what Paul does; more of an effort to become Harvey by one of this generations best actors.
I categorized this movie as a Biopic because, let’s face it, it’s the closest thing we will ever have to a biographical film study on the life of Mozart. I have no qualms calling it just though many of the facts in the movie are largely unsubstantiated and are, at best, inferences taken from oral histories of the people who knew them. But the film makes up for that shortfall by illustrating, with a lot of detail, that no one ever knew Mozart.
I remember watching this movie for the first time in high school during my German class. There is really nothing connecting this film to the course curriculum, but we watched it anyway and it took almost an entire week to do so. However, while my classmates were bored out of their minds, doing homework for other classes, or finding ways to distract themselves from the film, I watched it and tried to appreciate it for what it was: the story of two men–one crippled by envy and the other crippled by genius–and how their stories paralleled one another.
Because, as much as film critics would like to say this story is about everything but, it is truly about that theme that Mozart truly cared about: love. Salieri (Abraham) hated Mozart but loved him as well. Even as he said he hated God for giving such gifts to a boorish, selfish person, he saw in Mozart the man he wanted to be and, because of that reflection, ended up loving him. Oddly enough, it was the realization of that love that made Salieri hate Mozart that much more to the point where he constructed the elaborate plan to kill him.
On the other side, Mozart loved his music, his wife, and his good times but it always came back to the first. It was insinuated early in the film (and by countless music historians) that Mozart was a product of his father who pushed him into music at an early age. However, when you take into account that when Mozart parted from his father, putting hundreds of miles between them, he created most of the seminal works that he is still known for today, it shows that Mozart’s genius might have been held back by his father who only wanted him to take on students and play for royalty. Even in the film, his father said that composition doesn’t pay where taking on students does. Mozart did not care, however, and sought out as many ways as he could to be creative, even turning to the vaudeville for ‘The Magic Flute.’ It wasn’t money he was concerned with: it was creation. However, his love of creation (especially of the Requiem Mass in D minor) led him to a pauper’s grave outside Vienna, leaving his family essentially penniless.
But, even in the closing of the film, there is love. Salieri, even after admitting that God was punishing him for his wicked life of envy and love was smiling as he accepted his fate and was wheeled smiling through the halls of the asylum where he went to absolve the world’s “mediocrities” or, in other words, show them love and forgiveness.
It was love of the public and critics for this film that garnered it eight Oscar wins, including Best Picture. It was a risk to have a movie like this come out at the dawn of the MTV era, but Foreman knew how to tell a sublime story about someone this world is not likely to forget. It is for of the love of music and the adoration of those who create it this movie was established to show the cost of such devotion and such genius.
Most Valuable Actor: F. Murray Abraham won a Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar for his portrayal of Antonio Salieri and for good reason. His performance was, to say the very least, haunting and showed how unquenchable envy, lust, ambition, and love can either raise a person to greatness or drive them mad. Abraham illustrated the beauty of Salieri’s descent into the depths of madness as he toiled to bring down his greatest rival.
The other day news came out that Ryan Reynolds would be starring in the reboot of the cult-classic movie Highlander. I am a fan of the original film and of Reynolds, but I’m not sold on the two of them being put together (not a chocolate-peanut butter moment). I got involved in a discussion on a message board about it and I said that I would like Reynolds in the part if he played it straight and not “Van Wilder Goes a-Lobbin’ Off Heads.” Reynolds is an actor who can take almost any role and turn it into a comedic one, like his turn as Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Sometimes this is endearing, but not always. There are two actors who pull it off regularly: Robin Williams and Will Smith but only one does it well.
Unfortunately, of those two, Will Smith doesn’t often do it well. In Ali he was portraying one of the most colorful characters in sports history, and the real Mohammad Ali was over-the-top in his own right, but Smith seemed to take something so organic and turn it into something woefully artificial.
The film spotlight’s Ali’s rise to the top of the boxing world, his troubles in his life, his contempt of the United States Draft Board, and his fight to return to boxing prominence. It showed Ali’s life in a way that only Michael Mann could have: in small chunks, showing every possible angle, showing every affect and consequence, all to paint as rich a cinematic picture as possible. It showed Ali was truly a flawed man who tried to stay true to himself and everyone around him, though he kept stumbling along the way.
Will Smith delivered a performance that tried to pay homage to The Champ but, instead, was more of a narcissistic impersonation–a caricature, if you will–of who Ali was. Instead of seeing something eye-opening and revealing about the character, the audience was treated to every stereotype and every preconceived notion every said or written about Ali. More would have been done for his character if this movie was a straight documentary instead of a Biopic. The tagline of the film was “Forget what you think you know,” but the film only delivered everything I had seen from old film clips and impersonations done over the years. There was simply nothing too revealing in this film.
The supporting cast was good but tended to be overshadowed. Even Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx turned a good role into a compelling one but too little was made of his character because of the shadow cast by Ali. This could have been one of Michael Mann’s triumphs but will be remembered at the time he made a movie about Will Smith’s boxing career when he called himself Mohammad Ali.
IMDB Trivia Tidbit: Charles Shufford, a real-life 235 pound heavyweight boxer with a 17-2 record who plays George Foreman, was given license to make his punches as real as possible, short of incapacitating the film’s star.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett, and Alec Baldwin
Starring 
Starring 
Starring 
Starring 
These Things I Have Seen 