Ed's Review Dot Com

Imagine Entertainment, Malpaso Productions, Wintergreen Productions,

Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Armie Hammer, Josh Lucas, Judi Dench, Dermot Mulroney, Lea Thompson, Miles Fisher, Ed Westwick, Jeffrey Donovan, Stephen Root

J Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) was certainly a very colorful and exuberant character for decades as head of the FBI. Rumors regarding him have followed him throughout his life. Was he a cross-dresser? Was he gay? This can be disputed forever and we’ll probably never know for sure, but this bio-pic doesn’t pay much attention to that aspect of John Edgar Hoover’s life. But it does delve into his beginnings as the primary fighter of the mafia and organized crime, and his team took down quite a few mobsters. It covers his dirty tricks in compiling files and doing downright illegal wire taps and questionable surveillance methods on ordinary citizens. He was a quirky character, and was known to fire long time agents because of what they wore or how they cut their hair. A tyrant in the office, and either a friend or antagonist to the person living in the white house at the time. This film covers the career of J. Edgar right up to his sudden death.

Leonardo DiCaprio started out as just a youngster in the acting game, and had very little depth or craft. Gradually through the years, he has learned the craft and become better and better. This must be his most ambitious project to date. True, few of know much about Mr. Hoover, but Leo shows us how much he has learned in this film. This must be the week for biographical films (I just finished The Iron Lady) but this is another good biography. A biography like this can get boring, but this film never did. We really get to look into the life of this secretive public figure, but it doesn’t give us all the answers either. But it is a great look at the life and times of a really mysterious leader, very powerful, but at the same time, insecure looking person. His whole life is a bit of a paradox. Very well filmed picture, fascinating to watch, and very interesting to watch. I enjoyed this film, and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in this unusual leader.

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Regency Enterprises, Summit Entertainment, Bazelevs Production,

Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach, Harry Lloyd, Olivia Colman, Iain Glen, Victoria Bewick, Nicholas Farrell, John Sessions, Anthony Head, David Westhead, Julian Wadham, Richard E. Grant, Angus Wright, Roger Allam, Michael Pennington, Susan Brown, Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Meryl Streep plays Margaret Thatcher in this biopic about the first woman Prime Minister of Britain. With Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher, this film shows us a modern day Margaret Thatcher, virtually a prisoner in her own house, sorting her deceased husband’s clothes to donate to charity, and reminiscing about the days of her illustrious career. The film looks back at her early life, and first entry into politics, the challenges she faced like the Falkland Islands war, and serious recession. It explores her retirement from politics. This is a great story of a great world leader in the twilight of her years, looking back at her glorious days.

Many people misunderstood this really special film. It is sad to see Meryl playing Margaret as someone racked by dementia, seeing things, and forgetting a lot of details, but the purpose of this film is not some Biography Channel special about the career of Margaret Thatcher. That’s not the purpose of this film. This is a look at Margaret today, and the reminiscences of a lady who’s career is over. She had some great battles and some great times, but it’s a much a look at what it’s like to have been someone so powerful who is finally challenged by Father Time himself. No one can beat that. I have always been saddened by the final days of Ronald Reagan who was not only a great friend to Margaret Thatcher, but also a great world leader. But likewise, time took it’s toll. Still the memories of what it was like must be glorious.

Meryl Streep deserves every bit of the praises heaped upon her for this role. She was fantastic in this film, and it was easy to forget it was her and get lost in the character which is perfect for a biographical picture. I have never been a big Streep fan, per se, but I truly have to give her props for the amazing talent she has. This is a very well made film, and very touching. I goes right to your heart, and is amazing how great a leader Margaret was. I would still like to see a pure biography about her, but in the meantime, this film was really good, and I highly recommend it.

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Recorded Picture Company (RPC), Lago Film, Prospero Pictures,

Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender, Vincent Cassel, Sarah Gadon, André Hennicke, Arndt Schwering-Sohnrey, Mignon Remé

This movie is a historical drama based on the lives of several famous people. The story revolves around Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) who is a young Russian girl suffering from mental problems and admitted to a mental hospital where she was treated by Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbinder) who found himself attracted to her. She was treated and became much more stable, and actually began studying to become a psychiatrist herself. Meanwhile Jung became friends with Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and the two formed a lifelong friendship and collaboration, even though Jung didn’t always agree with Freud’s theories. Jung was much more open minded about things that were not understandable. Based on a book about Spielrein, it covers the conflicts in each of their lives and this interesting trio of early pioneers in the shrink business.

This is a rather slow and unfortunately boring story. This week has been full of films that have a good idea, and a good premise, but don’t seem to go anywhere. Knightley’s attempts at a Russian accent was commendable, but not very good. Anytime things got to dramatic, the English accent would return. It was nerve wracking sometimes. Being her story, it focused less on Jung and Freud who are rather interesting subjects. Speilrein, on the other hand, was a flamboyant and colorful character, but her short life wasn’t actually that spell-binding. The story seemed to drag on. As time goes by, I found myself not liking any of the characters, and it was a relief when it was finally over. I didn’t absolutely hate the movie, as there were some good scenes, especially early one when Speilrein was really nuts. She did a good job playing the insane woman. But as time went on, I just found myself wishing it would end. Not highly recommended, unless you’re really interested in the characters, but I’m sure there are better studies on the lives of these famous doctors, better than this one.

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Weinstein Company, The, BBC Films, Lipsync Productions

Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh, Dominic Cooper, Julia Ormond, Emma Watson, Judi Dench, Zoë Wanamaker, Toby Jones, Derek Jacobi, Dougray Scott

Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is a British guy, dying to get into the movie business. He gets the chance to work as Sir Lawrence Olivier (Kenneth Branaugh)’s assistant for a movie he is making with Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams). Marilyn appears to be getting burned out on the whole Hollywood star thing, and decides to run off with Colin for a week of fun and frivolity. This movie is based on the book/diary kept by Colin of his adventures during his week with Marilyn.

This is neither a great film, nor is it a bad film. It’s relatively interesting, and it does try to give us some insight into the real Marilyn. Michelle Williams is not really Marilyn, and that’s ok. She brings to the screen the illusion of Marilyn, and that’s all that we should really expect. She does a good job of doing that. This is not really the story of Marilyn anyway. It is really Colin’s story in his words and from his point of view. Sometimes it’s rather slow, and it’s not a really exciting movie, but at the same time it is entertaining, and is a look back into the movie studio days of the past. It’s a film about movie-making, and about the people who made the movies. I don’t know if this film deserves all the accolades it was given, but it’s not too bad, and worth watching if you are interested in the subject.

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Antena 3 Films, Mount Santa Fe,

Charlie Cox, Wes Bentley, Dougray Scott, Unax Ugalde, Olga Kurylenko, Pablo Lapadula, Golshifteh Farahani, Rusty Lemorande, Ana Torrent

The story of a young journalist, investigating the life of Josemaria (Charlie Cox) who is a candidate for sainthood. JoseMaria was involved in the Spanish Civil war, who had a friend, Manalo (Wes Bentley) who is the journalists own estranged father who is in bad health and on his deathbed. As he learns more about the terrible times his father had, and the tough choices he had to make, the story becomes about forgiveness most of all.

This is an epic film. It tells three stories, really, the modern story of gradual understanding and forgiveness of the journalist for his father. The story of his father, and the hard choices he had to make, and the story of Josemaria and what he did. Manalo and Josemaria were childhood friends whose lives went in different directions, yet still touched each other in numerous ways as they went through the horrors of the civil war. The movie is very big, and the photography is stunning. But the story is a bit too confusing and misses the mark, in my opinion. Some historians, who are scholars on the time period, loved it. For me though, it was kind of a confusing mess. I guess the problem is that I didn’t identify with the story, and therefore didn’t really get caught up in it. I found it to be rather boring and lost interest frequently.

It’s been a bad couple weeks with movies that were disappointing. It’s funny how that seems to go in cycles. We had a period of great historical dramas for a while, and suddenly several that I really didn’t care for. This is one that I felt was a waste of time for me to watch, as I just was simply not interested. I felt disappointed in this film, and didn’t think it was worth the effort. Another dud.

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