Hitchcock

Who better to portray Alfred Hitchcock than the wonderful Anthony Hopkins?

The title of the movie may not reflect it, but this is not a biography. The story is only that of getting the film Psycho, arguably the best Hitchcock film, made.

I don't know how much of it is actually true but I can believe that Hitchcock in fact was obsessive enough to have his people by every copy of the book Psycho that they could get their hands on, so that nobody would know the ending. Also, I am sure that his struggle to sell the story to the studio bosses and get certain scenes through the censors are well documented. But I am also pretty sure, that the director did not actually imagine hanging out with Ed Gein.

Aside from some doubts about the accuracy, the film is as entertaining as a film about the making of a film can be. The cast is superb, including besides Hopkins the wonderful Helen Mirren, Toni Collette, Danny Huston, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Kurtwood Smith, James D'Arcy as Anthony Perkins (he is great) and The Karate Kid himself, Ralph Macchio.

Well worth watching.

7/10

In Their Skin

The Hughes, a couple that has recently lost a child, are heading to their cottage with their young son to - presumably - find some sort of normalcy again.

The very next morning they get woken by a strange couple and their son that claim to be helpful neighbors that wanted to bring them some firewood as a welcome gift. The are so obviously loonies that everyone in their right mind would have hopped back into the car and gotten the hell away from there. The Hughes, however, ever the nice family, have them over for a very uncomfortable dinner instead.

As soon as the weirdos are asked to leave, the family dog gets shot dead, the car tires are slashed and the neighbors come back armed and very, very dangerous. The terrorize the Hughes and make it clear to them that they came to take over their life.

Mary and Mark Hughes are supposed to be almost the same age (story has it she is one year his senior) but Josh Close, writer and main protagonist is about 10 years younger than Selma Blair and had to grow a beard to at least look somewhere in the vicinity of the age he is supposed to play. Also, he is not the greatest actor in the world. The loony couple are so overplaying their respective roles (especially James D'Arcy) that they are almost comical.

The family captive story has been done over and over again and many times much better than in this film. It is nicely photographed, looking as bleak as the Hughes' situation.

4/10

W. E.

Oooh! What pretty clothes! What pretty jewels! And such nice slow motion shots!

Well....the acting is quite good, actually.

Overall, Madonna's vanity project (not my words, but many a critic's) is way too hectic to tell a decent story. It does try to with the current day story of Wally, neglected wife by her doctor husband. She is strangely obsessed with the love story of King Edward and Wallis Simpson, as her mother and grandmother were before her. So much so that she will eventually go to Paris to meet with Mohamed Al-Fayed because he has hundreds of letters written by Wallis Simpson that she simply must! read! The scene of the actual first meeting is somewhat ridiculous. She tells him she wants to know what she gave up for him, as everyone else was so interested in what he gave up for her. Al-Fayed then does the classic, I-never-thought-of-if-that-way line.

*eye-roll*

The story of Edward and Wallis is told so fitfully it does not even tell a comprehensive story. It only shows parties and paparazzi and desperate looking people. To me, this would have been the more interesting  tale because it has the potential of being a tragedy worth telling.

But, oh what pretty clothes!

4/10