Skip to main content

Quickie Review - The Theory Of Everything

James Marsh manages to take one of the few living enigmas and turns his story into a scandalous TV movie. What worked for Man on Wire, doesn't work in the traditional film medium, because we want to be dazzled. Spending 30-40 minutes showing us Hawking's brilliance and human side, all literally and figuratively comes crashing to a halt and the movie then becomes nothing more than an episode of Mad Men without the drinking. There is no doubt Eddie Redmayne has joined a long list of method actors who transformed himself into a character, but it can't hide the fact that he doesn't add much to the last hour of the film, other than to show that he's a man. The final few scenes are filled with every gimmick possible to hide the fact this based on a book that calls him out for his indiscretions, while showing the real power and why we have his mind today, was and always will be Jane's doing.

The movie is really about Jane Hawking and that isn't a bad thing. While I doubt that the real Mrs. H was as strikingly beautiful and unflinching in her devotion, Felicity Jones turns in a career changing performance. Is it Oscar worthy? Probably, but only because her transformation is actually more challenging and quite more painful to watch. The reason is, it's selfless to start, but the realization she was wrong, which probably wasn't present in the book, is the power of the movie. Jones handles it with such care, you're never not impressed. We all know the story, but her humble attitude and her desire for credit will hit home for anyone who has administered care without praise or reward. In the end, the movie fails in telling the story we want to hear, but maybe the human side, warts and all, is what sells tickets. Like the world in Hawking's mind, it's foreign to me.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo
10 comments
Read more

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning.  A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think.  I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person.  I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth.  I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was.  Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts.  Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ
Post a Comment
Read more

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her
7 comments
Read more