Judy (2019) and Factory Girl (2004)

I'm not sure how I feel about the movie "Judy". I read somewhere that Judy's family did not approve/endorse the film, and that Liza Minnelli never met Renee Zellweger and never gave her approval on the project.

Something about that seems unsettling to me...here we have the filmmakers devoting time and effort on a biographical film about a much-beloved celebrity, yet not even getting the approval of the family? Is it a movie critical of Judy -- or is it a celebration her life? What is the director aiming to do?

For example, the new movie "It's A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" - which features the character of Mr. Rogers - did get the approval of Rogers's family, and the director was upfront by aiming to make this a celebration of Rogers.

But with Judy, I wasn't sure what to expect. There are some darker moments depicted in the film - such as her dependency on drugs and personal difficulties with people - but I don't think the movie introduces anything new that hasn't been written about before.

Having seen the film, I see it as a celebration of her life, and a tribute to Judy, even though it only focuses on the last year of her life. A few flashbacks go back to the late 1930s when she was filming Wizard of Oz and some other MGM films, and the beginnings of her drug addiction.

But it's not really an all-encompassing life story. It would be interesting to see more of 1940s Judy during the MGM years, or 1950s Judy. Bobby Rivers recently wrote on his blog that the 2001 TV biopic was far superior, and was endorsed by the family.

Renee has been getting rave reviews for her performance  in "Judy"; her acting is good but it is obvious to me that she is doing an impression of the Judy from interviews she gave on tv in the 1960s. Renee gives the character grandiosity, no question about that; I did get a sense that she was the most popular person in the world, and also got the sense that she was a very troubled person, insecure. But overall it is a rather average film. I think it should have been called "Judy in London", because the entire film is set there during Judy's tour during 1968 and 69, and also focuses on her relationship with her third husband Mickey Deans.

The best parts of the movie in my opinion are these scenes with Mickey and the scenes where she befriends a gay couple and spends time with them in their home. It's interesting to watch because you never expect a mega-superstar to mingle with fans like that.

There's one scene where Judy visits her twenty-something daughter Liza at a party; it's interesting but totally unnecessary. There's really no need for it because we never see Liza again in the film and it feels thrown in there. There is a character who is an assistant to Judy in London (played by Jessie Buckley), and I wish her character was explored a bit more.  There are several scenes of singing and they are ok but I wish the film were a bit more compelling.

A much better film in my opinion is Factory Girl, which came out in 2006 but I only recently saw. Sienna Miller plays the artist Edie Sedwick who becomes famous simply by being associated with Andy Warhol in the 1960s. It's an great movie because both characters are explored while the focus remains on Edie's character. Like Judy Garland, Edie was troubled and addicted, but her fame was a different kind of fame, and the movie explores that. Afterwards, I wanted to find out more about the director and writer; the writer doesn't have too many other credits but the director was co-director on the Hearts of Darkness/Coppola documentary from 1991, which is really impressive. I read somewhere that he initially set out to do a Edie/Andy documentary but ended up doing a feature instead. Interestingly, in the end credits (and in the DVD's Special Features) are clips of interviews from people who knew Andy and Edie so this really give the movie an extra punch.

Bob Dylan is depicted as a character that is obviously based on him - but only the name is changed. (I read he was not a fan of this depiction).

Some of these personal details are dark and seemingly trashy or sleazy, however they are real-life details about celebrities that we can relate to and try to understand.  The director does an amazing job of recreating Andy's art studio in New York. The costumes, makeup, and camera work / cinematography are really good; each shot looks really well-positioned and carefully crafted.

The movie only focuses on Edie's years in New York, and not her last years when she was institutionalized, although that might make for an interesting film or story as well, because she eventually marries someone she meets there (per the epilogue).

I suppose perhaps that Edie's last year was not unlike Judy's in some ways.

Additional articles:

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/12/andy-warhol-and-edie-sedgwick-a-brief-white-hot-and-totally-doomed-romance

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/edie-sedgwick-the-life-and-death-of-the-sixties-star-431412.html

https://www.npr.org/2014/02/02/251651304/a-suburban-teen-saw-the-sparkle-of-edie-but-not-the-pain

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1964) directed by Agnes Varda

Not long before watching the film, I injured my shoulder after a fall and had to get an X-ray, and remember being pretty anxious to get my results (which turned out ok by the way).

In the film, Cleo also is anxious to get a doctor's report after a test, and the film all takes place within the two hours in between.

She's a pop singer/celebrity, so the results of the test might be consequential to her career if she has a serious illness. I was a little unsure about how big a star she was, but I like the scene where she plays her own song on the jukebox in a restaurant and observes how people respond (people don't pay attention). There's also an interesting part where she has two male songwriters come up to her bedroom and they practice for a bit.

I like the cultural references that were included; in one part, someone makes a funny observational comment "Why aren't more streets named after famous living people like Bardot, Piaf, or Aznavour?" A few scenes take place with her friend in a car, where the radio announces some of the current headlines; it's interesting to hear Kennedy and DeGaulle's names come up in the news.

In the end, she takes a walk in the park, and meets an interesting man, but the movie ends and allows us to imagine the rest of the story.

Another blog review here by Confessions of a Film Philistine

Cafe Society (2016) and A Star is Born (1937)

I saw Cafe Society in January of 2017. It's Woody Allen's latest film, set in Hollywood in the 1930s. I really liked it. It slowly turns into a love triangle story involving Steve Carell's agent character and two young people (Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart) at the start of their careers. The movie then ends on a bittersweet note, kind of reminding me of the ending of La La Land (2016) because I felt the characters were asking themselves "I wonder what might have been?"

Besides the period costumes and sets, one of my favorite things about the movie is that every now and then a character will name-drop a real-life actor or filmmaker from that era ("in Gable's last picture..." or "Did Selznick produce that one?..."). It becomes something of a running gag that I really got a kick out of.

It's really interesting to see actors like Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively appear in a Woody Allen film. They're not bad actors, it's just that some of their previous work has been geared to a younger audience.  Jesse Eisenberg was in To Rome with Love.

Another Hollywood-themed movie I saw was the original 1937 version of A Star is Born, with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.  It's also set in the same time period, the 1930s. A starstruck Janet moves from her farm town to Hollywood to become an actor, and finds love and support from March. They eventually get married and are one of the most famous couples in Hollywood (but of course she is more famous -- a star on the rise, and he's on the way down). The strangest part of the film was the trailer-in-the-woods honeymoon sequence, which seemed a bit out of place and questionable destination for a honeymoon for two big name stars.

I liked the scene where a drunken March makes a speech in front of the crowd; he does something similar in front of a crowd in The Best Years of Our Lives during a dinner scene.

If you've seen any of the A Star is Born movies then you know what happens at the end, but I won't spoil it if you don't know what happens....just that it ends on a sad note.

I think these two movies - Cafe Society and 1937's A Star is Born - would make for an interesting double feature centering around 1930s Hollywood.

The Patricia Neal Story (1981, Made-for-TV)

My favorite film starring Patricia Neal (b. 1926) is The Subject Was Roses (1968). In my opinion, she delivers one of the finest film performances of the decade.

Roses was her "comeback film" role.

In between Hud (1963, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar) and Roses, Ms. Neal suffered three life threatening aneurysms, all in 1965.

She was pregnant at the time, and was even filming a movie, John Ford's 7 Women. (Anne Bancroft stepped in to fill her role in the picture).

In this fine biographical TV-film (first televised in the United States in December 1981), the actress' rehabilitation process is portrayed. Pat had to learn how to walk and speak -- and to live -- again after her coma. If you watch the film, be prepared to be moved by Glenda Jackson's (b. 1936) remarkable, Emmy-nominated performance.

Dirk Bogarde (1921-1999) also gives an intense performance as her supportive and loving husband, British writer Roald Dahl, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his moving portrayal. And if the name Roald Dahl sounds familiar, it is because he wrote the original "The Fantastic Mr. Fox", which was just adapted into a stop-motion animated film last year and is up for an Oscar this weekend.

Television actress and model ("All My Children") Sydney Penny, only 10 years old at the time, plays one of their daughters.

Veteran character actress Mildred "Millie" Dunnock (1901-1991), a friend of Ms. Neal's in real life, portrays herself in the film, in a very candid performance which required her to play herself as she felt at the time: scared, and at times, hopeless.

It's an emotional film. In one scene, after Pat is released from the hospital, she's back at home recovering and is watching the Oscars, longing to be there in person to present.

The film, though inspiring, is also somewhat bittersweet in hindsight: Neal and Dahl divorced in 1983 (after thirty years) due to his infidelity.

Ms. Neal, now age 84, continues to act and make public appearances.