Saturday morning, dark and blustery. Windy with a hint of snow in the air. NOT spring yet. My spouse is away in another city at an anniversary, so I am holding down the work front until Monday morning. Empty house, but some surprises have made it just fine. I spent the day in Red Deer yesterday, getting some errands run, and brought home two really good bottles of scotch…also inexpensive… a real find.
The high point of the weekend so far has been the quality acting I watched through two movies. The Descendants with George Clooney, and My Week With Marilyn revealing a surprisingly gifted Michelle Williams.
George Clooney is 'head' of a completely dysfunctional family, with a wife who is terminally injured and about to die. He discovers that's she has been on the brink of leaving him - has been conducting an affair - and he is under pressure to sell a huge chunk of family land that will make "everyone" rich. All against the backdrop of Hawaii. The various tensions in the movie swirl around Clooney, and he demonstrates the internal struggle superbly. The Hawaiian backdrop is disconcerting, as it should be. Really bad things happen to people, even in paradise. Watching Clooney at the top of his acting game was a treat. He was genuine and real in his portrayal. Grade A.
Michelle Williams was/is an unknown quantity for me. I never watched Dawson's Creek, so I had never seen her act.She does Marilyn Monroe with wonderful realism. The story is a true one, taken from Colin Clark's diaries. He was the junior director on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, which Monroe made with Laurence Olivier. The Marilyn we have learned about through various biographies over the decades was all there; captivating and heart-meltingly gorgeous, terrified and insecure beyond belief, and desperately needing to believe that whichever man was in front of her loved her more than anything. She was in her third marriage at that point (Arthur Miller), but that was rapidly falling apart. Colin, the junior, became her fiend, and she skipped out on the production for a few days with him. They were buds at least, perhaps more. But she needed the total attention, and that "week" appeared to save the movie making afterward.
Williams portrayal was stunning, both visually and personally. She "did" Marilyn with great confidence, and reminded old geezers like me just what Marilyn did to men when she turned on the charm. We didn't know till later how damaged she was, how twisted was her sense of self. Williams showed us that beautifully.
I think I found these two experiences so satisfying because I've been watching movies that were less than well done, less than well acted - crap, in fact. These were genuine acting performances, against real backdrops, revealing genuine people. It was as if they grounded me for a time. I had, for example, the best sleep in weeks last night after watching them.
The whole thing reminds me how i miss the old Family Therapy days, the times doing therapy where helping to unravel a personal mystery wrapped in a family's life was so engaging and enjoyable. It took 30 years off my age! I guess that is what movies, at their best, are intended to do: engage one so that life changes, even for a time. It worked last night.
The high point of the weekend so far has been the quality acting I watched through two movies. The Descendants with George Clooney, and My Week With Marilyn revealing a surprisingly gifted Michelle Williams.
George Clooney is 'head' of a completely dysfunctional family, with a wife who is terminally injured and about to die. He discovers that's she has been on the brink of leaving him - has been conducting an affair - and he is under pressure to sell a huge chunk of family land that will make "everyone" rich. All against the backdrop of Hawaii. The various tensions in the movie swirl around Clooney, and he demonstrates the internal struggle superbly. The Hawaiian backdrop is disconcerting, as it should be. Really bad things happen to people, even in paradise. Watching Clooney at the top of his acting game was a treat. He was genuine and real in his portrayal. Grade A.
Michelle Williams was/is an unknown quantity for me. I never watched Dawson's Creek, so I had never seen her act.She does Marilyn Monroe with wonderful realism. The story is a true one, taken from Colin Clark's diaries. He was the junior director on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, which Monroe made with Laurence Olivier. The Marilyn we have learned about through various biographies over the decades was all there; captivating and heart-meltingly gorgeous, terrified and insecure beyond belief, and desperately needing to believe that whichever man was in front of her loved her more than anything. She was in her third marriage at that point (Arthur Miller), but that was rapidly falling apart. Colin, the junior, became her fiend, and she skipped out on the production for a few days with him. They were buds at least, perhaps more. But she needed the total attention, and that "week" appeared to save the movie making afterward.
Williams portrayal was stunning, both visually and personally. She "did" Marilyn with great confidence, and reminded old geezers like me just what Marilyn did to men when she turned on the charm. We didn't know till later how damaged she was, how twisted was her sense of self. Williams showed us that beautifully.
I think I found these two experiences so satisfying because I've been watching movies that were less than well done, less than well acted - crap, in fact. These were genuine acting performances, against real backdrops, revealing genuine people. It was as if they grounded me for a time. I had, for example, the best sleep in weeks last night after watching them.
The whole thing reminds me how i miss the old Family Therapy days, the times doing therapy where helping to unravel a personal mystery wrapped in a family's life was so engaging and enjoyable. It took 30 years off my age! I guess that is what movies, at their best, are intended to do: engage one so that life changes, even for a time. It worked last night.
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