Huh. I posted in the wrong thread earlier. I have no idea why I mixed up Movies and Minearverse. Oh well.

As I saw Shrek 2 recently, my thoughts during the movie were, "Look! An animated movie that is humorous by virtue of the actions and characterizations of its characters, rather than shotgunning pop-culture references!" Though there were some great subversions of standard superhero tropes, as expected. Loved the uses of powers.

See, I watched that movie, and I was like, I'm so glad I live in LA, so I could understand 80% of the jokes. Especially the Angelyne/Fairy Godmother billboards. That was the funniest thing in the movie, in my opinion.

This weekend was good for films on TV. I finally watched Casablanca, for the first time ever, and, of course, I loved it. Question--was I supposed to think that Ilsa and Sam did some mattress dancing when they finally worked everything out in his room above the bar, even though they were still dressed afterwards? 'Cause, well, I did.

Also, I saw The Others on TBS. I had been spoiled on the big surprise, but it was still excellently done. I did miss the first ten minutes--did it begin with her going mad, or afterwards?

I saw I Heart Huckabees yesterday. Since my philosophical education ended around Erasmus, odds are a fair bit of it went over my head. And for the first hour I really wasn't into it. But the last half hour had me rolling. I loved it.

I saw Ray last night, and I'm wondering -- are there biopics that are great movies, beyond the main performance? So much of the movie (and others like it, I think) feels like just getting through time to hit the highlights. I dunno. Also, the end was apparently tacked on after he died, and felt like it. Which is not to say that it wasn't great, because it was, but it was all Jamie Foxx, and the basic interesting-ness of seeing the "inside" of a famous life.

Oh, and the boy insisted on saying it "bi-ah-pic" not "BIO-pic." I mocked him heavily.

PS: Stay away from the junk, people!!

I never saw Gandhi, but I heard very good things about it.

Great biopic? I guess it'd depend on whether the said biopic needs to be an accurate depiction of the life in question, which is a different thing from whether it's a great movie.

Off the top of my head, I'd say; Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus, Desert Fox (with James Mason *great* as Rommel), Malcolm X, Pride of the Yankees (Lou Gehrig), and A Beautiful Mind, which I liked a lot, although it did get a lot of flak for not dealing with Nash's bisexuality.

Then there is the genre of dramatization of historical figures--rather different from biopic. I adore The Lion in Winter, but I would be hesitant to call this a biopic.

I'm not articulating this well, but of those movies I've seen, they are great just because of the one performance and the fact that the life they are portraying is so interesting. Amadeus with a so-so Wolfie would have been a terrible movie.

No, it wouldn't. Aside from anything else, the star of Amadeus is arguably Salieri.

I think that's just the nature of a biopic -- you can't really have a good character study of any kind without a strong performance from the character you're studying.

What Jessica said. The only exception I can think of is that Meryl Streep Susan Orleans biopic.