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oooh, I'll probably be seeing Dreamgirls tonight (the screener finally arrived ... sheesh, do they expect me to actually deal with grubby theaters and their loudmouthed patrons?)
Has anyone in the world besides me seen Infamous? It's the story of Truman Capote writing "In Cold Blood." Sound familiar? That's because a more famous movie dealt with the same subject matter just last year (I forget ... was it called Capote or The Truman Show?)
This one took a much lighter touch, but the gravitas of an excellent actor such as Phillip Seymour Hoffman was sorely missing. Instead, the lead role was played by an unknown little troll of a man by the name of Toby Jones. But it's not like they couldn't afford real actors. He was surrounded by the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Gwyneth Paltrow, Isabella Rossellini, Jeff Daniels, and the film co-starred Sandra Bullock as Truman's best-friend fellow author, Nelle Harper Lee, and none other than the new James Bond, Daniel Craig, as Perry Smith, the murderer with whom Truman falls in love.
The airier mood left less to be disappointed about, and Truman Capote is portrayed far more sympathetically (if much more over the top) in this version .. with a bit of the remorseful and maturing character arc that I complained was lacking in the earlier film.
Still ... the Hoffman version, though it left me cold, was a far more polished affair, and the lead performance aptly deserving of perhaps 83% of the praise and awards it garnered. Now that I've seen both films, with the latter treating the proceedings with a bit more silliness (especially as concerns the love aspect between Capote and James Bond, er, Perry Smith) ... I guess I appreciate the more serious and damning version after all.
Though it portrayed Capote unfavorably in my mind, having him remain - despite his attraction to Perry - detached, manipulative and immature to the end ... that is perhaps fitting for a film about the creation of "In Cold Blood" - a title that could just as well be referring to its author as to the grisly murders in Kansas or the grinding wheels of death penalty retribution.
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