Biopics galore!

With my viewing of "The Aviator" tonight, I've completed a troika of biopics over the Holiday period: In addition to the Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, I managed to catch "Finding Neverland" (Dir. Marc Forster) on Dec. 21, and "Kinsey" (Dir. Bill Condon) one week later. Biopics were big this holiday season. I ended up seeing three in quick succession, and I don't even generally like biopics as a rule - often they're overblown and/or oversimplified. Fortunately I've managed to avoid "Ray" (Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles) and "Beyond the Sea" (Kevin Spacey as crooner Bobby Darin).

Although I like to think that biopics start out with one strike against in my estimation, I did end up enjoying the three I went to see (or, more accurately, was persuaded to go see.) "The Aviator", directed by Martin Scorsese, was good, though at 169 minutes it was a bit on the long side (not surprising for Scorsese); the earlier part of the film in particular might have used a bit more editing to knock off, say, 20 minutes. But the evocation of the era - the twenties through the forties - was good, in spite of some inevitable factual errors and anachronisms (one of my friends who watched the movie with me is an expert on the period, and always notes such inaccuracies). Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn was wonderful, though I didn't really buy Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner. Meanwhile "Kinsey" offered some insight into the life of Alfred Kinsey and his groundbreaking 1948 report on sexual behavior in the human male. "Finding Neverland" for its part was actually quite enchanting, although Johnny Depp looks nothing like the real J. M. Barrie. Of the three I think I have to say I enjoyed "Kinsey" the best - perhaps because I was most engaged with the subject matter, perhaps because it concerned a university professor, perhaps because of the performances of Liam Neeson, Peter Sarsgaard, and Laura Linney.

It's interesting to note that most of these biopics carry the "independent" imprimatur of distributors such as Miramax and Fox Searchlight (owned by, respectively, Disney and News Corp.) so they are to be treated as "serious" films; it'll be even more interesting to see how the actors do in this year's Oscar hunt.