David Koskas/Lucky Red
MOVIE REVIEW
Grace of Monaco (2014)
Future scholars mapping the course of the celebrity biopic as the genre headed for the rocks will immerse themselves in “Diana,” “Rush,” “The Fifth Estate” and “Grace of Monaco,” and be forced to concede — before they pass out — that the one with Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly bucked the trend — just not in ways that made the slightest difference. Olivier Dahan’s film limits itself to a brief window of Kelly’s time as fairy-tale princess, sparing audiences from the dreaded template of rise and fall; and it puts its subject in a functioning historical context, rather than just fetishizing her inner pain. It even features a performance you can’t look away from, although that happens to be Tim Roth’s portrayal of Prince Rainier as a monarch chafing under the weight of history, who might at any moment stab Charles de Gaulle with a fish knife.
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MOVIE REVIEW
The Spirit (2008)
Lionsgate/Odd Lot Entertainment
In "The Spirit," director Frank Miller takes Will Eisner's 1940s comic strip and drop-kicks it into a Wurlitzer jukebox of noise, melodrama and illogic. He also gives a clear indication of just how much the big-screen version of "Frank Miller's Sin City" came from Robert Rodriguez, since claims that the two films look the same are a long way off the mark. The green-screen method may be similar, but "The Spirit" lacks almost all of "Sin City's" detailed atmospheric backgrounds and visual tics. Instead, Mr. Miller opts for something much more archetypal, laying on his splashes of color with the broadest brush he could lay his hands on. It also lacks "Sin City's" whiff of insanity, a much more damaging loss. "The Spirit" is many things, but it is not out of control; and its biggest flaw is the air of cold calculation that hangs over it. Mr. Miller is being accused of having lost his marbles, but any sign that the director was having an actual brainstorm would have livened things up no end.
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