31 replies to this topic

[PeggyR]

cubanmiamiboy, on 29 December 2011 - 07:55 AM, said:

Saw it and not impressed at all. (Williams has never done it for me anyhow...too much of a grey type of actress).  Marilyn is FIRE when you see her on screen-(whatever her real persona might have been), and Williams does not have what it takes to project that.  Plus, the physique was WRONG. When my mother saw her she turned to me and whispered..."She's toooo skiny...that's NOT Marilyn!"  And she's right.


What about Charlize Theron...?

http://www.flickr.co...kups/222375626/

or  Lindsay Lohan...?

http://nymag.com/ima..._lindsay_lg.jpg

The stills of both look good, but the story is in how they move.  Even sitting still, Monroe moved, quivered, radiated.  Offhand, I can't think of any modern actresses who can do that.

[dirac]

Charlize Theron isn't a bad idea, cubanmiamiboy. Obviously no one can be Monroe, but at least Theron is a similar type, she can be radiant, and she can stop traffic. (It's too bad that a goddess like Charlize spends so much time in Oscar bait flicks where she's sleeping in cars with bad hair. MGM wouldn't have wasted her like that.)

I remember a  Marilyn TV movie years ago with Catherine Hicks and I recall that as a very good performance.

[cubanmiamiboy]

dirac, on 29 December 2011 - 11:19 AM, said:

It's too bad that a goddess like Charlize spends so much time in Oscar bait flicks where she's sleeping in cars with bad hair.

PeggyR, on 29 December 2011 - 09:21 AM, said:

  Even sitting still, Monroe moved, quivered, radiated.  Offhand, I can't think of any modern actresses who can do that.

How about Madonna...?

http://www.talentsta...1008/1008p2.jpg

http://www.youtube.c...tchv=jjOLh2so3M

[Helene]

Madonna is so brittle.

[PeggyR]

cubanmiamiboy, on 29 December 2011 - 11:54 AM, said:

PeggyR, on 29 December 2011 - 09:21 AM, said:

  Even sitting still, Monroe moved, quivered, radiated.  Offhand, I can't think of any modern actresses who can do that.

How about Madonna...?

Madonna?  MADONNA????  Well, at least she's got her own brassiere...

[dirac]

Even if Madonna weren't too old, she never photographed well. She can move and probably quiver, although when Monroe got quivery it wasn't a good sign.

Quote

It's too bad that a goddess like Charlize spends so much time in Oscar bait flicks where she's sleeping in cars with bad hair

Very poorly constructed sentence, for which I apologize. It should have read, "where she has bad hair and sleeps in cars." Obviously I didn't mean to suggest that cars have bad hair, although I've seen some upholstery that might qualify.

[cubanmiamiboy]

dirac, on 29 December 2011 - 12:39 PM, said:

Even if Madonna weren't too old, she never photographed well. She can move and probably quiver, although when Monroe got quivery it wasn't a good sign.

Quote

It's too bad that a goddess like Charlize spends so much time in Oscar bait flicks where she's sleeping in cars with bad hair

Very poorly constructed sentence, for which I apologize. It should have read, "where she has bad hair and sleeps in cars." Obviously I didn't mean to suggest that cars have bad hair, although I've seen some upholstery that might qualify.

[miliosr]

I think Michelle Williams is benefitting from two things during awards season:

1)  Since, as several posters have noted, Williams does not immediately evoke Marilyn Monroe in terms of figure, looks or temperament, she may be getting a certain amount of admiration for attempting something that is not in her natural emploi, and

2) There may be a certain grading on a curve going on as a pat on the back for the way Williams has managed her career.  She has consistently chosen intelligent, challenging scripts (certainly in comparison to her Dawson's Creek co-star Katie Holmes -- last seen in yet another ultra-lowbrow Adam Sandler comedy.)

I liked Williams' performance in My Week with Marilyn in large part because she was playing so far against type.  As for the other suggestions -- Theron would have been plausible, Lohan is unemployable and Madonna is too old.

[dirac]

Oh, I don't blame Williams for wanting to get out of kitchens and wagon trains and into a category that's a little more glamorous. I'm sure she'll be nominated up the wazoo this season and there's nothing particularly upsetting about that. I was just hoping for a more complex interpretation and a better performance (and a better vehicle for it).

Holmes is no great favorite of mine but she's not a bad actor. She could be in a different place given different circumstances.  I understand she wanted to play Edie Sedgwick in Factory Girl, a project in theory at least as daring as Williams doing Marilyn, and Cruise nixed the idea, too bad because she would have been at least as good as Sienna Miller.  She's also found herself in thankless jobs such as the villainess in Thank You for Smoking.

[sidwich]

cubanmiamiboy, on 29 December 2011 - 07:55 AM, said:

Saw it and not impressed at all. (Williams has never done it for me anyhow...too much of a grey type of actress).  Marilyn is FIRE when you see her on screen-(whatever her real persona might have been), and Williams does not have what it takes to project that.  Plus, the physique was WRONG. When my mother saw her she turned to me and whispered..."She's toooo skiny...that's NOT Marilyn!"  And she's right.


What about Charlize Theron...?

http://www.flickr.co...kups/222375626/

or  Lindsay Lohan...?

http://nymag.com/ima..._lindsay_lg.jpg

I'm not sure if you're joking.  As other have pointed out Lindsay Lohan is uninsurable at this point.  And If you think that Michelle Williams is physically wrong to play Marilyn Monroe, Charlize Theron is built as you would expect for the former ballet dancer and model that she is, very tall and very, very thin with minimal bosom and hips.  She is a beautiful woman but about as far as you can get from the "jello on springs" that was the wonder of Marilyn Monroe.  (Notwithstanding the Academy Award, I find Theron to be generally mediocre as an actress, but that's neither here nor there.)

[sidwich]

miliosr, on 29 December 2011 - 05:16 PM, said:

I think Michelle Williams is benefitting from two things during awards season:

1)  Since, as several posters have noted, Williams does not immediately evoke Marilyn Monroe in terms of figure, looks or temperament, she may be getting a certain amount of admiration for attempting something that is not in her natural emploi, and

2) There may be a certain grading on a curve going on as a pat on the back for the way Williams has managed her career.  She has consistently chosen intelligent, challenging scripts (certainly in comparison to her Dawson's Creek co-star Katie Holmes -- last seen in yet another ultra-lowbrow Adam Sandler comedy.)

I think Williams is a very fine actress, but I haven't seen this film yet.  I would suspect that if there are other factors in the accolades she's received this year, though, it may also be due to a make-up factor for losing last year's Academy Award to Natalie Portman.  Portman campaigned very hard for that statuette, but there may still be some sentiment left over from Blue Valentine.  And the older Academy members may feel more comfortable voting for a film like My Week With Marilyn rather than something like Blue Valentine.

And as for interpretations of Marilyn Monroe, the strongest I've seen so far is Popppy Montgomery's portrayal in Blonde.

[cubanmiamiboy]

sidwich, on 30 December 2011 - 12:25 AM, said:

cubanmiamiboy, on 29 December 2011 - 07:55 AM, said:

Saw it and not impressed at all. (Williams has never done it for me anyhow...too much of a grey type of actress).  Marilyn is FIRE when you see her on screen-(whatever her real persona might have been), and Williams does not have what it takes to project that.  Plus, the physique was WRONG. When my mother saw her she turned to me and whispered..."She's toooo skiny...that's NOT Marilyn!"  And she's right.


What about Charlize Theron...?

http://www.flickr.co...kups/222375626/

or  Lindsay Lohan...?

http://nymag.com/ima..._lindsay_lg.jpg

I'm not sure if you're joking.  

No...I was not.  Lohan has gotten herself definitely into such tumultuous life that we might think there's no way she could make it all the way to make a movie, but hey...Hollywood has been in this position before many, many times, from Clift to Monroe herself to many other actors and actresses having been employed while battling all kinds of substances abuse and even while serving jail time.  As per Theron, yes, I agree she is probably too tall and Amazonian but I don't know if this is worst than the underwhelming Williams, who looked to me as a young girl with a platinum wig trying to dress up as Marilyn for Halloween.    Williams could be a fine actress, I don't know..(I haven't seen much of her...I think only Brokeback Mountain and something else I can't remember now), but she always look too distant and fragile to the point of uninteresting TO ME.  Monroe needed someone else.

[Bonnette]

sidwich, on 30 December 2011 - 12:37 AM, said:

And as for interpretations of Marilyn Monroe, the strongest I've seen so far is Popppy Montgomery's portrayal in Blonde.

Same here, and I have always been amazed at how seldom this performance is noted. Not only was Montgomery's portrayal precisely tuned and nuanced, she also looked the part - uncannily so.

[dirac]

Quote

As per Theron, yes, I agree she is probably too tall and Amazonian but I don't know if this is worst than the underwhelming Williams, who looked to me as a young girl with a platinum wig trying to dress up as Marilyn for Halloween.  

I'm inclined to agree. Williams looked better in the movie than she does in the publicity stills in Marilyn's costumes and poses, though. (If it's hard to match Monroe on film, it's even tougher in front of the still camera.) Theron is indeed too tall (I thought Williams looked a trifle short) but her height also makes her imposing. She's sexier than Williams and she's able to suggest voluptuousness without actually being so.  In terms of acting ability it's probably a bit of a wash, at least in regard to the movie under discussion.

I'm not sure that an actor of Marilyn's physical proportions would even be desirable, since most such can't avoid vulgarity - witness the Monroe imitators- which Monroe was able to do even when she was bursting out of her dress fore and aft.

Hello, Bonnette and sidwich, it's good to hear from you. Haven't seen Blonde. The reviews of the Oates novel did not tempt me to read it, although they were mostly favorable. I did read somewhere that Naomi Watts might be up for the part in the feature film.

[Bonnette]

dirac, on 30 December 2011 - 10:20 AM, said:

Haven't seen Blonde. The reviews of the Oates novel did not tempt me to read it, although they were mostly favorable. I did read somewhere that Naomi Watts might be up for the part in the feature film.

Hi Dirac. I'd heard that about Watts, too. She's a fine actress, but at 44 she seems a bit old for the part (and she is perhaps too cerebral, as well). Actually, Montgomery was so good that I wish they'd slather the lens with Vaseline and gauze and cast her again!