Judy

First Hit: This film opened the door to possibly seeing a more in-depth and human Judy through her last year of life.

I loved and was deeply touched by this story.

After seeing this film, and then reading some of the reviews, I found that the reviews saying that they should have dubbed Judy’s voice on the songs that Renee Zellweger sang as Judy, missed the point of the story that was presented.

This story is about Judy’s final year of life, her voice worn out from surgery, drinking, smoking, and her soul ripped out by enablers and poor decisions. Have a dubbed voice of a Judy in her prime would have been both dishonest and not real.

Judy died at age 47, six months after she was removed from the set of London concerts which are the focal point of this story. Judy was strung out on pills and booze most all of her adult life. It felt as though Judy was simply a commodity that people used to make money, and in this way, Zellweger nailed what it must felt like.

As this movie pointedly shows in scenes sprinkled throughout, as a child, Judy was fed drugs by the head of motion picture companies to keep her alert and awake when they wanted her to work, to keep her thin, and then to have her sleep when they didn’t need her. The story shows that people had only one focus, use her voice, to make others, including her parents, husbands, and movie studios money.

With little real support from husbands (she married five times) or someone who had her best interests at heart, Judy ended up broke, strung out, and desperate to find inner peace.

This story begins with Judy and her young children Lorena and Joey Luft being shuttled on staged and in front of a live audience to do a quick song with a silly dance. They were handed an envelope with $150. Heading back to the hotel, where they’ve been saying, they find out that because Judy was in arrears to the hotel, their room was repurposed.

Getting into a taxi, Judy, with kids in tow, ends up at Sidney Luft’s (Rufus Sewell) home. The scene that shortly follows sets up their antagonistic relationship. Leaving the kids with Sid, and nowhere to go, she heads to a party where her older daughter Liza Minnelli (Gemma-Leah Devereux) is located.

Meeting Mickey Deens (Finn Wittrock) at this party, Judy decides to stay at the party instead of leaving with Liza because Mickey is charming and flirtatious with Judy. It’s here we see out easily she’s influenced and charmed.

We move forward a few weeks and, in need of money to buy a home, pay her debts, and become a full-time mother, Judy signs a 5-week agreement to do concerts in London. With Roslyn Wilder (Jessie Buckley) assigned to keep Judy in line and show up sober to the sold-out engagements, Judy does try her best, but her inner demons continue to gnaw at her, and soon she shows up on stage drunk and ends up walking out.

However, she does get a swan song helped by her true fans - this was a lovely scene.

Zellweger was absolutely fantastic as Judy. The, I don’t know what to do, and I’m a fish out of water, look Zellweger brought to the role absolutely fit with the story as told. Over the years, I’ve listened recordings of Judy and could easily imagine her voice losing its sublime tone after surgery, drugs, alcohol, and lots of cigarettes. That some think that Judy’s premiere voice should have been used in the singing scenes, would have been a false story. Buckley was excellent as Judy’s minder while in England. Slowly seeing the depth of Judy’s suffering was beautifully portrayed when she presented Judy with a birthday cake she could eat. Deans was good as Judy’s last savior husband. Royce Pierreson as Judy’s bandleader in London, was beautiful. I felt as though he knew the path Judy had taken and would do anything to make it work for her on stage. Andy Nyman and Daniel Cerqueira play two London gay men who are full-fledged fans of Judy’s and the scenes with them and Judy in their apartment were incredibly sweet and heartfelt. Sewell as Sidney Luft was excellent but unexplored. Lastly, Darci Shaw as a young Judy was excellent. The scene of sitting with Mickey Rooney in a restaurant with Judy’s minder not letting Judy eat anything was incredibly telling of how her life was controlled. Tom Edge wrote an interesting script about the final months about Judy’s life. Rupert Goold did a fantastic job of creating pointed scenes and excellently staged sets. But ultimately his getting Zellweger to take on and embody Judy Garland was perfect.

Overall: I was deeply touched by this story.

Bridget Jones's Baby

First Hit:  Occasionally funny but generally slow and simply didn’t work.

The very first film of this series, Bridget Jones’s Diary, was fun and it worked in many ways. Being introduced to Bridget Jones (Renee Zellweger), a woman who struggles with her weight, is lonely and falls in love with two men. The second was somewhat more of the same; but by this film, the main thing we’ve dropped from the plot is the weight although there are references to weight in the film.

Another constant in the previous films are her two love interests Mark (Colin Firth) and Daniel (Hugh Grant). However, because Grant dropped out of project, he's referenced in a plot device funeral. Here Bridget is successful at her job as producer of a television program. She is celebrating her 43rd birthday and ends of doing it alone in her apartment. She goes to Daniel's funeral and runs into Mark.

A few days later, her coworker Jude (Shirley Henderson) decides to take Bridget to a rock-in-roll festival where she happens to fall into bed with Jack (Patrick Dempsey) and they have a sexual evening. Running into Mark again at a Christening, she has sex with him as well. Having sex with two different men in a short period of time (within a couple weeks of each other), she becomes pregnant and doesn’t know who the father is. That is the plot of this film.

Jones is pregnant, she’s going to keep the baby, she doesn’t know who the father is, and she may lose her job at work. Generally, this plot has a bit of interest but the execution is mediocre. At the end of the film a newspaper article comes up stating that Daniel is still alive, God I hope this doesn't mean there is another film planned.

Zellweger seemed out of place and unengaged in the part. Dempsey seemed to put the most energy into his part although there didn’t seem to be chemistry between him and Zellweger. Firth did well by keeping his stogy, disengaged self in tack. Henderson was delightful and carried her scenes well. Jim Broadbent as Bridget’s dad was his wonderful self and Gemma Jones as Bridget’s mum was good. Emma Thompson co-wrote and also played Bridget’s physician in a wry manner. The other co-writers were Dan Mazer and Helen Fielding. Overall the script was not very strong because it was more rehashed material, although the overall story idea could have been interesting. However, this film is too long and falls apart because of less than engaged acting and lapses of interesting direction by Sharon Maguire. For instance, the scenes of Mark and Jack carrying Jones to the hospital weren’t funny and could have been cut.

Overall:  Despite some funny moments, this film didn’t work and wasn’t worth the price of admission.

My One and Only

First Hit: This is a pleasantly nice film with a relatively interesting story about someone who is relatively well known but that most people know little about; George Hamilton.

Logan Lerman plays a young George Hamilton in his high school years recalling an important time when his mother Anne Deveraux (played by Renee Zellweger) decided to leave his philandering father Dan Deveraux (played by Kevin Bacon) an orchestra leader of the 40’s and 50’s.

The film begins when Anne returns from a brief trip to find Dan having another affair. She has had it, gathers the boys, buys a Cadillac Eldorado and heads to Boston looking for another husband to pay her way and give her the life she is looking for.

Anne is quite charming and has a way with her charm but her quest connects her with men who are not quite up to snuff. Her oldest son Robbie (played by Mark Rendall), who is gay, and George follow along with their mom hoping she finds what she is looking for and they finally get a home. With each failed attempt at meeting a new “step dad” they become poorer and their circumstances more desperate.

Out of money and hope, they land at her sister’s house where there is no love lost but there is stability for the boys. A couple of miss adventures and they end up with enough money to head to California, where both George and Robbie find their calling.

Zellweger is outstanding as a confused, headstrong, loving mother who does her best to do what is right. Her charm in this film is her perky and optimistic outlook regardless of the pickle they find themselves in ('never look in the rear view mirror, that’s what's behind us, always look forward and into the future'). Lerman is strong in his role as a very young man thrust into the role of head of household and responsible enough to drive (although not legally old enough) the three of them to each new city and adventure. Bacon’s plays a minor but significant character and is a driving force in the film. He is good in this role and plays the philandering father as; this is what band leaders do sort of way. Bacon’s voice is quick witted, gravely and husky and it worked. Richard Loncraine directed this film in a way that let the characters play out who they were and created something that was fun, interesting and well acted.

Overall: This isn’t one of the best films of the year, but there is some outstanding acting which made this film well worth watching.

New In Town

First Hit: There was potential for this to be a good film but it fell flat with a misguided script and direction.

Renee Zellweger has proven herself to be an outstanding dramatic (Cold Mountain and Chicago) and comedic actress (Bridget Jones series).

When a film doesn’t know what it wants to be the actors have a difficult time meeting the expectations of the roles. “New In Town” is such a film. It is lost and the director either did a poor interpretation of the script or the script was disjointed, unclear or poorly written.

Renee plays Lucy Hill a hot shot Miami corporate executive sent to Minnesota to re-tool a factory into producing some new energy bar. Arriving in Minnesota from Florida is shocking not only because it is the middle of winter but the lifestyle difference between corporate business and small factory business is so obvious.

The set-up for comedy is available but the overt use of speech cadence and phrasing of people from this small Minnesota town created an unnecessary dumbing down of the town people. This, in-turn, caused me to lose interest in the town and its people. In comparison if you watch Fargo and the use of geographic language particulars and its characters versus the use these in this film, one readily sees an excellent use geographic particulars versus a poor use of them. I don’t think Renee gave her best effort and I’m not sure why but it almost seemed as though she was reading cue cards in some scenes.

Overall: This film shows how to waste good talent and a reasonably good concept.

Appaloosa

First Hit: Westerns are not in favor as a popular film genre, but this one developed characters and was truly wonderful to watch.

Ed Harris plays Virgil Cole a city marshal for hire. Cole and his partner, Everett Hitch (played by Viggo Mortensen), go from town to town as they clean up the mess the town’s people cannot clear up themselves.

In Appaloosa they are hired because rancher Randall Bragg (played by Jeremy Irons) is blocking growth of the town’s budding mining business. Two of Bragg’s men killed a man from Chicago and when the current town marshal goes out to get the two men; Bragg shoots the marshal and his two deputies dead.

Therefore the town hires Cole and Hitch to bring order, but to do so the town must obey Cole’s rules. Adding additional characterization and interest to the film is Renee Zellweger (as Allison French) playing a woman who is enticing and a strong weakness for wanting to be loved or in a man’s arms.

The beauty of this film is that this film doesn’t rush to create the characters, it lets them develop. It gives them space to let the audience in little by little. Sometimes it is it only a couple of sentences but they are enough to color in a deeper view of whoever is in the scene. Towards the end, Hitch sits down next to Cole and says, I have some things I need to say to you. And in two cryptic sentences, a new level of understanding is played out. There are other scenes of honesty between these two men that show a deep, true, honest, and respectful friendship.

Overall: I like the way the film unfolded. I liked that it didn’t fill it’s space with special effects. And, I liked the way the characters were allowed to develop, grow and change as the film went on.