Infamous Reviews

[ITALIANO]

However, I'm glad that this film acknowledged erotic undertones rather than just glazed over them.

I love you. But it's not erotic, Sabin... Eroticism is something completely different. Maybe for Americans it is erotic - but then I'd really be worried. Italians can't stand this movie - even two minutes ago I went to the Italian forum about cinema which I usually take part in and there was a mini-review of someone who had just seen it (on dvd I guess), and... well, I will copy it here.

Infamous
Non avessi visto Capote spenderei anche qualche elogio, ma qui, al confronto, e ormai nota la storia, tutto risulta più furbetto, arrotondato, semplicistico, compiaciuto. In una parola più fasullo. E tra Toby Jones e P.S.Hoffmann la partita non comincia nemmeno. Non un brutto film, ma il paragone lo ammazza.
VOTO 6 1/2


I won't even translate it, and I don't necessarily agree with everything this person says - yet I think he (or she) saw through the flatness and banality of this movie.



Edited By ITALIANO on 1197055376

[Sabin]

Sabin is generally very perceptive...

Aw, thank you.

- predictably calls "cathartic", "incredibly emotional" and so on

...aw, thank you.

I wrote that it was "not entirely convincing". However, I'm glad that this film acknowledged erotic undertones rather than just glazed over them. I don't buy Perry Smith as a closet homosexual at all, but I do acknowledge him as a closet poet. I want an undercurrent, not a flood but I'll take 'Infamous' for its ambition.

[ITALIANO]

But seriously, this wasn't about Gods and Monsters - it was more generally about homosexuality on the American screens.

[OscarGuy]

Great.. If it's not Italiano and the Gods and Monsters debate, it's someone pushing Van Helsing's buttons about Sandra Bullock...or Penelope's hatred of Hilary Swank.

[ITALIANO]

You obviously haven't slept with the right Americans, Marco.

Well, I've slept with many though. But you are right, I shouldn't have generalized - there is ONE exception, Marc B., a flight attendant I've met a few times. Ok, he's very good.

[flipp525]

You obviously haven't slept with the right Americans, Marco.

I completely agree with ITALIANO here. That scene was so gratuitously inept, without even pushing the envelope or being shocking in any way. It felt completely wrong for the entire movie. There does exist a movie somewhere in between Capote and Infamous that takes the best features of both. I'm not sure what its title would be, but there must be a healthy compromise between and the bleak and surface-y Capote and the artless and awkward Infamous.

Oh, and Catherine Keener is so much better than Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, just to throw that in again.



Edited By flipp525 on 1197048053

[ITALIANO]

Toby Jones isn't a bad actor, and has one or two good moments, this is something I can agree on. But the movie shares with Gods and Monsters what Sabin - and Sabin is generally very perceptive - predictably calls "cathartic", "incredibly emotional" and so on: a completely awkward, unnatural, forced, unbelievable, gay sex scene (ok, I think that in Gods and Monsters it was just an attempted sex act, towards the end, but it was similarly dreadful). Americans simply can't do this - they can shoot wonderful action scenes, massacres, violence, but when it comes to homosexual sex (I'd say straight sex too, but there are a few exceptions here) they are so obviously unconfortable, didactic, and even wrong from the narrative point of view. For Americans, scenes like these are "liberating", "bold" - and when you have sex with Americans you understand why.
And unfortunately Sabin is right - it IS the climax of the movie - and it's so banally explicit, so superficial that I was shaking my head in disbelief as I was watching (the guy I was with had fallen asleep - I wished I was him in that moment). No, this is not Truman Capote - Truman Capote was never so obvious.
Don't get me wrong - I'm sure that it is possible to make a movie which deals frankly with Capote's homosexuality - but once you do that, you must have the courage of going deep, you can't just throw in a supposedly shocking (!) sex scene and think that you've done your job. We are not children.

[flipp525]

I’m 29. The board’s ten years old, if I recall correctly.



Edited By flipp525 on 1197046087

[Akash]

Nine years?? How old is this board? And more to the point -- how old are all of you?? :p



Edited By Akash on 1197046006

[flipp525]

Oh God. Let's not allow yet another thread to go to the Gods and Monsters debate that began NINE YEARS AGO on this very board. It's so done.

[Akash]

Infamous is the perfect movie for those who liked Gods and Monsters. So I'm not surprised that it's so loved here.

You've been tagged by the Butt Nugget Inspector, Marco.

Steph, the reason for Marco linking those two films won't make any more sense if I explained it to you. Trust me.

[Steph2]

Hmm Italiano, I'm not sure how those two are related (am I missing something?) but I liked both Gods and Monsters and Capote. I agree with you that it's better than Infamous, even if I did enjoy Toby Jones in the latter.

[ITALIANO]

Infamous is the perfect movie for those who liked Gods and Monsters. So I'm not surprised that it's so loved here.

[Akash]

If anything, 'Infamous' is the more exceptional film in capturing what a Truman Capote film should be even if it's overreaching and uneven. I think I cared for it more. There's little to grasp on 'Capote' on repeat viewings, but 'Infamous', I'd wager, is far more an embarrassment of riches.

Bless you.

[Precious Doll]

There's no question that Toby Jones IS Truman Capote. The fact that he's a little gay man who's been doing a Capote one-man show for years has nothing to do with it. He gets to the bottom of it without resorting to trickery or studied impressions. The man's damn near flawless.

Sabin, I enjoyed reading your review of Infamous and agree with most of what you say, but Toby Jones isn't gay. It's also the first I've heard that he had performed in a one-man show playing Capote for years. I saw an interview with Jones earlier in the year and he never mentioned it playing Capote in a play. I go the impression that he needed to do lots of research to help him to prepare for the role.

Either way, it's 2006's greatest screen performance.