Blonde

[Ladybug]

I have seen so many bad reviews of this movie that I have no desire to watch it. I tried reading Blonde years ago and DNF'd it because I found it so insipid.

Nov 18, 2005 14:33:27 GMT -4 prisma said:

Agreeing with something TLo said: I would be interested in a movie about Marilyn Monroe directed by a feminist director.

I would be interested in seeing any Marilyn Monroe biopic that doesn't treat her primarily as a sex object but as a full human being.

[ahah]

Thank you for this thread. I had planned on watching this over the weekend, but after seeing a few tweets, decided to watch the Shania Twain documentary and wait a week for reviews on this. the comments here are enough to convince me I was right to wait, and I'm better off to skip it

[Deleted]

Oct 2, 2022 13:33:30 GMT -4 prisma said:

Between this discussion and what TLo had to say in their podcast, I have no intention of watching this. But I did go and watch the trailer that TLo included in their post. People keep talking about what a great performance Ana de Aramis gives, but I felt like I could hear her natural accent pretty clearly. Am I the only one?

Agreeing with something TLo said: I would be interested in a movie about Marilyn Monroe directed by a feminist director.

Her accent did poke through quite a bit, and I understand from interviews that this is not something the director discouraged because the essence of Marilyn still came through (I'm heaving paraphrasing here)

I think it was TLo that said she was in tears in pretty much every scene? Whoever said it - yeah, she was in tears in pretty much every scene.

I couldn't muster up enough energy to rage-watch, but it was not good. I'm not quite sure what it was trying to say.

[americanchai]

I don't like Joyce Carol Oates so I would have never read Blonde. After reading the director's comments, I will never click on this, even for free. Also, it's probably gotten the worst, loudest, most vocal negative reviews of anything I've ever heard of. Can this poor woman's carcass be left to RIP?

[cremetangerine82]

Curiosity got the best of me, I LOVE watching bad biopics (Tom Hardy, that WAS embarrassing!). I have to get to the "good" in this movie I saw and heard. I thought the makeup and hair-styling was great on Ana de Armas, I thought Adrien Brody did a decent job as Arthur Miller, I liked the actor who played Whitey, and the actor who played JFK did no Boston accent (he also was JFK in Jackie).

However, de Armas is just not a strong enough actor to portray this complex woman, like Cate Blanchett did as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator. This is the least robotic performance I've seem from her, but still just OK with too many accent slips. I thought Bobby Cannavale was miscast as Joe DiMaggio, his face is less thin and made Joe seem like a simpleton. As much as the movie tries to have the audience view Marilyn as more that a sex symbol, it constantly male gazes all over her body. I felt liked the director was filming this with one hand down his pants!

I wasn't grossed out by the rape scene(s), the vagina POV during her abortion(s), the vomit shot(s), and the painful peeing on the toilet (gonorrhea?). What crossed over the line of good taste for me was the talking fetus scene that felt like it was from an anti-abortion propaganda and it pissed me off. I'm a firm believer her death was a suicide and didn't involve Charlie Chaplin Jr. at all because he died after her!

I listened to the audio book of Blonde and have started to sour on it, so this is a rotten apple from a rotten tree. Entertainment Weekly has two good articles: one that separate real life from reel life and a list of better books on Marilyn Monroe to read.