Colour Me Kubrick: A True....ish Story

John Malkovich carries this movie, no question, but it would be hard to go wrong with the subject matter: a gay, crazy, conman pretends to be Stanley Kubrick (for the seemingly sole purpose of staying drunk and getting laid by rich men) but he knows very little about Kubrick and seems to forget sometimes that he is pretending -- it's ripe for comedy.

That is, if you aren't Stanley Kubrick

Malkovich has a Jim Carrey quality to him in this role, which is neither compliment nor insult in my mind, just an observation. In that he is portraying a man who is portraying someone else, who keeps changing his approach to said portrayal, his body language and facial expressions are as much a part of the character as the affected accents, lines and costumes. Speaking of costumes, an honorable mention for fantastic costumes goes to Victoria Russell (who hasn't done movie costumes for 20 years -- since the wonderful, horrible Gothic!)

The back story can be read here -- but shouldn't be until after you've seen the movie.

I'll also say that while this movie was thoroughly enjoyable, all of us agreed that the execution wasn't top notch. A clearer storyline would have helped...what we have are hilarious vignettes, but they could use more structure and definition in and of themselves, or a more cohesive timeline to connect them all.