The Skin I Live In

Movie: The Skin I Live In

Genre: thriller – in Spanish with subtitles

Synopsis: Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) is a brilliant plastic surgeon in Spain.  His wife is horribly burned in a tragic accident.  When she dies, Robert becomes obsessed with developing a synthetic skin to help burn victims.  Unfortunately, he chooses to skip a few of the standard testing steps and begins experimenting on a human.  The result is a beautiful female patient who is pretty much a prisoner in his private clinic.  The patient spends all of her days wearing a flesh-colored body suit in a locked room.  The movie gives us the background and reason(s) for his obsession and exactly how he performed his experimental testing on his patient.  By the end of the movie, the doctor’s plan is coming pretty severely unraveled,

My two cents: I put off seeing this movie because I was afraid it might get a bit too graphic.  Turns out my fear was unfounded.  While some parts did make me squirm a bit – nothing that was shown was the least bit graphic. The story line was fascinating – especially when some twists started entering into the story.  When I finally learned the whole story of the patient – it was jaw dropping.  If you like off-beat thrillers with a touch of horror, don’t pass this one up. If you like some good vengeance – it will be icing on the cake.

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Like Crazy

Movie: Like Crazy

Genre: romantic drama

Synopsis: Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones) are college students in Los Angeles who fall madly in love.  The problem is that Anna is British, attending school on a student visa.  Her plan is to return briefly to England after graduation and then to come back to Los Angeles and Jacob.  A hitch in the plan occurs when Anna violates the terms of her student visa and is unable to return to the U.S.  For the next several years Anna and Jacob experience the ups and downs (mostly downs) of trying to maintain a really long distance relationship.

My two cents: This was another movie I enjoyed more than I thought I would.  I think it presented a pretty realistic look at the pitfalls a couple like this could face, given the visa problems.

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My Week With Marilyn

Movie: My Week With Marilyn

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Based on the memoirs of Colin Clark, this movie is set in 1956 London.  Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) is working as a 3rd directory (aka a gofer) on a movie starring Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).  Marilyn is an emotional wreck and latches onto Colin as someone she can trust.  The movie details how he became her companion (and more?) during the filming of the movie.  We see just how emotionally fragile Marilyn was and how incredibly insecure she was.  A large part of the film also dealt with the conflict between Laurence Olivier and Marilyn.  He was forever being frustrated by her behavior on the set – constantly being late, forgetting her lines, and consulting Paula Strasberg for her motivation – Marilyn was a devotee of the Lee Starsberg school of method acting.  Laurence Olivia considered all of this to be incredibly unprofessional behavior.

My two cents: A much better movie than I expected.  Michelle Williams did a fabulous job of portraying her – she can really be stunningly beautiful.  She seemed to be effortlessly switch back and forth between the screen idol Marilyn Monroe and the insecure fragile Norma Jean.  Judi Dench was delightful as a famous elderly actress (not much of a stretch).  Emma Watson had a small role.  It was nice to see her without a magic wand – I just wish her role had been bigger.  It was fascinating to see what an emotional wreck Marilyn Monroe was.  She was the most famous woman in the world, but as insecure as a 14-year-old. 

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