Colour Me Kubrick: A True...ish Story

Ummm.... Well... I've seen John Malkovich play all sorts of weirdos, but I really didn't expect to see him in the skin of a gay con man dressed in really, really homo costumes, sometimes heavily made up and in one scene even armed with fishnet stockings, impersonating Stanley Kubrick himself. From the distributor's text for the DVD cover, it would seem that Color Me Kubrick would be primarily a goofy comedy. It's not. And that is thanks to Malkovich. In his performance, Conway is a rather tragicomic figure whom one can pity one moment, hate the next and love the next. The experience of the film (you probably won't laugh, but I can almost guarantee you a smile on your face for most of the sympathetically short runtime) is helped immensely by the soundtrack, i.e. music taken mainly from Kubrick's notorious opuses. For example, the "homeless" walk to the laundry room to the sound of Also Sprach Zarathustra is literally stunning. __P.S. "It will be called 3001: A Space Odyssey." - "And who's going to play the lead?" - "John Malkovich." - "John... Who?" __P.P.S. All that was missing from the ending was A Clockwork Orange "I'm cured!" (08/07/2011)

A film that revolves around the brilliant John Malkovich and, of course, a truly bizarre story about people's gullibility and stupidity on one hand, and cruelty and calculation on the other. It beautifully showcases how people simply lack conscience and do whatever they want when given the opportunity, and eventually get away with it. However, this fact does not save the film from being mainly just a curiosity. (17/12/2014)

The casting of Malkovich in the main role, as a cunning manipulator, was fortunate, and the actor, who is almost glued to the screen, works wonders and manages to make a pleasant spectacle out of an otherwise fairly average film. The plot itself is also attractive, with a homosexual fraudster pretending to be a famous director. However, that is essentially where the list of pros ends, because the appealing subject matter is not explored in the film's screenplay, and considering the potential the plot had, there are uncomfortably few comedic situations. Overall impression: 60%. (23/10/2008)