'Judy'

[Dianna]

In addition to Linda's movie, I really want to see this one.. It looks really good. Wow, Renée Zellweger looks and sounds a lot like J. Garland.

[rick]

Dianna, I understand why you might want to see this.

That said, I will admit that when I heard that this movie was being made, I was dismayed. I have never liked Renee in anything. And, for me, it's a fool's errand to try to depict Judy Garland. The only portrayal I thought of Garland that I liked somewhat was Judy Davis as Garland in "Me and My Shadows." The family (Liza, Lorna, Joey) were not consulted on this "Judy" bio-pic.

What I first heard from the festival circuit was that Renee is good in it but that the picture itself is a mess.

Here is the review from The New York Times --

www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/movies/judy-review.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

The paragraph on the performance --

" Mostly, “Judy” offers the familiar spectacle of one star playing another. Zellweger’s performance is credible, with agitated flutters and filigreed touches, though it leans hard on Judy’s tremulous fragility, as if she were a panicked hummingbird. The take is also cautious, too comfortable; it never makes you flinch or look away. Wholly embracing Garland’s freneticism at its rawest might have registered as excessive or campy, but it would have deepened the portrait. So would Garland’s voice. Zellweger has a fine one — she sings all of Judy’s songs — but it can’t deliver the fantasy that this is one of the greatest entertainers in history. "

Yes, Indeed! One of the greatest entertainers in history. Zellweger is not that. They also should have used Judy's original vocals as they did in "Ray," the Ray Charles bio-pic. I am dreading that Jennifer Hudson is going to sing Aretha Franklin's songs instead of using the originals. Hudson is no Franklin. And Zellweger is no Garland. No one could be. I would feel the same way if it were someone portraying Linda Ronstadt or Barbra Streisand. Of course, someday, those bio-pics will be made, but I can only imagine prove the truism: "Why is the sequel never the equal?"

Here is a review from someone who was alive and in the public when Garland was alive --

observer.com/2019/09/judy-movie-review-renee-zellweger-rex-reed/

By Rex Reed

Only a fool would attempt to play the one and only Judy Garland, onscreen or anywhere else. Many have tried and failed (although Judy Davis came closest to the mark in a now forgotten TV special), because nobody can or should. Despite an avalanche of misguided raves, Renée Zellweger as the greatest entertainer of the 20th century in a film called simply Judy is nothing more than another gimmick. You won’t get the real deal here, no matter which gushing hysteric you read.

The real Judy (like Piaf and Dietrich, two names were never necessary) was an overload of genius so complicated you could never get the whole story into one script, so poor Zellweger’s failure to process every aspect of a true show-business legend into an unforgettable whole is totally understandable. She doesn’t look or sound like Judy. Still, she works so hard to deliver her own brand of aborted accuracy that she grows on you, even if the movie doesn’t.

Concentrating on the final tragic days of Judy’s life, when she settled (and died) in London, during and following a series of physically exhausting, emotionally wrenching, sold-out concerts produced by infamous showman Bernard Delfont (Michael Gambon) at a club called Talk of the Town, the film eschews the elements that made her unique and concentrates on the dark, depressing downfall of a glittering life. The result, I’m sad to say, is a sorry, sick, self-indulgent melodrama in the one-note melody of a funeral dirge.

Broke, unable to sleep, eat or rehearse, desperate to hold onto the love of her children Lorna and Joey by long distance after they were dispatched by penury to live across the pond with their father, Sid Luft, and consumed with the loneliness and insecurity that drove her into her last marriage to bartender Mickey Deans (Finn Wittrock), she stumbled onstage night after night fortified by booze and tranquilizers, sometimes cursing the audience and falling down onstage in the middle of a song. (She died at 47, six months after singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” one last time).

No doubt some of this happened. But there was so much more. What Judy misses is the unimpeachable fact that helped her survive the punishing ordeals, both personal and professional—her dazzling sense of humor, none of which is in evidence here. Instead of a sober assessment of the greatest musical career in Hollywood history, what emerges in Judy is a drunken dossier of catastrophic self-destruction.

In the stale, generic script by Tom Edge, woodenly directed by Rupert Goold, annoying flashbacks, to the demons that poisoned little Frances Gumm as a child commodity at MGM to the hard-working commercial blockbuster assigned the name Judy Garland, are too fractured to make much sense. Starved and drugged by Louis B. Mayer, pushed and denied a normal life, always encouraged to be different and promised that her fabulous voice would make her million dollars before the age of 20—it all happened, and Judy makes a weak stab at showing the enormous price she paid for stardom.

Unfortunately, what we get is a litany of unpaid bills, hotels that bounced her out in the middle of the night, endless custody battles with husband Luft, lawsuits, breakdowns and suicide attempts. What we don’t get are the happy chapters, the career triumphs, or the close bonds with her children (you’d hardly guess she had a daughter named Liza Minnelli, who appears briefly at a Hollywood party).

What you do get is an abundance of Zellweger. A curious and dubious choice, she squints her eyes in a terminal grimace while pouting, posing and pursing her lips like someone who accidentally swallowed a spoonful of turpentine. Having said all that, I confess Zellweger has some alleged alchemy, but none of the true magic that still keeps Garland alive in the hearts of millions. The one missing element from which Judy never recovers is Judy herself!

[Dianna]

Thanks Rick.. but nevertheless I want to see the movie. You probably know more about Judy Garland than I do.. As of late, I've seen a few of her documentaries and I'm very intrigued by her.. She had a very difficult and sad life. I never realized that... I'm sure they could have got somebody else to play Garland but in all honesty, I did a double take at Zellweger's portrayal and didn't know it was her.. If you know of any good documentaries about Judy please advise.

[rick]

Dianna, Thank you for your post. I actually just saw what I thought was the best documentary on Garland, not only her early years, but specifically about her later years. It’s called “Sid and Judy,” the “Sid” being Sid Luft, who was married to Judy during a significant time in her career. He was the father of her children Lorna and Joey. A&E actually did a very good documentary on her, too.



I believe it’s in this A&E Biography of Garland in which director Norman Jewison says he “has never seen talent treated so badly” as they treated her.


Her daughter Lorna was just interviewed on British TV and said she won’t go see it —

[erik]

If I can get in my two cents (or less):

The whole, I guess you could call it "controversy", over Renee Zellweger's portrait of Judy Garland is why I'm not exactly wild about a dramatization of Linda's life. Regardless of how one feels about Zellweger as an actress or her portrayal of Judy, it seems to me that she had an absolutely impossible task in front of her: portraying an iconic American entertainment figure who had a fairly troubled life, albeit also a hugely successful one, and passed away at a fairly early age in 1969. How do you satisfy everyone who is a fan of Judy Garland with a dramatization of her on film? You can't, it is absolutely impossible (IMHO). The same would, I think, be true if a dramatic film on Linda were ever done (though I think that train has left the station now because of the masterful real thing of THE SOUND OF MY VOICE).

I don't know if I'll see JUDY, but I don't think what any of the critics say about Zellweger vis-à-vis her performance as Judy should dissuade anyone else from doing so. Judge the film on its own merits, and not what anyone else says.

[moon]

Good or bad I don’t want to see the Judy movie. Watching the downfall of a great talent doesn’t entice me. I rather remember her talent . Just daying

[rick]

Erik, I agree, it's up to each person to decide whether a) they see the film, and b) what they think about it.

Here is a Tweet today from Ben Rimalower, who does a one-man show about his love for Patti LuPone, so he is no stranger to "diva worship."

[Dianna]

Thanks Rick..!!!

[fabtastique]

I can't wait to see it .....

[rick]

Another Review:

Headline: ‘Judy’ Is What Happens When a Film Loves Its Subject Too Much


electricliterature.com/judy-is-what-happens-when-a-film-loves-its-subject-too-much/

[erik]

Quote by rick:

Another Review:

Headline: ‘Judy’ Is What Happens When a Film Loves Its Subject Too Much


electricliterature.com/judy-is-what-happens-when-a-film-loves-its-subject-too-much/

It does prove a lot of what I had said originally: no portrait of so complex a star as Judy will ever satisfy everybody. Zellweger couldn't win for losing, no matter how good an actress she is (IMHO).

Now maybe I'm looking at this in a skewed way that others might not understand, but what bugs me about these reviews is that there seems to be a bias that the reviewers have had that "their" idea of Judy Garland is the definitive view, and if it isn't represented on screen then the film is a flop. This is absolute garbage. Only Judy's surviving daughters would ever know for sure what a complex person their mother was like. and, for what I can only consider understandable reasons, they're not going to see the film.

I'm not against honest reviews, even if they're not necessarily complimentary or I don't agree with them. I've said many times that reviewers don't have to be nice all the time to Linda herself. What I don't like are reviews that impose the reviewer's personal bias on the subject. Those really stick in my craw.

[the Scribe]

Maybe they should have waited until Judy was dead a bit longer. From the clips I have seen it looked ok to me. But trying to cover Judy Garland is like trying to cover Linda Ronstadt. Imitations don't hold up well not because they aren't done well but there is a quality in their voices that are difficult to capture. Any movie on Linda needs to use Linda's voice for the singing parts or it will fail. It will be interesting to see if her voice will eventually be deepfaked to where it is indistinguishable?

[Dianna]

I'm not an expert on Judy Garland but I think Ga Ga could have played her ...??

[Dianna]

Oct 10, 2019 1:19:55 GMT -5 the Scribe said:

Maybe they should have waited until Judy was dead a bit longer. From the clips I have seen it looked ok to me. But trying to cover Judy Garland is like trying to cover Linda Ronstadt. Imitations don't hold up well not because they aren't done well but there is a quality in their voices that are difficult to capture. Any movie on Linda needs to use Linda's voice for the singing parts or it will fail. It will be interesting to see if her voice will eventually be deepfaked to where it is indistinguishable?

She's been gone for 50 years. lol Perhaps you were joking.. If and when they make a movie about Linda.. yes, many of us, her hardcore fans are going to be picky. I was thrilled when Jo Jo played Linda on American Dreams? but there were are few things, beginning with her speaking and singing voice which really bugged me, it wasn't right, although she did get a few of the Linda's hand gestures right.. Good luck to whoever they pick.. lol

[erik]

Don't anyone laugh at this, but Renee won last night's Critics Choice Award for Best Actress for JUDY.

And she also just got an Oscar nomination.

[rick]

I am fearful.
I think Judy Garland was such an incredibly multi-faceted person that it’s almost as if they are giving Zellwegger awards (she got a Golden Globe, too) for just being in a movie as Judy Garland. Judy DID receive a “juvenile” Oscar for “The Wizard of Oz” (1939), but most of us Judy fans feel she was robbed when she didn’t win Best Actress for “A Star Is Born) (1954).

[JanMike9]

I think Linda could have been a top-notch Judy in a movie. Her stature, looks, and certainly her voice could have sold it. Now who could portray Linda? No one immediately comes to mind. I will cast a vote for good documentaries about such people, rather than portrayals. As good as Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis were in 'Me And My Shadows', I prefer 'Sid and Judy', not only for the new information therein, but how stylized the whole visual production was. Really enjoyed it, and own the DVD.

When any colossus of talent is explored, only their authentic existence and achievements can express their greatness. Are you curious to know what made great people great? Then listen to and watch them.

[alyn]

Yawn.... just listen to the original music, if it's your 'bag' - enjoy...there's nothing else you need