Colour Me Kubrick (2005)

So-so movie. Mostly quite dull. Details Alan Conway's impersonations of Stanley Kubrick in 1998, but every impersonation/con doesn't add anything to the previous one. It's pretty much same ole-same ole, and quite quickly. The only redeeming features are the final few scenes - quite poignant and often hilariously funny. If it wasn't for those scenes this would be a 3/10.Decent performance by John Malkovich in the lead role, though he didn't have to try too hard - seemed like every performance he has ever made.And no, this isn't strictly for Stanley Kubrick fans. I am a fan and was disappointed. The movie is about a Stanley Kubrick impersonator, not the man himself, so really has nothing to do with Stanley Kubrick himself.

This is an ugly little film in every respect. Story and character, execution and performance are all unpleasantly displayed in a film that remains leaden from start to finish.It opens abruptly with Alan Conway, an alcoholic, fashion challenged gay man assuming the identity of uber famous but reclusive director Stanley Kubrick. This masquerade manages to induce drink, entry, money and sex from awestruck strangers. He's fortunate most of the time not to be exposed since he's done little research to pull off his deceptions and in one instance is unmasked when he accepts credit for a film most people know he didn't make.As the dissolute Conway, John Malkovich is too affected to be effective. His over the top flaming performance borders on a nauseating stereotype. It's as if he is an outrageously gay man being John Malkovich.The one lone conceit that shows a semblance of some wit in this film is the utilization of Kubrick's famous scores to accompany Conway on his journey. It's fun, a moment of light parody that is quickly buried under the mean spirited actions of the lead and misery of his powerless victims that permeates this unctuous work.

i went into this expecting a documentary, or a biopic, or at least a drama that examined the events that occurred around this guy. what i got was a crappy comedy that played like a rip-off of catch me if you can. it seemed to me like they filmed several separate "incidents" that they found funny, then remembered that films are supposed to have plots, so they threw in one scene introducing his roommate as some guy smoking pot on his couch, and then we were expected to have an emotional reaction later on in the hospital scene when he's there and malkovich is pretending not to recognize him? the subplot with the escort service went nowhere and neither did the newspaper one. this director needs some practice.

"Color Me Kubrick" will remind you a bit of Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me if You Can," in which Leonardo Di Caprio played a world-class con artist who duped people into believing he was a myriad of Very Important People whom he was really not. In "Colour Me Kubrick," the imposter is a man named Alan Conway who goes about London telling people he is the famed (and famously reclusive) director, Stanley Kubrick, in order to bum rides, free drinks and even sexual favors off of them. I guess it's appropriate that I just happened to catch this film on April 1st of all days.Written by Andrew Frewin and directed by Brian W. Cook, "Color Me Kubrick" is clearly a godsend for its star, John Malkovich, who seems to be having the time of his movie-acting life doing this role. Malkovich tailors his demeanor and accent to fit the audience to whom he is playing, running the gamut from Capote-esquire fey for his gay "clients" (Conway is himself gay) to regular-guy macho for his straight targets. Yet, Malkovich never resorts to mere playacting to create his effect; by fully inhabiting the character, he keeps Conway from descending into a merely clownish figure and allows him to register as a fully fleshed-out human being.Unfortunately, although the screenplay is frequently witty and even downright hilarious at times, the movie itself is never quite as good as Malkovich is in it. Despite its overall originality, there's an innate one-note quality to the setup that the movie cannot completely shake, so that, even at a mere eighty-six minutes, the conceit tends to wear a bit thin after awhile. The filmmakers somewhat make up for that weakness by also showing us the means by which Conway is eventually unmasked for all the world to see. There are also a number of surprisingly poignant moments in the film in which we are shown just how sad, lonely and pathetic an individual Conway really is. The most touching sequence comes when a movie-savvy young man in a bar uncovers Conway's ruse by trapping him with a trick Stanley Kramer question. As Conway slinks away from the scene humiliated and crestfallen, we can clearly see why Malkovich is one of the finest actors of his generation.Beyond the Conway character, the film provides a gently satirical jab at our culture's overwhelming obsession with celebrity and our willingness to suspend critical judgment on a person or a scheme if we can discern a benefit for ourselves by doing so. For, indeed, virtually everyone who allows himself to be duped by this impersonator has starry-eyed dreams of one day making it big in either the entertainment business or the world of corporate financing. Conway has merely come up with a clever way of exploiting that obsession for his own personal benefit.There's also something wryly humorous in the fact that, although Kubrick is universally recognized as being one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, his face was so unfamiliar to both the general populace and even people in the movie industry that Conway was able to pull this ruse off for so long without getting caught. Can anyone imagine an individual trying that same stunt with Spielberg, Tarantino, Scorsese, etc.? This is a slight but endearing comedy that is a must-see for John Malkovich fans.