Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Tuesday's Overlooked Movie: De-Lovely

(This post originally appeared in somewhat different form on June 14, 2006.)

I enjoy the occasional biopic, and this movie about Cole Porter and his career is a pretty good one. I like Porter's music a lot, and there's plenty of it in this movie, done in period scenes by contemporary performers like Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Natalie Cole, and the great Diana Krall. Not only that, but the cinematography is excellent, meaning that this is a move that looks and sounds gorgeous. The storyline, although accurate in the details of Porter's life, comes across as pure Hollywood hokum most of the time, but as a long-time devotee of hokum, that didn't bother me at all. Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd and the rest of the cast do a fine job. The setups for some of the musical numbers occasionally verge on silliness, but again, that's okay with me as long as there aren't too many of them. All in all, I had a good time watching this movie. That's about all I ask of a film these days.

1 comment:

Rick Robinson said...

Interesting, George Kelley did this film just a week or two ago.