Knight at the Movies Archives
John Malkovich camps it up as a gay con artist, an eye opening documentary on a predatory industry, a birthday celebration
In Color Me Kubrick, John Malkovich has the kind of role that makes actors become actors in the first place.  Malkovich is
deliciously fun portraying Alan Conway, the gay Englishman that became momentarily infamous when it was discovered that he’d
been impersonating the reclusive film director Stanley Kubrick (who was straight) and dining out on it.  The film, subtitled “A Trueish
Story,” has heightened the facts for comic effect (especially Conway’s outrageousness) helping to lift it from appetizer to main
course.  Directed by Kubrick’s longtime assistant director Brian W. Cook and written by another of his collaborators, Anthony Frewin,
the movie is an enormously entertaining trifle.

Malkovich as Conway is deep into his impersonation as the film opens.  Within moments of meeting a cute art student at his favorite
gay bar, he’s brought him back to his tatty flat for sex.  But even as the two are trysting, another man, enraged, is out on the street
screaming for Mr. Kubrick’s attention.  We see Conway blithely trip up one person after another in this fashion in pursuit of free
booze, sex, food, and lodging (seemingly in that order).  All are taken in by the promise of stardom or reflected glory that Kubrick,
as both England’s and filmdom’s most reclusive person offers them.  

Kubrick, for the uninitiated, certainly would have been the ultimate “get” for celebrity hounds and reporters alike (he never, ever
gave interviews or made personal appearances).  For that reason, apparently, no one seems to blink as Conway switches accents (all
done badly) as often as he does cravats or as his fantastic claims pile up: not only is he Kubrick, he’s Shirley Bassey’s agent, the
child star who played Pip in Great Expectations, etc.  But everyone loves the idea of “Stanley Fucking Kubrick!” (as one character
loudly proclaims) and they overlook the fact that he doesn’t seem to remember much about his own pictures (with the exception of a
canny hustler Conway tries to pick up in a gay bar).  

Conway, with his wild 60s pop art get ups (designed by Vicki Russell, daughter of film director Ken who has a cameo late in the film),
seems dressed as if for a low rent production of
Boys in the Band.  These Queer Eye clothes help give the character the authentic,
grubby glitter of tawdry showbiz and the distracted selfishness, the drinking, etc. also seem understandable celebrity “eccentricities.”  
Those not immediately taken in by the impersonation lose their resolve when Conway starts dropping celebrity names that become
the currency that fund his audacious acts.  He momentarily hits the jackpot (and the film reaches its pinnacle) when he pairs up with
the lounge singer Lee Pratt (Jim Davidson).  Adopting his worst accent yet, Conway convinces the Liberace like Pratt that in exchange
for his generous hospitality he’s going to make him a star in Vegas.  But at last Conway has gone too far.  

Though the real life Conway had a far bleaker, tortured fade out the filmmaker’s have supplied the onscreen version with a sort of
nirvana finale.  After going through rehab, the National Health nurse assigned to Conway sends him to a posh spa to complete his
“cure” where we see Conway in a turban, delirious with pleasure as he lolls in a marble whirlpool, life once again having placed him in
the lap of luxury.

Throughout, the soundtrack has used selections of music from Kubrick’s later films (notably from
2001, Clockwork Orange and The
Shining
) and these, along with the Kubrick associated writer and director, the casting of Kubrick friends and actors like Marisa
Berensen from
Barry Lyndon in the movie, add to Color Me Kubrick’s tongue-in-cheek quality.  Like last year’s Bubble, the film, from
Magnolia Pictures, will be available simultaneously on DVD and in theatres (in Chicago at
Landmark’s Century).  The disc includes an
enjoyable behind the scenes making of featurette.

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“Nobody would watch “Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown” Robin Leach says at the outset of James Scurlock’s documentary
Maxed
Out.  While the famous longtime host of that ubiquitous TV show is on the money, one should make an exception for Scurlock’s
riveting documentary.  Exposing the behind the scenes workings of the credit card business, Scurlock presents a fair weather industry
that in the name of corporate profits has declared war on every credit card charging middle class and poor American – to the point
where one investigative reporter likens the current credit card system to modern day share cropping.  

Scurlock’s film illuminates one scary fact after another and even with the propaganda sounding subtitle “Easy Credit and the Era of
Predatory Lenders,” gives plenty of camera time to voices on both sides of what becomes increasingly clear is a true poverty line –
those with credit that can afford it and those with credit who can’t.  It’s a movie that infuriates and makes one sad for those living “a
life of anxiety and vulnerability” as one sympathetic expert on economics points out.  
Maxed Out is a sobering, feature length
variation on
Frontline’s recent episode on the same subject matter.  Powerful and eye opening.

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Hollywood and gay movie icon Barbara Stanwyck would have been 100 this year and to celebrate the Music Box has kicked off a six
week, Saturday-Sunday matinee celebration of several of her classic movies.  Stanwyck was noted for her versatility and portrayed
everything from showgirls to cowgirls, socialites, con artists and murderers (her Phyllis Dietrichson in
Double Indemnity which kicked off
the series is often credited as the ultimate femme-fatale).  “Stany” could be soft but never played a weakling and her strong yet
shamelessly emotional performances have been an example for many a lesser actress.  She also never re-married after the break-
up of her marriage to the impossibly handsome Robert Taylor and is speculated by some to have been a closeted lesbian.  

Regardless of her personal life, Stanwyck was devoted to work and Chicago's Music Box Theatre series will prove that by screening
just a few highlights of an enviable career that spanned over 40 years.  
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (March 24-25), Sorry Wrong
Number
(March 31-April 1), Ball of Fire (April 7-8), Forty Guns (April 14-15), Baby Face (April 21-22), Clash by Night (April 28-29), and
the sublime comedy
The Lady Eve (May 5-6) are on the bill.  Complete info at www.musicboxtheatre.com
Cons and Artist:
Color Me Kubrick-Maxed Out
3-21-07 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.