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Truman Capote researches and writes In Cold Blood.

Try as they might to force a dilemma onto him, Capote is just not half as interesting as the people he wrote about. And, sure, a lot of those people are in this movie, but they only really come across when the dialog is taken straight out of Capote's novel. I'm not clear about the ethics of using Capote's dialog in his own biopic (without crediting him). Capote is clearly presented as an unreliable source. And yet the strongest parts of the film are taken straight from his book, without any hints to the audience of what their source is. Strange. I guess I had a lot of bad things to say about it, but really, it's a perfectly all right movie. Very nice to look at. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is awesome.

Concept: D
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: A
Special effects/design: A
Acting: A
Music: D

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.6/4 ( )

The film was nominated for almost all the "big" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay--and Philip Seymour Hoffman won for the title role. It's the behind the scenes story of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, the story of the killing of a family in Kansas in 1959. Capote called it a "non-fiction novel" and pretty much kicked off the whole "creative non-fiction" genre mixing fiction and fact--a genre I myself feel very ambivalent about. I've read that book, and the writing is impressive--but Capote did create scenes, not just report them. This film doesn't really examine that, it's more about the way Capote (and his friend Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird fame) manipulated people to get their stories--although the film does suggest Capote paid a price for that. It certainly doesn't make for a pretty picture of the man, but it certainly makes for a rather involving film, especially given Hoffman's performance is first class. If I don't rate it higher, it's simply that this is not the kind of film I foresee watching again. ( )

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment