'Capote' came from Netflix today

[Oeditpus Rex]

Tell me how much I'm gonna love it.

But no spoilers, please.

[Kire]

1. I'm jealous.

I saw it in the Theater twice. I hear it's got some great extras on the DVD.

[Duer 157099]

2. I saw it last week

PSH was extraordinarily good, but then he's one of my favorite actors anyway.

Also, I had just watched In Cold Blood a few days prior, so it followed it up nicely.

[Beware the Beast Man]

3. Great film. Not what I expected.

Not a full-blown biopic, mind you, but it focuses on his research for "In Cold Blood." Highly recommended.

[Placebo]

4. Absolutely outstanding.

I don't buy many films, but I bought Capote.

[bridgit]

5. it's a good movie, but capote was a bona fide little shit of a user...

[smoogatz]

6. Philip Seymour Hoffman is brilliant.

He's the best American actor of his generation, bar none. The film's beautifully shot and well put-together; the writing's excellent and the story's pretty devastating. You'll like it.

[Paladin]

7. Watch The Harper Lee Character

There's a new bio out on her (read a review of it in "Salon" a few days ago) that claims that her contributions to Capote's "In Cold Blood" were more extensive and crucial than she's ever been credit for.

Great movie, by the way.....

[LostinVA]

8. Harper Lee is a bit nutso in real life

Trust me, I know... but Keener plays her to real-life perfection in "Capote." She almost acts a s a Greek Chorus for the audience. PSH is incredible.

And yeah, many people think Lee pretty much did 99% of the research and extensive rewriting of the book... so much so, that she basically WROTE the book.

Even though they had been friends since childhood, Capote never forgave her for winning the Pulitizer....

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. Okay... I didn't love it

Hoffman was brilliant, but I didn't get much beyond that. (I've read "In Cold Blood" like four times.) I thought the other actors were average — particularly Clifton Collins Jr., especially since the Perry Smith character was so prominent.

That's the main problem I had with it: A more apt title might've been "Capote and Little Perry," since the film focused on that relationship. That bugged me, because from the book it's apparent that Capote spent as much time with Hickock as with Smith. Yet, no one but Capote (obviously), Harper Lee and Smith got any character development — and even they got not enough. We got no idea from the film what brought these people to where they were, except that Capote read a story in the New York Times about the murders.

I also hate historical inaccuracies, and they changed the names of a few people for whatever reasons. Nancy Clutter's friend who found her body wasn't "Laura Kinney," but Susan Kidwell. Another friend, Nancy Ewalt, was with her. Nancy Clutter's boyfriend wasn't "Danny Burke," but Bobby Rupp. And the wife of the sheriff — actually, the undersheriff; he and his wife lived in the sheriff's residence at the courthouse — was Josephine "Josie" Meier, not "Dorothy Sanderson." Her husband was Wendle Meier.

Good film, though. Just not as good as I'd hoped.

Edit: The really big guy with glasses you briefly see being led to his execution is Lowell Lee Andrews, "the nicest boy in Wolcott." He killed his entire family when he was like 17.

[AtomicKitten]

10. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing as Capote.

However, the movie only portrays a slice of an otherwise colorful life and career.