Saturday, April 14, 2007

Jason watches "The Hoax"

And it's pretty good. Maybe not quite as good as its 86% tomatometer score would suggest, but pretty good. The acting was solid, especially Gere and Molina. It's, of course, the true story of Clifford Irving duping McGraw-Hill into publishing his completely fake autobiography of Howard Hughes. And the more outrageous elements (like Watergate being a result of Nixon's paranoia about what might be in the book) can be at times grating and at times hilarious. The whole movie is a question of reliable narration, and it could be viewed completely straightforward but for a few scenes. In the end, I decided it's in fact more enjoyable if you believe it's more (intentional) lies than truth, and at that point it'd be interesting to go back and watch it from the beginning believing everything is a lie. But at that point, I can't help but feel a little cheated.

No comments: