BEHIND THE CANDELABRA! What did you think? — Page 4

I absolutely didn't LOVE the film itself, but I thought the performances were excellent. I loved Rob Lowe. He stole it for me. I found Micheal Douglas's Librace to be cringe-worthy, but Liberace was cringe-worthy, so it worked. Matt Damon was great.

I was surprised by the things they seemed to skip. I never really got to the heart of their relationship. Was it just an old creeper wanting a young beautiful boy and a young kid wanting a lifestyle or was there actual affection? It's tough to say and wasn't clear cut. They just dropped the adoption angle without explaining why only to bring it back after the breakup, again, without explaining why they didn't do it. I would have, at least, liked to hear how Scott got off the drugs.

And finally, maybe I am reading too much into it or it's the result of a skewed view due to the autobiographical subject, but I felt an underlying "AIDS as punishment," theme. Liberace cheated. Scott, according to him, was faithful. Liberace was a bottom or, at least, versatile. Scott refused to be bottom, to the point that it was obviously a point of contention. (I have big problem with the "bottom" shaming within the community, anyway.) Of course, Liberace ended up contracting AIDS and Scott was fine. Sure, maybe that's how it played out in real life, but it wasn't because of Scott's behavior. Scott was very lucky and I wish they would have touched on that more.

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Updated On: 5/28/13 at 08:15 AM

Ha ha. I swear, I thought that was what he said his name was to Bob in the bar an then I got it stuck in my head. I have a newborn and watched it during night feedings. lol

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Sad -- a TV movie of the week level wallow in the slime pit, with a healthy dash of "Ewwwww! FAGGOTS!" thrown in. That sudden appearance of the AIDS crisis via a newspaper headline about Rock Hudson was really cheesy, as was pretty much the rest of the film. A shallow film about, admittedly, some pretty shallow people that never demonstrates the wit, intelligence, style or even basic human decency of other films in a similar vein, like Burton's ED WOOD.

I'd hoped for better, I really had. This film could have profited from the attentions of the director of SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE, you know, the Steven Soderbergh who manages to bring people to life in interesting and revealing ways. Instead we got the schlock meister of the OCEAN films -- glitz and schlock and smirking vapidity. Liberace deserves better.

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I also Agree with Kad. Liberace didn't want to come on to strong because he needed to get him in his bed, once he got him there, pretending went out the window. It was all part of Liberace's plan.

Thanks for the advice, John

>> This film could have profited from the attentions of the director of SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE, you know, the Steven Soderbergh who manages to bring people to life in interesting and revealing ways.

"HBO's Liberace biopic, "Behind the Candelabra" has generated so much buzz thanks to its subject matter (the tormented relationship between the pianist and his much younger lover, Scott Thorson) and its well-known leading men (Michael Douglas and Matt Damon), it's easy to forget it also happens to be the last film directed by Steven Soderbergh before he goes into self-imposed exile from moviemaking."

From the LA Times article posted
HERE

I think this movie was made completely for Michael Douglas, and by Soderbergh, as a vanity project.

According to Douglas, the idea of him playing Liberace was first brought to his attention by Soderbergh when they were working on Traffic. Douglas tells the story (including a tiny example of some "Gay panic" on his part) in his recent interview on The Graham Norton Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klYObyJ33D8&t=2m12s

Soderbergh chose Scott Thorson's book (Thorson being a pretty "tabloid" character in his own right) as the source material for what may be the last movie he'll ever make - at least for a while.

Considering that info, I think Soderbergh wasn't interested in making a movie that people should consider to be accurate, or factual like a "biopic". I think it's more likely he just wanted to do a "last project" that would give Douglas the opportunity to play Liberace and prove his "viability" as an actor after his bout with cancer. In other words, I don't think the plan was so much to make a good movie about Liberace as it was to create a challenging vehicle for Douglas in his "last" (we'll see...) film.

Updated On: 5/28/13 at 10:26 AM

Was Tyler Perry an executive producer?

My mind went there, too.

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Liberace on Oprah, 3 months before his death, 1986.

http://youtu.be/Bl-jRHQ3mus

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Did you notice what the average age of the audience members must have been?

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This image best describes how I felt watching this movie: Guilty, titillated, sad, curious, giddy, and ultimately ashamed

Updated On: 5/28/13 at 10:52 PM

jg2 I didn't realize you guys had your baby! Or did I? Either way congratulations!

I didn't realize that Scott was only 17 when they got together. Probably because Matt Damon is so much older. I thought Scott was supposed to be about 24.

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"In other words, I don't think the plan was so much to make a good movie about Liberace as it was to create a challenging vehicle for Douglas in his "last" (we'll see...) film."

What an asinine observation.

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Updated On: 5/29/13 at 12:53 AM