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Behind the Candelabra

Behind the Candelabra (2013)

May. 26,2013
|
7
|
R
| Drama Romance

Based on the autobiographical novel, the tempestuous 6-year relationship between Liberace and his (much younger) lover, Scott Thorson, is recounted.

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Baseshment
2013/05/26

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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ThedevilChoose
2013/05/27

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

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Humaira Grant
2013/05/28

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

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Scarlet
2013/05/29

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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paul2001sw-1
2013/05/30

The persecution of gay people in the 20th century had some strange side-effects. Take the career of Liberace, the celebrity pianist, who styled himself according to the most outre social conventions of the gay community, but sued anyone who mentioned his sexuality. Liberace also had a series of semi-contractual relationships with much younger men, which one can see as the sort of thing a certain type of rich person might chose to do, but which surely seemed more natural in a world where a more orthodox relationship was socially prohibited. Steven Sodebergh's film shows us scenes from Liberace's life, but also portrays a very odd person and it doesn't really manage to make us feel sympathetic at a personal level, however much one acknowleges the potentially hostile world he had to navigate. Perhaps a full biopic, showing how he became the man we see in this movie, would have been more revealing.

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alexdeleonfilm
2013/05/31

PLAYING KETCHUP. WITH Hollywood FLIXX. MISSED IN L.A. Behind The Candelabra was viewed in Budapest on August 20, 2013. At long last, the Liberace Story, starring Mike Douglas as Lee-Berace and a bleached blonde Matt Damon as his younger lover, with Debbie Reynolds as Liberace's mother, also Rob Lowe as a sleazy pretty-boy dietary and beauty adviser looking too young to believe. A lush-plush Weinstein production that was surprisingly good. Viewed at the Pushkin Mozi in Budapest in a nice intimate 77 seat theater. This is the best work Douglas has done since Wall Street - kind of an amazing comeback for an actor who was on the ropes both career-wise and physically with cancer only two years ago. Douglas is spot-on as Liberace all the way and Damon is a sufficiently convincing bi-sexual lover. -- 180% removed from his usual Action Hero screen persona. The film was probably rejected by many people who just couldn't see ordinarily macho heroes like Douglas and Damon on screen as gay lovers, but director Sonderbergh makes the most of this counter to expectation casting. Damon also played a non action character in Sonderbergh's last film about fragging ...so it looks like Matt is now trying to be accepted as an actor, not just a star. There is plenty in this pic for the gay audience to chew on but aside from that this is a slam-bang biopic of one of the most flamboyant and popular entertainers of the mid XX century -- now perhaps largely forgotten because sexual gaieté has become so mundane that many may have forgotten how outrageous it was was for a figure so much in the public eye as Liberace was to flaunt it back then. Today this would be a story about gay marriage -- back then the issues were much more complicated.The pic only deals with the late career of this amazing showman from 1977 to 1985 when he died of AIDS. A newspaper headline announcing the early death of macho actor Rock Hudson Is seen momentarily to underline the fact that LIberace's demise from AIDS marked a turning point in public perception of this plague - especially in the entertainment world.Douglas is simply excellent -- arguably his best film ever!--but I would attribute Damon's success in portraying a gay to Sonderbergh's direction. The whole picture has class, while it could easily have been a cheap portrayal of a screaming drag queen catering to the Gay&Les crowd, which it most certainly is not! Some of the nude in bed scenes, man to man kissing scenes and the discussions between the actors of who gets to do whom and why in masculine love making may make some male viewers cringe, but this is one of the many things that makes this picture so true to life -- too true in fact for it to have been the box office smash it should have been. Also, the reconstruction of Liberace's on stage performances in Vegas with some amazing keyboard pyrotechnics is alone "worth the price of admission" and Douglas shines in all of these scenes -- to the point where you forget that this is the actor Mike Douglas! Bottom Line: One of then best pictures of the year, and Mike Douglas deserves the Best Actor Oscar without a doubt. If he doesn't get it somebody ought to eat their shoe ...

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Prismark10
2013/06/01

Now it seems bizarre that many people although acknowledging Liberace was camp did not think he was gay. As a young child when his television specials were shown I was aware that there was something effeminate about him even though I had no idea what homosexuality was. He even would have a female companion in these shows, a wink at the audience that he was maybe straight.Behind the Candelabra is a film from Steven Soderbergh with Micheal Douglas playing the entertainer as a reptilian predator of young men. Preening, vain, bejewelled, promiscuous and yet empty. A bit like the top of his head when he took off his toupee.Matt Damon plays his teenage lover Scott Thorson, who is taken by a friend to see Liberace's Las Vegas show and then backstage is bemused by the attention lavished on him by the older star who showers him with gifts and love and eventually ejects him with little dignity as a newer, younger model enters the scene.Of course the film is based on the book by Thorson whose own veracity has been questioned and whose account might be self serving. It is not helped that although Damon looks buff in the disco infused late 1970s era, at the age of 43 when this film was made, he was frankly too old to be playing the teenage Scott Thorson.Douglas who for a period was a sex symbol with sex thrillers such as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct is having a hoot camping it up as Liberace, not afraid to show his vulnerable side. Ultimately the only person he had a real relationship with was his mother played here by Debbie Reynolds.I found the whole drama too shallow and maybe even too safe. After all there is nothing here we have not seen here before, it is just that the gold digger would be a young woman who is the plaything of a successful older man.

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jc-osms
2013/06/02

This uncompromising backstage dramatisation of the turbulent relationship between celebrity pianist Liberace and his much younger lover Scott Thorson was a compelling watch. As I watched it, it took a little time for me to get over the sight of Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, two celebrated uber-masculine action heroes playing such camp characters plus their over-familiarity as stars if anything detracts from identification with their parts here but the fact that both absolutely throw themselves into their roles saw them convince me in the end.Liberace in real-life conducted himself as a family favourite, particularly with his female audience, playing popular piano pieces in cabaret and projecting a debonair if very camp image, on and off-stage, owning the inevitable L.A. mansion, with a grand piano in every room, innumerable fancy cars and of course his elaborate rhinestone-heavy stage costumes. Behind this facade however was a ruthless businessman, determined to preserve his self-image (woe betide the publication which levelled charges of homosexuality at him), in addition a controlling and sexually voracious individual who attended male-only brothels, watched hard-core gay porn and groomed young male wannabes into becoming his latest playmate. Douglas is excellent at portraying his character's at the same time compelling but repellant nature, flaunting his squeaky-clean image in public while living a life of decadent sleaze after hours.Into his orbit comes a young blonde bisexual country boy called Scott Thorson who very soon supersedes Liberace's then live-in boyfriend, attracted by the older man's charm, riches and power until too late he realises that he's being made over in his lover-employer's image and developing a drug addiction in the process. The power struggle between the two is fascinating to watch even if it is of course heavily slanted in Liberace's favour. The question here really is did Liberace corrupt and waste a young innocent's life or was Thorson a willing participant in the gravy train, happy to go along with it from the start.Director Siderburgh I think tends to the former viewpoint, although it's clear that Thorson is no angel himself. On the other hand, Liberace too is no one-dimensional character and it is the older man who calls up the younger as he nears his end from AIDS, fondly remembering their earlier happy times.I like this ambivalence, allowing the viewer to come to their own judgement on this particular lifestyle of the rich and famous. No corner is cut in exhibiting the pianist's excessive lifestyle although I was grateful that the love scenes between the two, although not ignored, was toned down somewhat for easier consumption. The acting is excellent, especially by the two big-name leads while Rob Lowe steals his scenes with a centre- parting like the Red Sea as a creepy plastic surgeon.I'm not surprised this film received so many Emmy plaudits and commend the director and cast for taking on a tricky subject and delivering such compelling viewing.

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