Reel Insight Episode 53: Kate Winslet

Sorry this is late, but the holidays got in the way (we enjoy the Canadian and American Independence Day celebrations this close to the border so that's a lot of independence).  Rachel and I talk about an actress from our favorite movies, I sing a silly little song, you get some crazy out-takes, we still don't quite get Twin Peaks and we basically just had a ton of fun.  So will you, check it out!

New movies watched with Kate Winslet:

Heavenly Creatures - This is a crazy movie.  Melanie Lynsky is really a New Zealander!  Kate Winslet doesn't get naked, but does commit murder.  Peter Jackson's first feature film is a sign of greatness to come - the story of two crazy young women who become obsessed with each other and the dream world they create that leads them to kill in order to protect it.  Nutso! Oh, and Kate Winslet's character is currently a best selling author, Anne Perry.

Quills - It was fairly inevitable that a movie would be created about the Marquis de Sade.  He was completely f&*'ed up.  The level of violence in the sexual novels he writes prevents him from being a literary or particularly creative person, but mostly just screwed up.  The movie follows Winslet, a maid in a mental institution housing the Marquis.  She passes his writing outside the prison and flirts with him.  Meanwhile Joaquin Phoenix is the administrator of the asylum and also in love with her.  Really screwed up movie that I just couldn't get behind, though the acting is pretty fantastic.

Iris - Really really sad story, also a real person, Iris Murdoch.  Kate plays her as a young woman flirting with Hugh Bonneville, while Judi Dench plays Iris as she's falling into Alzheimer's as her husband, Jim Broadbent turns in an Oscar-winning performance letting out a lifetime's worth of pent up anger.  Really terrific movie that is as good as it is heartbreaking.  Wonderful performances, particularly about a relatively unlikeable woman.