New Movie News

Clint Eastwood directs a powerful biopic in J. Edgar. In a little over two hours the director takes us through the complicated life of J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of The FBI. Leonardo DiCaprio portrays the man who held the position until his death at age 72. It is an amazing portrayal. (DiCaprio underwent six hours of make up transformation to play the elderly J. Edgar Hoover.) Between the talented director and lead actor they manage to paint the tormented Hoover as a sympathetic character. And that wasn’t easy to do because the man was despicable! In J. Edgar, Hoover was a ruthless and cruel FBI director with little regard for the civil rights of the people he classified as “subversive” or “criminal”. He was also a man with some real “momma issues” which conflicted with his latent homosexuality. Oh, he was a complicated man! Judi Dench plays Hoover’s mother in the film. Her performance reminded me of some of the characters Betty Davis often played in some of the horror...