Rating:  -
I was very pleased with the wonderful acting jobs from all of the stars in this film. James Franco was very authentic and believable. Michael Moriarty as Winton Dean was cast perfectly as the often indifferent and cold father. The film was made for TV so it didn't delve into James Dean's childhood very much, but what it did show gave me a good feel as to what it was like. Usually I don't notice background music in movies, but the jazzy saxophone music in this movie really gave me the feel of what New York in the 1950's was like! I highly recommend this to everyone!
Rating:  -
As a fan of James Dean, I was both anxious and excited to see this film. It is very entertaining to watch, and the performances are superb. James Franco as James Dean is absolutely captivating. He steals every scene, just as Dean always did. He has every mannerism down: his mumbling and awkward persona, the shyness that was often mistaken for rudeness. Franco even comes across as an insomniac (as Dean was). Any Dean fan will appreciate the obvious homework that Franco did to prepare for his role. And the look of 50's New York is very raw and realistic. You can almost feel what it was like to be a struggling actor in that Golden Age.
But I must also warn Dean fans that you may be upset by some of the untruthful dramatization. At the end of the film they (the filmmakers) even admit that many parts of the movie were dramatized and even imaginary! For one, Marty Landau and Christine White were not the only close friends Dean had. They were only a few of the handful of people who knew Dean. But this is a movie... time constraints, you know? The film also relies a little too heavily on Dean's relationship with his father. They make it seem as though Dean spent his entire life's existence trying to make his father proud. They also only touch on Dean's homosexual exploits for a few minutes, and in fact if I hadn't known beforehand about his "experimentation" of said subject, I probably wouldn't have even caught it in the film. But I congratulate them on having the guts to include it at all, as many people deliberately overlook it. They also turn his love affair with Pier Angeli into a "star-crossed lovers" tragedy. The film makes it seem as though Pier was his first and only love, but if you're a Dean fan you know that he loved many women. Dizzy Sheridan and Arlene Sachs, just to name a few... There is also a scene I found disturbing, in which Jimmy slaps Pier across the face and then makes love to her. I have read all about Jimmy Dean but I have never read that he ever hit Pier. But alas, movies must include conflicts...
It may seem as though everything I've written is a film-bashing review, but in truth, I love this movie! If you're an avid Dean fan you will applaude Franco's performance, but may sometimes shake your head in disapproval at the fabrications. If you are a newcomer to the Dean World, I recommend that you read some of his biographies before you watch this film, so that you will be able to pick fact from fiction. This film still deserves 4 stars... Kudos to the talented James Franco for bringing Jimmy alive!
Rating:  -
I cannot believe all the positive reviews of this film! Mark Rydell did a very poor job of portraying "The Real" James Dean...Any real James Dean fan can point out countless inaccuracies in this film and some of it is not just inaccurate, it was MADE UP! I've read scads of Jimmy's biographies and have a pretty good idea that Rydell took a good deal of the bad stuff about Jimmy. I thought he made him look like a real heel and ignored the more positive aspects of his personality. A more accurate film of Jimmy's life is the Michael Brandon portrayal of him that was based on Bill Bast's fifties biography.
Rating: -
I first saw this movie when it aired on TNT a few years ago and I was very impressed. I had never been a James Dean fanatic, but I wasn't indifferent either. I was born 15 months after Dean's fatal car crash and as I grew up I had heard about James Dean and saw his movies. I remember being especially moved by Dean in "East of Eden," (and falling for "Cal" alittle) when I first saw it in the 1970s. I had been told that James Dean had died in a car crash right after he finished making "Giant."
I recently bought this movie after seeing a group of Dean's friends talking about him on a special "Larry King Live." I am also reading a book about him.
James Franco does as good a job of portraying James Dean as anyone could. He did a great job of capturing mannerisms and postures, and the mumbling speech. This is a very well made movie, and a very sympathetic one. Its such a shame we didn't get to see Dean in more movie roles.
Rating: -
great movie and its a tv movie and i enjoyed it beacause I love James Dean. Franco is really the person to do the job ro retell how his life went and how it suddenly left after the tradgic car crash. thought the movie at the end said the guessed on some of the parts and it doesnt bother me. the actors really doa good job portraying who Dean worked with. a gem of a movie. a must have in anyones collection or if anyone is a fan of Dean
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