Rock Hudson's Home Movies

An intriguing project, but by no means a success, this is a reimagining and reinterpretation of RH's body of work with the gift of hindsight about his sexuality and early death from AIDS. The film clips are great fun, and speak volumes about the tension between Rock the Movie Star and Rock the Man. That's the problem - by comparison, the device of the actor impersonating Rock gets in the way, underlining the obvious and forbidding the viewer from drawing his/her own associations. Rock belonged to the last dawning of the studio era and shone gloriously, consistently even in the dopiest and most compromised of his films. This narrator looks/sounds NOTHING like Rock and his presence on camera makes the film look like the grad school project I suspect it is. A shame, because there's a real story to be told, and Rock deserves a stronger stand-in. We miss you, Rock.