I'm a big fan of Ernest Hemingway so the HBO produced Hemingway and Gellhorn naturally drew me in.
Oh what an awful show. I mean really bad. But it was so bad that it became good in an Ed Wood sort of way. I can't believe that as I type this - the show has an 8.3 rating out of 10 on IMDB. It was crap. But unintentionally funny crap.
To start off - it has lots of name stars. You start playing - I know that guy! And I know that guy! And that guy! From Clive Owen as the cartoon Hemingway to Nicole Kidman as Martha Gellhorn. The only positive thing I can say about Kidman's performance is at least she gets naked (in one of the most awkward sex scenes I've ever witnessed). Robert Duvall makes an appearance as some Russian general. I kept waiting for him to say "I love the smell of Communism in the morning!" Tony "Monk" Shalhoub was a Russian propagandist. Awesome character actor David Strathairn was John Dos Passos except I think he was actually playing "gay eye for the anti-fascist guy." Molly Parker played Hemingway's wife Pauline and in one scene where she explained that her money bought Hemingway his nice things and even his manhood - I almost expected her to explain that her money came from a gold mine in Deadwood.
All-in-all it was a bad, bad film. But so bad that I might actually watch it a second time.
