[Michael Hastings] has composed a dirge to incompatibility, which, because it raises expectations only to defeat them, leaves a taste of exhumed ashes.

It is said that no star is a heroine to her makeup artist.

Years from now, when cinephiles are asked to name the movies' golden age, they'll say it was when Cate Blanchett was in them.

Every artist undresses his subject, whether human or still life. It is his business to find essences in surfaces, and what more attractive and challenging surface than the skin around a soul?

The visual palette suggests the creepy pastel paintings of Guy Peellaert (Rock Dreams); the fantasy battles with monsters and samurais echo the muscular landscapes of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo. The movie is like an arrested adolescent's Google search run amok.

Mausoleum air and anguished pauses: If this production were a poem, it would be mostly white space.

Hollywood was born schizophrenic. For 75 years it has been both a town and a state of mind, an industry and an art form.