Life With Judy Garland: Me & My Shadows (2001)

Kudos to writer/producer Lorna Luft, actresses Tammy Blanchard and Judy Davis and director Robert Allan Ackerman for creating a poignant portrait of Frances Gumm and her doppelgänger in Life With Judy Garland: Me & My Shadows. The 45 years go by in three hours as you're immersed in the glamour, angst and humanity of the iconic entertainer. Be sure to listen to the informative DVD commentary in concert with the film; Luft and Ackerman (among others) offer information about Garland and how her real life was dramatized for television.

---

...Celebrity (1998)

In Celebrity, Woody Allen continues his reinvention as a young goy with Kenneth Branagh taking on the writer/director's eccentricities without a hint of nuance or shame. Even the most interesting scene between Judy Davis and Bebe Neuwirth as an uptight New Yorker and her hooker/sex teacher (guess who played who) seems poorly directed and photographed. The story concerns a bunch of celebrities and hangers-on in New York City which, in the end, feels presumptuous, pretentious and predictable.