Carmen

• Director: Valerie Buhagiar
• Writer: Valerie Buhagiar
• Starring: Natascha McElhone, Steven Love, Michaela Farrugia

Grade: B

When we’re first introduced to Carmen, the titular heroine of writer/director Valerie Buhagiar’s film, she seems to be in the throes of a comfortable life. She’s the sister of her Maltese town’s Catholic priest and, despite the fact that nobody in town likes or respects her, she’s mostly content. She’s live with him in the parish’s rectory since she was 16, and she considers her role as his care-taker her own full-time job. Naturally Carmen is a woman of strong religious conviction, so when her brother suddenly and unexpectedly dies, leaving her essentially homeless, she begins to question exactly how big a role her faith should have in her life going forward.

Blonde

• Director: Andrew Dominik
• Writer: Andrew Dominik
• Starring: Ana de Armas, Bobby Cannavale, Adrien Brody, Julianne Nicholson, Evan Williams, Xavier Sameuls

Grade: C-

Has any Hollywood star loomed larger over pop culture since their discovery, and lingered even longer after their death, than Marilyn Monroe? Whether directly or indirectly, the blonde bombshell has appeared in too many biopics and fictionalizations to count in this column since her untimely death. Her life is the stuff of legend, and her tragic exploitation at the hands of virtually everyone that she trusted is well known by now. So what could be gained by making a new account of her life, based on Joyce Carol Oates’ novel of the same name?