The rare script, such as Robert Getchell's for the Patsy Cline story Sweet Dreams (1985), starring Jessica Lange, strings together the biographical events in a way that not only gives the star a coherent character to play but brings that character out in the romance episodes. Cline's ascent to stardom while battling with her mother and her husband intensifies without distorting the conception of the character. The character and the life story become two terms for the same fact, which feels undisguisedly factual. You cannot say as much of De-Lovely, Ray, Kinsey, Beyond the Sea, or The Aviator. A bumper crop is not always a good thing.

You can find this review and a lot besides at The Kitchen Cabinet.

Alan Dale is the author of What We Do Best: American Movie Comedies of the 1990s and Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.