#19 in my movie challenge for the year, Wedding Crashers is a serviceable comedy that ably showcases how funny Vince Vaughn is (his annoying-ness is well-modulated here, unlike in Made) and how charming Owen Wilson is. Blonds aren’t usually my thing, but I’d make an exception for Owen.
#18 in my movie challenge for the year, Triplets is simultaneously creepy and wonderful, with distinctive art and delightful music.
#17 in my movie challenge for the year, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit begs only one question in my mind: could those bunnies be cuter?
#16 in my movie challenge for the year, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was on TMC’s month of Oscar roster. Both clever and funny, it has aged suprisingly well, both technically and narratively.
#15 in my movie challenge for the year. This is the movie I wanted to see a few months ago, but went to see March of the Penguins instead, becoming perhaps the only person to hate that film. Better pimps than penguins, I say. No one picked the pimp song to win an Oscar, which I found strange. Is it possible to see Hustle and Flow and not be humming that tune, no matter the lyrics? I also appreciated how the story had an easily predictable path that the creators did well to avoid.
#14 in my movie challenge was The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Sweet and smart, it’s the best modern comedy in recent memory. Paul Rudd, especially in the sequence at the end, thows himself into his role with delicious abandon. I wish this movie had received Oscar attention for best actor, film, and original screenplay.
#13 in my movie challenge for the year was Lawrence Kasdan’s western, Silverado. The good guys are all very good. The bad guys are all very bad, and further, they all wind up dead by the end. Sorry if I’m spoiling anything for you. This movie contains every plot point from every western, yet its energy and good will let it transcend cliche. A young Kevin Costner plays a charming, immature cowboy. This was apparently Kasdan’s way of apologizing for cutting him out of The Big Chill almost entirely. (Costner played the dead guy, whose funeral was the occasion for everyone else to get together. They filmed scenes with him, but none made it into the final cut.) Silverado isn’t a great film, but it’s a good movie with a good heart that’s a lot of fun to watch.
#12 in my movie challenge for the year was Nicholas Nickleby, which was highly praised by Roger Ebert when it came out years ago. My husband and I watched it over two nights. We enjoyed the first part, but then my new film guide arrived and I read a scathing review. We didn’t enjoy the second half nearly so much. Did the review jinx it, or did the weaknesses of the film become more apparent? In any case, don’t bother.
#11 in my movie challenge for the year was a challenging film, Terence Malick’s The New World. I heard several people on their way out say, “I didn’t get that movie.” I don’t think it’s inaccessible, but it requires something on the part of the filmgoer in order to appreciate it. As is typical of Malick’s films, The New World is beautifully filmed, and centers on themes of human violence in the midst of idyllic natural scenes. Colin Farrell as Captain John Smith is a maddening anti-hero in the spirit of Hamlet–introspective, hesitant and passive. Music is deftly deployed. I found it a little too romantically fixated on the natives. Overall, though, this was a beautiful, provocative film and I’m glad I made the effort to see it in theater rather than at home.
#10 in my movie challenge was Walk the Line, which I saw in theater, and has one of the best film posters of recent years. The movie didn’t fit exactly with its trailers–it’s more a chronicle of Cash’s general decline than it is a love story. I can understand why Roseanne Cash walked out of the screening; whether or not it’s largely “true,” it’s often painful to watch. Phoenix and Witherspoon are talented and charming as the leads. The music is great, the prison scene powerful, and this movie made me wish for a time machine. Why? To go back to a show that featured Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others playing together. That would’ve been a hell of a show.
#9 in my movie challenge for the new year was Nausicaa, the animated classic by Hayao Miyazaki. Like most Miyazaki films, it features a smart, brave young girl who is often wiser than the corrupt adults who surround her. This also features other Miyazaki trademarks, such as warnings about the environment and disrespect of nature, and grand, industrial flying machines. The voice talent in the new adaptation is suberb, and helps bring this powerful eco-fable to life. It’s a beautiful story that is beautiful to look at. Here, now, is the kind of princess that little girls should aspire to be.
#8 in my movie challenge for the year was Made, with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau, directed by the latter. I think this was recommended by someone in the wake of Wedding Crashers as another good movie with Vaughn. I disagree. This movie is just over 90 minutes, but Vaughn’s over-the-top annoying character is so excruciating to watch that the first hour is so painful to watch that my husband and I nearly gave up. I think it was Nigel St. Hubbins who said that there’s a fine line between clever and stupid. There’s also a fine line between funny and painful, and too often Made is on the wrong side. The last half hour, in which Vaughn is less obtrusive and Favreau comes into his own as a mensch, didn’t redeem the film entirely, but did mitigate the pain of what went before.
#7 in my movie challenge for the year was the new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, I thought Keira Knightley was too pretty to play every-woman Lizzie, and I thought the music in the trailer overwrought and obtrusive. Since I love the story, though, and since it was well-reviewed, I went to see it anyway. It was worth seeing, though it had some flaws.
First, I was wrong about Knightley. While she is quite pretty, her infectious smile and laughter made her a good fit for smart, funny Lizzie. Further, the Bennet household was believably shabby, while the Bennet daughters wore dresses that got dirty in realistic ways. Much has been made of Donald Sutherland as Mr. Bennet, Brenda Blethyn as Mrs. B, and Dame Judi as Lady Catherine. They are established actors who do good work in these meaty roles. What impressed me more, though, was Claudie Blakley, who was allowed to look convincingly plain as Charlotte Lucas. She also gave this more minor character a depth unseen in other productions. Tom Hollander did an admirable turn as the toady-ing Mr. Collins.
The less effective elements, though, were several. Matthew MacFadyen as Darcy was stiff, angry and handsome enough to be good, but not nearly as smolderingly sexy as Colin Firth, who so embodied Darcy in the 1995 production that he may have made the role unplayable by other men. MacFadyen looked well striding purposefully across a misty field in an open-necked shirt at the end to declare his love (again) to Lizzie, but it was at that point that the music swelled so obnoxiously that the effect was somewhat ruined. As with the 1939 version, I was disappointed by the lack of the famous opening line, and surprised by the many changes to Austen’s very good prose. The ending, though, left me appalled. Darcy and Lizzie are married and alone. He finally kisses her, while intoning “Mrs. Darcy” over and over. This is hardly a fitting ending for Lizzie, who has spent the entire film standing up for herself and her individuality.