Girl Detective

#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.

After Drake was born, we had our three Netflix movies for three months, then finally returned them unwatched and cancelled our subscription. I’m not exactly sure what’s different, but since Guppy was born, I’ve seen twelve movies, three in theaters. Perhaps it’s that Guppy sleeps more than did Drake. Perhaps it’s that we don’t quibble about watching a movie with him–we put Drake to bed, watch a movie, then (try to) put Guppy to bed. Perhaps it’s the combination of giving myself a movie challenge, which puts it higher on my awareness and priorities. But I’m averaging two movies a week, both for the year and since Guppy was born. In case you want to congratulate me, though, please know that my house is filthy, my blog entries have been sparse, and my other writing has received almost no attention. Guppy and Drake are clothed and fed, at least.

My friend Blogenheimer posted this link to The Online Film Critics Society’s Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s. Curiously, the list doesn’t state what the “overlooked” criteria are, but since there are many movies on the list I haven’t even heard of, I won’t quibble about it. I’ve seen a little more than a third of the movies on the list, and agree that they were worthwhile, even if it was only in a ‘I liked this movie because of this specific thing’ way.

One of my husband G. Grod’s favorites–the Coen Brothers’ Miller’s Crossing–leads off the list. Particular favorites of mine include 45. My Neighbor Totoro, 63. Croupier, 75. Bottle Rocket, 86. The Secret of Roan Innish, and 99. Titus.

I do, though, quibble at the inclusion of Steven Soderbergh’s The Limey. It was a very good film, but not as good, and not as overlooked, as his previous one, Out of Sight, starring current media darling George Clooney and an actress who many believe can’t act, though I believe Out of Sight proves them wrong. Out of Sight also stars the very talented Don Cheadle.

#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.

Or do this year’s Oscar nominations not seem like complete crap?

Perhaps 2005 was just a really good year for movies.

I am baffled, though, by William Hurt’s supporting nominatino for A History of Violence. There were good things about that film; he wasn’t one of them.

#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.

#6 in my movie challenge for the year was Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain, which I saw in a theater rather than at home. A lot of people have gone to a lot of trouble to protest that this isn’t a movie about gay lovers. Actually, yes, it is. It is also a universal story about doomed love in a disapproving society. But the lovers are doomed because they’re cowboys in the 1960s. This movie is beautiful to look at, and strongly acted, particularly by Heath Ledger. It had a couple of nice ambiguities. One of them wasn’t how Ledger’s character’s wife found out, though. That happened too quickly and too definitely. It would have had more power if her discovery would have built over time. The subtlety of the rest of the film more than made up for this one detail, though.

#5 in my movie challenge for 2006 was Wuthering Heights, the adaptation from 1939 starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. Olivier is a better fit for Heathcliff than for Darcy, I think. Needfully streamlining Emily Bronte’s character-rich novel, the film does an admirable job of showing the complicated push/pull between the main characters of Cathy and Heathcliff. It also underlines what interesting and complex characters the two leads are, and allows them to be unlikeable. This is a much darker film than the 1940 Pride and Prejudice, and the differences between the films mirror the contrast between Austen’s and Bronte’s novels. There is much more passion and emotion, and there are far fewer manners, in Wuthering Heights.

#4 in my movie challenge for 2006 was the 1939 film version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson. While Garson looked too old to play Lizzie, she displayed enough humor that this wasn’t a serious detraction. Seriously distracting, though, were the dresses and the hats, embellished to outrageous degree in old Hollywood fashion. Olivier makes a fine, handsome, dark, and brooding Darcy, but the true standouts, as in most versions of the story, are the actors who play Mr. Collins and Lady Catherine. The screenplay was adapted by Aldous Huxley. While it’s good, I often wondered at the departure from the original material, especially the lack of its famous opening line. The lack of class conflict in this version, as well as the modification of the Lizzie/Lady Catherine confrontation at the end, make this a very light version of Austen’s book, which most would say is hardly heavyweight itself.

#3 in my movie challenge for the year was The Lady Eve, which I chose after enjoying director Preston Sturges’s The Palm Beach Story. Stanwyck is a card shark and femme fatale, and Henry Fonda is the rich naif who has been studying snakes in the jungle for a year. When Fonda finds out her “true” identity, he dumps her and she vows revenge. Much later, she shows up in his neighborhood pretending to be royalty. The humor, charm and stellar performances are so winning that the bumpy transitions are forgiveable.

#2 in my movie challenge for 2006, The Palm Beach Story sat on the Tivo hard drive for a while. Once we watched it, I felt bad for having ignored it so long. It was a fun, funny movie full of charm. It was directed by Preston Sturges and starred Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert. The beginning and ending were wildly, deliberately absurd. Both my husband and I were in grumpy moods when we started the movie; neither of us were by the end. This comedy (why can’t they make movies like this anymore?) has transformative powers.

#1 in my 2006 movie challenge was The Upside of Anger, starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner, directed by Mike Binder. Allen’s rage at the departure of her husband, ostensibly with his Swedish secretary, is a marvel to behold. Her neck tendons are SCARY. Costner is believable and charming as an aging, has-been hero–is he playing himself? Both leads are engaging, though the characters of Allen’s four daughters are less so.

The book and movie challenges I did last year arose out of frustration that two of my favorite pastimes got short shrift in the aftermath of having a child 2+ years ago. The goals were reminders that books and movies are priorities. I enjoy them and they engage my mind. Our next child is due in the coming weeks; I’m sure this will make a dent in the time and energy I’m able to devote to books and movies. Last year’s successful challenges show me to hang in there, because things change. They also remind me that motherhood is not synonymous with intellectual stagnation or atrophy. I will again try for 50 books and 50 movies. One of each per week feels manageable, for now.