Screened: In the theater
The kind of romantic movie I could see watching again and again when it's repeating on HBO next year. Not terribly edgy, but largely inoffensive, and granted a huge assist by Vanessa Redgrave's performance. Kings was probably doomed no matter what, but it was refreshing to see how much more charismatic Christopher Egan can be when he's not being forced to do an American accent.
June 2: Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Deeply, deeply weird, and not really in a fun way. Burton created an interesting visual world, and largely used his cast of talented actors well, but the story was too often weighted down by excessive exposition and mythology. Isn't the whole point that Wonderland is supposed to defy explanation? The parallels drawn with Alice's life in the real world offered the potential for interesting commentary on the societal expectations surrounding a young woman of relative means in the late nineteenth century, but I can't endorse the film's "empowerment-via-imperialism!" conclusion.
June 5: Camelot
Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch
Prompted by watching Letters to Juliet - it makes an interesting companion piece, if only for showing how foxy Franco Nero was back in the day. As far as mid-century composing teams go, I've always been more of a Rodgers and Hammerstein person than a Lerner and Loewe one, but I think Camelot is slowly growing on me.
June 7: Lili, Funny Girl
Screened: At home, DVR saved from TCM
After months of conflicting DVR recordings, I finally caught Funny Girl this time around. Though she had previously played Fanny Brice on stage, it's still astounding that this is Barbra Streisand's film debut - she completely owns the role. I'm always interested to see films that recreate old or obsolete performance types and spaces - in this case, the Ziegfeld Follies. It's impressive to see that kind of "cast of hundreds" staging, which so seldom happens today in the age of CGI crowds.
June 7: The Proposal, 28 Days
Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch
The Sandra Bullock montage that accompanied her award at the MTV Movie Awards (Generation Award? Something like that) prompted an evening with a couple of solid entries from her filmography. Substance abuse/rehab stories are probably one of the stranger entertainment subgenres for which I have serious affection, and 28 Days has been one of my favorites for years.
June 8: Shutter Island
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Not one of Scorsese's greater films, as far as his whole filmography goes, but I would rank it second among his non-documentary output of the past decade. July's Books Read will likely contain some comments on the book from which it was adapted, as I'm really curious to know more about how the two works compare, especially since the story deals so much with perception vs. reality.
June 10: Serenity
Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch
The reason there's nothing listed for the two days between this entry and the last one is because I spent them bingeing on Firefly. I probably shouldn't be surprised anymore when I fall madly and obsessively in love with a show, but somehow they always catch me unawares and drag me down the rabbit hole. (I feel I should note that this prompted me to decide that resisting Buffy was no longer a viable option, which is why there are so few movies and no books listed for the rest of the month. Ultimately, I had to accept my fate as a Whedonite and move on.) I enjoyed Serenity a lot, but I do have to say that I would rather have seen its plot points played out over another season of television than contained within a two-hour movie.
June 18: Invictus
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
June 22: The Last Station
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
And thus the 2010 Oscarwatch concludes. I don't know yet whether I'll still write the posts I was thinking about when I started working my way back year-by-year. I'll say here that both films were good, but not great, and probably got the appropriate amount of attention from the Academy (though I could see complaining for years to come about Matt Damon getting nominated over, say, Paul Schneider in Bright Star. But that's another rant for another day.)
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