January Movie-Watching Wrap Up
I have not stuck to my writing resolution, but I have stuck to my movie-watching resolution - I’m already at 22 films watched for the year, with 7 directed by women, and while that number feels small, keep in mind that once again there are no women nominated for Best Director at the Oscars, which is just one reason that it is still frustratingly difficult to get access to new female-helmed movies on the big screen. (I wish my life involved trips to film festivals all the time, where you have a better chance at catching some of the films that I can only read about right now. Le sigh.)
Since I’ve been lax in writing, I’m doing a quick-and-dirty recap of the films I saw in January (which it turns out I really like typing up, so maybe I’ll keep doing this in future months. We’ll see.)
January 2019 Films: #4 through #16 for the Year
- Dumplin’ (2018)
- Bird Box (2018)
- Stan & Ollie (2018)
- The Lady Vanishes (1938)
- The Assassin (2015)
- The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018)
- Death on the Nile (1978)
- Mary Queen of Scots (2018)
- Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
- Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
- Desert Hearts (1985)
- Vice (2018)
I loved ‘The Lady Vanishes’ and ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’ - for totally different reasons, but I still loved them equally. I particularly loved the two cricket fans in ‘The Lady Vanishes’ - they were just so fantastically English. Also no, I did not recognize Daario from ‘Game of Thrones’ until I looked at Michiel Huisman’s IMDb page, so clearly winter needs to hurry up and get back on my screen, I’m beginning to forget things.
’The Assassin’ was a very beautiful film, really visually stunning, but if you aren’t into the meandering, non-Western-type narrative, you probably won’t like it and you’ll complain that I said it was great and worth seeing, so if that’s you, please don’t watch it (or at least don’t @ me). Let me put it another way - when you read the plot summary, you may expect something a lot more raucous and dramatic than what you actually get, which is more of a lyrical martial arts avant-garde film.
I’m all here for Sandra Bullock as a people-hating survivor of the apocalypse, and I was more than happy to buy into the creature concept and enjoy ‘Bird Box’, but if your takeaway from that film was to blindfold yourself and your children and drag them around with you, then you are incredibly bird brained.
I think Kenneth Branagh could take some inspiration from the 1970s adaptations of the Agatha Christie novels that he is currently making, because the Sidney Lumet ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ was much better than his, and I will hazard a guess that the new ‘Death on the Nile’ will lack something in comparison as well. (Please note that in this wandering sentence I am not trying to imply that the 1978 ‘Death on the Nile’ was directed by Lumet - it was directed by John Guillermin, and Lumet’s Christie adaptation is superior to his. But it was still probably better than Branagh’s will be.)
‘Mary Queen of Scots’ was just the right fuel for my ever-simmering rage fire against the idiocy of the patriarchy, and I could have watched Saoirse Ronan in the titular role for several more hours without getting bored. (Also, who the hell cares whether the two queens really met? That scene was so bloody fantastic, I certainly don’t. Margot and Saoirse are just too good.)
‘Stan & Ollie’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, and ‘Vice’ show off the range of the ‘biopic’ genre - I enjoyed each of them for different reasons, yet I found myself with Queen songs stuck in my head for weeks, so I guess that film wins?* Quick shout-out though to whoever chose ‘America’ from West Side Story to start the credits of ‘Vice’ - I barked an involuntary laugh of surprise and appreciation at that abrupt tonal shift.
If you want a fun mix of female led and directed movies, look no further than the trifecta of ‘Dumplin’’, ‘The Spy Who Dumped Me’, and ‘Desert Hearts’. I legitimately cannot choose between them as to my favorite, because they are so different, but all pretty damn great. Hat tip to the Dolly Parton soundtrack from ‘Dumplin’’, because who doesn’t love Dolly. And if you are my age, here’s your fun fact for the day: Reno, NV used to be the divorce capital of the country! No seriously, if you don’t know about it, then the premise of ‘Desert Hearts’ is a little hard to grasp, so I had to do some research after watching the film. But it’s a fascinating fact. Nevada is a weird place.
And I finally watched ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ - I’m very late in the game I know, but it was fun and romantic and just a good ol’ fashioned romcom/fairy tale that is best enjoyed with chocolate truffles and a glass of wine. Also I’m a little bit in love with Awkwafina, not gonna lie.
That’s it for January! I’ll be back with more movie musings in a while - recently I watched a trio of in-hotel offerings that included ‘Upgrade’ and ‘Blockers’, so there’s a teaser of what is upcoming. Ta for now!
More Posts from My 2019 Movie Resolution
(Listen, I have read the opinion articles and complaints regarding ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ If I were writing an expansive review of the film, I would dive into that quagmire a little more, but let me be clear - Bryan Singer is garbage, and he got fired from this film, so at least some shit is finally catching up to him. Rami Malek was fucking fantastic, no debate there really. When it comes to chronology and replicating exact events, this is a Hollywood biopic - you have to expect that at least 50% of what you see is manipulated, changed, or somehow bullshit. That’s “based on a true story” for you. And finally, I cannot speak for anyone who is gay who feels that this film somehow blamed Freddie’s sexuality for his troubles; if that is your takeaway, it’s more your right than mine to have that opinion. I will say I personally didn’t see that - I saw someone vulnerable who was massively manipulated by someone close to him, someone he believed he could trust, which caused some of the subsequent troubles and pain, and to me that is a pretty universal theme.)