Movies in June, Part One

Becca likes to do a book report at the end of every month of all the books she read. I feel lucky if I find the time to read one book. But ever since we got a subscription rental, we have watched a lot of movies together. I like books better, but the time commitment is a lot greater for a book. So here's some of the movies I've seen in June. 



The Fountain



It's hard to describe The Fountain in a simple phrase. The film follows three story lines with some of the same characters in each story. The first and most concrete plot is a present-day man (Hugh Jackman) who is working to find a cure for his wife's brain tumor. The second plot takes place in the book Jackman's wife (Rachel Wiesz) is writing, about Queen Isabella and a Spanish conquistador searching for the Fountain of Youth. The third and most abstract plot apparently takes place far in the future, where Jackman's character travels through space in a bubble with a sentient tree. All three plots meld together by the end, and it isn't quite clear which, if any, was the real one. The Fountain is a very strange film, but it is also gorgeous and mysterious. I wasn't quite sure what to think of it at first, but as it settled in my mind, I liked it very much.

∗∗∗1/2



Ocean's Thirteen



Ocean's Eleven was the kind of movie with plot twists and surprises that audiences love. Ocean's Twelve went too far, with a plot twist at the end that negated almost the entire rest of the movie. Ocean's Thirteen swings back the other way with almost no plot twists at all. By this time, we all know that Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his photogenic band of thieves are going pull off the heist. The only question is how. That might not be a fatal flaw in the movie, but the "how" in this case really wasn't that entertaining. Their motive in this case is revenge on casino owner Willy Bank (Al Pacino) for ruining one of their own, but the movie didn't make me care much about why they were doing it. Even the adition of Al Pacino didn't add much to the movie; his character was supposed to be powerful and menacing, but he was outclassed by the likes of Andy Garcia. Still, Ocean's Thirteen was better than Twelve, and it was a fun summer movie that didn't require me to think much.

∗∗



Becoming Jane

This is just the first of four Jane Austen-related films I watched in June. If you're not a fan, just skip these parts. Becoming Jane imagines the life of the woman behind the famous English novels. I wasn't really that interested in this movie (I'm not an Anne Hathaway fan) but it was okay. The film is loosely based on the brief engagement of Jane Austen, and it imagines how that relationship might have been and how it influenced Austen's writing. (And by "writing" I mean Pride and Prejudice, since that's all this movie seems to focus on.) I never got too invested in the characters, particularly because Austen's love interest, played by James McAvoy, was really just a scoundrel. I guess I was immune to his good looks and charm. Still, I liked the movie well enough to recommend it to other Austen fans.

∗∗1/2



Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls made a splash at last year's Academy Awards, with former American Idol singer Jennifer Hudson winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. The whole cast is quite good, including Eddie Murphy and Jamie Foxx. Even Beyonce Knowles is pretty good, which perhaps isn't surprising, since she's essentially playing herself. But Hudson definitely stole much of the show -- who knew the girl could act as well as she could sing? I also liked cameo appearances by John Lithgow and John Krasinski.



Like the Broadway play upon which it is based, Dreamgirls tells the story of a Supremes-esque singing group as they rise to the top, with plenty of drama and conflict on the way. The movie was good, but I got very tired of the music by the end. Maybe it's just not my preferred genre, but by the time Jennifer Hudson got to sing her voluble farewell solo halfway through the movie, I couldn't really appreciate it. Overall, I thought the movie was good, as were the performances, but it wasn't amazing.

∗∗∗



The Jane Austen Book Club



After seeing Becoming Jane, I got interested in re-imagining some of Austen's literary themes, so we rented The Jane Austen Book Club. The movie follows a group of people who form a book club to read all of Jane Austen's works. They all come to the club for various reasons, and they all have plenty of baggage. The participants in the club mimic many of the themes and characters of Austen's books, and like all Austen stories, they all have happy endings.



The movie has an excellent ensemble cast, and the screenplay does a good job of not neglecting any of the characters. I got a little annoyed with how transparent the characters sometimes were, but I suppose it was necessary to keep all the plots going. It wasn't an fantastic movie, but it was fairly entertaining and it got me interested in reading Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park, the two Jane Austen novels I haven't read.

∗∗∗



Æon Flux

There's no good way to say this: Æon Flux is a really stupid movie. It is loosely based on the gritty MTV miniseries of the same name, which featured a bondage-clad assassin, graphic violence, and some kinky sexual fetishes. Since that probably wouldn't translate well to the silver screen, the film adaptation got an airbrushed gloss that took most of the life out of the story. The result was a shiny sci-fi/action flick that had plenty of skin and special effects but very little plot or writing. I actually agree with a lot of the plot changes the movie makers made in adapting the series to the big screen, but they did a lot of dumb things too. None of the characters were believable, and I can't even count how many times the heroes got shot and then got back up to fight. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

∗



I'll do the rest of the June movies tomorrow Friday.