Films in 2020
Happy new year! May it be better than the last.
I normally post my top 10 or so films of the year*, but, obviously, I went to see far fewer films in the cinema than usual this year, a total of six, which is probably the least since I became a teenager. They were: Little Women, Bombshell, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Emma., Birds of Prey: or the Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn and Misbehaviour (in chronological order). Themes include: literary adaptations, films about the making of TV, strongly female casts and feminist themes. Five of them were directed by women.
So instead of doing a list of my faves, I’ll rank the ones I saw in reverse order of preference:
Birds of Prey (which is what everyone ended up calling it, right?). This was fun - at times, a lot of fun - and owned its trashiness. Many of my favourite scenes were quite violent. I enjoyed Robbie’s Harley as the chaotic anti-heroine at the centre of it all.
Bombshell uses women’s voices powerfully, although I’m not sure its tonal decisions were always the best. Despite a preponderance of white, blonde and attractive women (the top three not played by Americans), we did see a variety of types, and this probably featured the most distressing movie scene of the year for me.
Despite the full stop, Emma. was not the definitive adaptation of the novel (still Clueless), but a very enjoyable, visually stylish one. Once I got over the ‘this is not what I expect in a U film’ scene, I had mixed reactions to its changes from the novel, but thought Anya Taylor-Joy attained what Paltrow was straining for and there was real sizzle between Emma and Knightley. Also Bill Nighy is my favourite Mr Woodhouse. Misbehaviour was the last film I got to see in the cinema, feeling as if I had to sneak it in before the inevitable lockdown. It tells the story of the women’s liberation protest at Miss World 1970 in a nuanced way, following the protestors and those involved in the pageant. The Beeb showed a documentary soon after, Miss World 1970: Beauty Queens and Bedlam, which showed that what really happened was even more incredible.
Little Women was a vital and warm-hearted adaptation, which made the smart choice of telling the story in two timelines, changing the view of the ships, foregrounding Jo-as-a-writer, but getting in most of the memorable scenes from the books. The soundtrack and costumes are great, Ronan is ‘capital’ as Jo and matched by Pugh as Amy. I was also so glad I went to see the heartfelt, emotive and decent A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Like its subject, US children’s television’s Mr Rogers, (about whom I knew very little) it shows that it takes work to be positive and good. I had more quibbles coming out of Little Women, but then I was more invested in the source material.
* Past lists can be found here: at Dreamwidth from 2012 on and at Livejournal for a more comprehensive list.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/449277.html.
I normally post my top 10 or so films of the year*, but, obviously, I went to see far fewer films in the cinema than usual this year, a total of six, which is probably the least since I became a teenager. They were: Little Women, Bombshell, A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, Emma., Birds of Prey: or the Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn and Misbehaviour (in chronological order). Themes include: literary adaptations, films about the making of TV, strongly female casts and feminist themes. Five of them were directed by women.
So instead of doing a list of my faves, I’ll rank the ones I saw in reverse order of preference:
Birds of Prey (which is what everyone ended up calling it, right?). This was fun - at times, a lot of fun - and owned its trashiness. Many of my favourite scenes were quite violent. I enjoyed Robbie’s Harley as the chaotic anti-heroine at the centre of it all.
Bombshell uses women’s voices powerfully, although I’m not sure its tonal decisions were always the best. Despite a preponderance of white, blonde and attractive women (the top three not played by Americans), we did see a variety of types, and this probably featured the most distressing movie scene of the year for me.
Despite the full stop, Emma. was not the definitive adaptation of the novel (still Clueless), but a very enjoyable, visually stylish one. Once I got over the ‘this is not what I expect in a U film’ scene, I had mixed reactions to its changes from the novel, but thought Anya Taylor-Joy attained what Paltrow was straining for and there was real sizzle between Emma and Knightley. Also Bill Nighy is my favourite Mr Woodhouse. Misbehaviour was the last film I got to see in the cinema, feeling as if I had to sneak it in before the inevitable lockdown. It tells the story of the women’s liberation protest at Miss World 1970 in a nuanced way, following the protestors and those involved in the pageant. The Beeb showed a documentary soon after, Miss World 1970: Beauty Queens and Bedlam, which showed that what really happened was even more incredible.
Little Women was a vital and warm-hearted adaptation, which made the smart choice of telling the story in two timelines, changing the view of the ships, foregrounding Jo-as-a-writer, but getting in most of the memorable scenes from the books. The soundtrack and costumes are great, Ronan is ‘capital’ as Jo and matched by Pugh as Amy. I was also so glad I went to see the heartfelt, emotive and decent A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Like its subject, US children’s television’s Mr Rogers, (about whom I knew very little) it shows that it takes work to be positive and good. I had more quibbles coming out of Little Women, but then I was more invested in the source material.
* Past lists can be found here: at Dreamwidth from 2012 on and at Livejournal for a more comprehensive list.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/449277.html.