I watched just six movies last week. There was almost something like a theme to them.
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- Denzel Washington turns in a really interesting, often magnetic performance in Roman J. Israel, Esq. The movie around that performance is less interesting, but it’s well enough cast and made to be entertaining.
- Putney Swope is more a collection of satirical ideas than a movie, with a plot that’s both simple and convoluted, maybe even a little cluttered by ’60s surrealism. It’s not uninteresting, but it doesn’t really hold together and is only occasionally what I’d call funny.
- Heath Ledger is good in Ned Kelly, but everyone, including him, feels a little wasted into this overly quiet, even hushed version of the outlaw’s story.
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- Enola Holmes is charming enough, I guess, although honestly the mystery didn’t do a whole lot for me.
- Dolores Claiborne feels a little pedestrian and too familiar—it wasn’t hard to see where it was headed, even having never read the book—but Kathy Bates is good in the title role.
- Mike Leigh is known for long, improvisational rehearsals through which he and his actors build the characters and narrative. Meaning that there’s a real lived-in quality to what finally appears on screen, which is what makes Vera Drake so engaging—along with Imelda Staunton’s terrific performance.
I also re-watched Citizen Kane, which I hadn’t actually seen since college. You know what? Pretty good movie.