The Great Movie Conquest of 2022

The Great Movie Conquest of 2022 - June

I'll acknowledge I didn't get to dive as deeply as I'd hoped this month with my chosen theme. Part of that was poor planning, part of that is I'm discovering in realtime the limits of devoting one month to one performer's body of work, particularly when that performer is still alive. The performer in question is, of course, the effervescent Amy Adams.

Like most of my generation, I came to know Adams through her performance as Giselle in Enchanted. Her fantastic work in this role helped cement her as the doe-eyed naivete too pure for this world. Much of her work prior to her breakout role (Catch Me if You Can, Junebug, etc.) circled a similar note, as did many of her roles in the years immediately following (Doubt, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, etc.).

In the last decade or so, though, Adams has enjoyed more mature and grounded roles, as seen with movies like Nocturnal Animals or Arrival. Part of my conquest this month was to try to identify a specific turning point in her career.

It was around 2013, with Man of Steel and American Hustle, that I first started to notice Adams going for more mature roles, and so that's kind of where I assume she made the jump. But I'm finding there are films that complicate that hypothesis.

2010 had Adams as a world-weary bartender opposite Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter. Even as early as 2008, one year after her turn as Giselle, she featured in Sunshine Cleaning as a woman who spontaneously decides to start a biohazard clean-up business, and already she was starting to work outside that perfect portrait of wholesomeness. At the start of the film, Adams' character is having an affair with a married man, and she's also shown to be somewhat judgmental and condemning to her wayward sister (played by Emily Blunt). Even fresh out of her turn as a modern Disney Princess, Adams showed great ability in touching on other aspects of the human experience.

But of course, that's always been her secret weapon. Her performance in Enchanted wouldn't have been worth remarking on if she didn't have the ability to portray a literal 2D character with depth. She showed us that even something like "innocence" could signal a character with a complex inner life. Though she became more well-known for "weightier" roles later on (I'm especially interested to see how her evolution informs her approach to Giselle when she returns to the role in "Disenchanted" this fall), maturity has always been a part of her repertoire.

Elsewhere on this month's roundup, June month saw two more movie reviews from me. The first was for Jurassic World: Dominion, and the second was from Elvis. Both movies represent two different factions of film that are often viewed as opposing. "Dominion" is the culminating offering of one of the most successful franchises of all time while "Elvis" is an auteur-driven biopic Oscar hopeful. I know a lot of audiences view these as two separate masters that man cannot serve equally, but here at Films and Feelings, we don't abide by such fallacies. Both were really enjoyable experiences.

I was lucky to come across Robert Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People. This film, which took home the best picture of the year Oscar, follows a family grieving the loss of their eldest son. Even knowing the territory, I wasn't prepared for how vulnerable the film made me feel, and I've already given it a second viewing.

The votes for next month's theme are in, and I will spend July watching epic fantasy from the 1970s and 80s. I chose this time period specifically because it barely predates the age of CGI. Fantasy during this time looked and felt different than what we know today, and the results are endlessly fascinating.

Anyways, we are now halfway through 2022, and I am finally halfway through this fool's errand. I'd say I'm starting to get to that place where I look forward to not having to scramble for a new movie each day, but honestly I've been there since like Mid-March. (It's fine. I only have to do this 184 more times.)

By this point, I'm starting to ask myself how many of these movies I'm ever going to see again. Or even, how many of these I'm ever going to think of again. Odds are, very few of them. And this only further begs the question, what is the point, then, of all the countless films I'm consuming that are destined for me oblivion?

I'll be honest, I do not have an answer for this.

--The Professor

If July were just wall-to-wall with 9 and 10 star films, that'd be GREAT ...

June's Harvest

Big Eyes (2014)

The Omega Man (1971)

The Lure (2015)

Ordinary People (1980)
The Letter (1940)

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Network (1976)

Mission: Impossible (1996)

Boys' Night Out (1962)

Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

The Two Mrs. Carrols (1947)

High and Low (1963)

The Fighter (2010)

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)

Limitless (2011)

The Scarlet Letter (1926)

Office Space (1999)

Marathon Man (1976)

The Wings of Eagles (1957)
Loving (2016)

Black Gold (1947)

Ghost World (2001)

Golem (1920)

Elvis (2022)

Too Late for Tears (1949)

The River (1951)

The Big Sick (2017)

That Hamilton Woman (1941)

Enemy of the State (1998)

Blackboard Jungle (1955)

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