Month in Review: November 2012

Continuing to catch up on the Bond series, I finally got to the Roger Moore era--the man who was Bond when I first discovered the series as a kid--with Live and Let Die, a weird movie with 007 coming across the pond and inserting himself into a blaxploitation movie. Of course, November saw the release of another Bond, the newest installment, Skyfall. This is the third and best of the Daniel Craig movies, probably the leanest and most coherent of the three and a nice sort of re-appropriation of the series' iconography.

Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror was one of two Snow White adaptations this past summer. And while this, in my opinion, may not be as good as Snow White and the Huntsman, it's lighter and funnier and in its own way as visually impressive as that earlier film. Worth a look and currently streaming on Netflix.

I got invited by a couple of female friends to the acapella comedy Pitch Perfect. I'm not at all a fan of the recent acapella craze of the past few years (I can't really stand Glee, for many reasons), but I have a particular soft spot for Anna Kendrick, so I looked forward to it anyway. It's a silly movie, in ways both intentional and unintentional, and a frivolity, but it's also much funnier than I expected and even the musical performances didn't make me want to cover my ears.

Steven Soderbergh's Haywire may have come and gone from theaters this year and was overshadowed by his surprise summer hit Magic Mike, but it was a pretty entertaining, straightforward action pic. Also available on Netflix Instant.

Re-watched Lincoln and it still held up beautifully. Read further thoughts in my original review.

An indie about alcoholism sounds pretty grim and Smashed certainly has those moments but it isn't lifeless, carried by a terrific vanity-less performance from Mary Elizabeth Winstead.