A to Z Challenge 2020 - E

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
Director: Shekhar Kapur
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Clive Owen, Geoffrey Rush, Samantha Morton, Rhys Ifans, Eddie Redmayne
Brief Thoughts: A sequel to a historic drama is pretty rare, but we’re talking Queen Elizabeth and Cate Blanchett. Besides Blanchett, easily one of the best and most interesting actors of her generation, there’s also Clive Owen, dashing as Walter Raleigh. Eventually there will be a third one, and maybe then the series can be duly appreciated.

Elizabethtown (2005)
Director: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst
Brief Thoughts: I guess even directors in Hollywood can be drummed out of their popular careers. Cameron Crowe had a number of huge successes before Elizabethtown, including Jerry Maguire, and then...Well, now it hardly seems as if he were ever a thing at all. Orlando Bloom, likewise, was a victim. He had two massive franchises to his credit, Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean, and thanks in large part to the latter he was unquestionably the big winner to come out of the former. But his solo career sputtered eventually, not for lack of his continuing appeal, highlighted by his American romance adventure here, with a Kirsten Dunst never more sweetly appealing alongside him.

Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014)
Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton
Brief Thoughts: There is no director working today more committed to or consistently making better historical dramas than Ridley Scott (Gladiator, Kingdom of Men, Robin Hood), but because one of them was a massive hit and the others weren’t, you’d hardly know it. This was his Moses epic, and of course it was caught up in the nonsensical “Hey! Let’s pretend Hollywood shouldn’t cast movie stars in its movies!” craze that asked instead for cultural accuracy. And no one ever flocked to a culturally accurate film depicting someone else’s culture (uh, unless it’s the rest of the world watching Hollywood movies). Anyway, the absolute best thing about this movie is Joel Edgerton in his career best performance, a piece of character work that proves how good and magnetic he really is.