Ugh. Have I not posted my July Roundup yet? Sorry! Life is sucky at the moment. 😦
Here’s my ranking of what I watched in July. I got Mubi in August, so I’ve seen a lot of good movies this month which I’ve already reviewed on Letterboxd, so I may post those here this week…
And Just Like That…: S2 E4-7 – God I hate this show so much. At least they brought Aidan back, the only character who isn’t an asshole.
BOOKS READ
Um. Don’t think I read any in July? Things are a bit tough at the moment to manage anything beyond movie-watching with earphones in the wee hours when everyone else is asleep…
BLOG PLANS FOR THE COMING MONTH
None! Catch up on posting reviews of what I watched in August, I guess. Saw some good ones! And some Argento!
Upcoming Movies I Want To See:
Have missed so many. 😦 Really wanted to see the new Indiana Jones even though I know it’ll be disappointing. And want to have time to watch Babylon, M3gan, and Dungeons & Dragons which are now on services. And to binge about 10 to 15 more movies on my £1 Mubi month so I can cancel before it’s full price…
I’ll finish with a song from Air as it had a fantastic soundtrack of existing songs. Lots of Tangerine Dream & of course ’80s pop hits, so I loved it. Hard to choose which one to post as there were so many good ones used in the film. I’ll select the one they used from The Alan Parsons Project, Sirius, to make my buddy Film Miasma happy:
Almost done reviewing everything I watched in July. Here are three I enjoyed. I’ll try to review the final ones sometime next week, which were four Bruce Lee movies I binged while they were on services.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)
Directed by Philip Kaufman
Based on The Body Snatchers 1955 novel by Jack Finney
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The plot involves a San Francisco health inspector and his colleague who over the course of a few days discover that humans are being replaced by alien duplicates; each is a perfect biological clone of the person replaced, but devoid of empathy and humanity.
My Opinion:
This was pretty great. It’s very much my type of story so I had watched the 1956 film years ago as a young sci-fi, Twilight Zone loving kid. Slightly prefer this 1978 version just because ‘70s & ‘80s films will always be my favorite but both are sci-fi classics with a brilliant underlying social commentary that can be applied to any modern time period. Think we’re due for another adaptation as the story is probably even more relevant to today’s emotionless, social media obsessed society. Could be fantastic with the right director (certainly better than the 2007 version I can’t even remember now or the 1993 one I didn’t even know existed). Clearly a timeless story ripe for an adaptation for each new generation.
My Rating: 8/10
Possession (1981)
Directed by Andrzej Żuławski
Starring: Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Heinz Bennent
Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia) The plot obliquely follows the relationship between an international spy (Sam Neill) and his wife (Isabelle Adjani), who begins exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking for a divorce.
My Opinion:
Well this was a doozy. Wanted to see this for years as it’s a highly rated horror from my favorite era of the ‘70s & ‘80s. Man, I hated this at first. A married couple just SCREAMING at each other? Wow. Fun. But then it went absolutely fucking bonkers with body horror & gore & disgusting tentacled sex and I was like “That’s more like it!”.
Can’t say this is gonna be a new favorite of mine, though. I’d never want to suffer through watching these two freaking the fuck out at each other for the first half of this movie ever again. But, being a fan of David Cronenberg & that type of body horror, I appreciated the crazy second half of this. I’d never actually read too much about this movie or seen many images so was quite surprised at how extreme this thing goes. I was expecting a more “artistic” horror based on the cool posters I’ve seen. Which it sort of is, but I don’t think the movie is quite as deep as it thinks it is. I do like that there can be different interpretations of the story (besides the obvious “break-ups suck”). There’s certainly some symbolism going on in this and, yes, I love that kind of shit & like spending time reading up on these kind of movies when I finish watching them. But, seriously, they really just wanted to make a movie with a pretty lady & some tentacle sex.
Well, it’s a movie I’ll always appreciate seeing as it sure as shit is memorable & I’ll always choose memorable over boring. And I’ll probably rate it fairly highly & I can see it moving up slightly in my rankings of all the movies I’ve seen this year. But, man, watching the start of this thing was pure torture.
My Rating: 7.5/10
Kickboxer (1989)
Directed by David Worth
Starring: Jean-Claude van Damme, Dennis Alexio, Dennis Chan, Michel Qissi
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb) Kurt Sloane must learn the ancient kick boxing art of Muay Thai in order to avenge his brother.
My Opinion:
I’m loving watching these old JCVD movies that I completely ignored at the time. Amazing how many are the same damn story, too, just with inventive new ways to get him doing those sexy splits. This one is just Bloodsport again (although that one remains my favorite). This also has the stupidest yet sexiest dance scene I’ve ever seen in my life. Was wondering which film that was in! My life is now complete.
Cinema Parrot Disco 