The Green Knight 

First time watch 

This has been on my list for ages and I hadn’t gotten around to it mostly because I thought it was going to be scary and I have a low tolerance for even remotely creepy movies, however, this was not scary! Just deeply weird ❤ I have a group of friends that get together to show each other our favorite *niche* movies (probably no one else has seen them, a little on the fringe, etc.) and this was my friend Bronte’s pick— I loved it. Dev Patel plays a gorgeous but emotionally stunted knight in a dream-state medieval landscape. He is delightfully thick and immature but must venture out and discover the weird and haunted world nonetheless. It features the inexplicable boyfriend of Sabrina Carpenter and one of the best to do it as far as little freaks in movies, Berry Keoghan, playing yet another(!) weirdo boy. Visually this movie is a feast (real meditation on GREEN) and it’s one of those movies that every frame feels like it could be painting. As someone who doesn’t really believe that time is real, I felt very seen by this movie. The ending sequence was fantastic. 

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind 

First time watch 

As previously mentioned, I am having a real Joni Mitchell moment, I truly could not be more delighted that she gave up her beef with Joe Rogan enough to put her music back on Spotify. I heard about this doc in a book I read recently (Good Material by Dolly Alderton, it was very funny), and I thought I should investigate. I loved it; Joni is a very strange woman, I would not be surprised if it turned out she was a witch. Also did a bit of blackface back in the day! Yet another L for white women smh. The bit I liked the best from the doc was where she was talking about painting, something she was formally trained to do and then quit to make music. She explained that after an album cycle, she would return to painting and focus on that for a while and she credits this habit for how much interesting work she has been able to produce– she called it creative crop rotation. Love that idea. 

Mad Max: Fury Road

Rewatch 

I think this is the best action movie ever made! An absolute miracle of a movie. I rewatched this just a little bit ago to prep for Furiosa (which I thought was great but not nearly as good as this) but I wanted to rewatch it again before I read the book about the making of, Blood, Sweat, and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max Fury Road (excellent). I love that in a movie that is essentially one long car chase, it somehow packs in messages about environmentalism and gender— a very funny joke! The ending for Mad Max’s character is flawless, no notes, the look he gives is perfect and ultimately, it isn’t his movie. As far as Furiosa’s ending, when I first saw it in Obama’s America I didn’t even question the “women inherit the earth” message, however, now in this, brat summer, it feels a little naive. In one of the (many!) drafts of the script, there was an ending that included a power grab by one of the wives, leaving the movie on a much more ambiguous note and complicating the “everything would be better if women were in power because they are just so wonderful naturally” message. I think I *personally* would have liked that better as one who believes that women can also be corrupted by power because they are not immune to the human experience—I’ll say it, women, can and do sometimes suck! So brave ❤

Snack Shack 

New Release 

As one of what feels like the 7 people who saw The Fablemans a few years ago, I have long been a member of the Gabriel LaBelle fanclub and he is an absolute star in this movie. This is a summer vibes/ summer job/ boy movie in the same vein as Dazed and Confused, Superbad, or American Graffiti, and had me thinking about going to the waterpark with my friends (boys AND girls, it was a big deal) when I was in middle school in the hottest possible weather imaginable. It is about two friends, young hustlers that run the snack shack at their local public pool and, as my favorite Letterboxd review says, most definitely grew up to cause the 2008 financial crisis. Besides my guy Gabriel, it is not particularly well acted and is a little clique but I had a really nice time and it felt like everyone who made it had a really fun summer which is sometimes all you need.

Gladiator

Rewatch

After watching the trailer for the new Gladiator movie approximately 239 times I decided it was time to rewatch this absolute banger, especially as the new movie looks like it going to be something along the lines of a shot-by-shot remake of the original except Denzel Washington is going to be there and there is going to be a naval battle which, honestly, sounds delightful. They should just remake the Gladiator every 20 years with new actors and more exciting and anachronistic Roman Stuff. In classic DUDES ROCK movie fashion, it is a little silly, however as a person who likes dudes and is pro dudes rocking, I count this as a plus of the movie. It helps that I don’t care even the littlest tiniest bit about historical inaccuracies and think that if it makes it look cooler, it should be on the big screen. Ridley Scott and I agree on this, thank goodness ❤ 

Do the Right Thing 

First time watch 

I watched this over the course of a few days on various planes as one of the very unlucky people who were personally attacked by the Windows IT issues that canceled all those flights (rip my Atlanta to Boise flight, would have been fun if you could have been the 1). Anyway in the middle of one of the worst travel experiences of my life, I watched this incredible movie! Set over the course of 24 hours in a Brooklyn neighborhood on the hottest day of summer, it follows a pizza store employee as he does deliveries and as racial tensions escalate into what becomes a riot. As intense and tragic as this movie becomes, it was a far more nuanced look at the madness of the mob than I was expecting. It captures something that feels real and true about the way that communities fall apart and neighbors turn on each other. Absolutely beautifully and energetically shot and really funny! I could not recommend this movie more– it is one of those movies that I have finished and been like, “Wow did we do it? Did we perfect the form?? Should anyone else need to make any more movies or are we good?”

Other July Watches: Reds (lovely story about some communists with all the hope of theory and all the heartbreak of reality), Twisters (Glen Powell is going to bring this divided nation together), A Bigger Splash (because I have not stopped thinking about Challengers nor stopped listening to the soundtrack and needed more chaotic bisexuals), House of the Dragon Season 2 (a real mixed bag this season, we needed 10 episodes not 8!), What’s Up, Doc? (On top of everything else perfect about this movie, is really fun romp through the city of San Francisco).