First Viewings of 2023 — July

11 min readAug 2, 2023

212 DAYS IN / 290 FILMS WATCHED

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are the only ones not crying when Fred dies because the perk of having twins is that they have a spare.

Now that that’s out of the way, it being July, I went to Barnes & Noble and loaded up on Criterion Blu-rays. It was an excellent time to be alive; I found Paths of Glory and The Player and some others, and I was happy, and it was great, and then lo and behold… they didn’t have Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen (Not that one, the other one). That is horseshit. Three consecutive bi-annual sales in a row — meaning eighteen months, not three years — and they continue not to have the one movie that I am adamant about finding. It’s fine, though. Much like a person who doesn’t carry around physical copies of J-horror films: I don’t hold grudges.

(EDIT: I wrote that nerdy-ass play on words almost three weeks ago, and I’m still proud of it.)

65 is on Netflix if you didn’t see it in theaters (which, based on the box office numbers, is very likely), and despite the middling reviews, I don’t think it’s that bad; if anything, it’s just kind of bland. It’s a film starring Adam Driver with a space gun fighting dinosaurs; how can you make that boring? I don’t know, but this movie was up to the challenge of trying. There was some fun action in it, and I will admit, the dynamic between Driver and Young Gamora was cute and elevated the film a bit for me (even though I’m positive that Driver’s character was written with Keanu Reeves in mind).

It also reinforced the time-honored movie trope that the best way to get over the death of a child is to simply replace it with a cute new one. They never overtly say it, but that’s always the underlying message I get when they try to pull a Ripley/Newt relationship — seriously, I went to three different Barnes & Nobles. Not a single one had a copy of Hunger, but each one had multiple copies of Pink Flamingos. What’s up with that shit?

Another one I watched — MULTIPLE COPIES?!? Are you fucking kidding me — moving on, another film I watched that I believe gets some undue hate (or not enough love, if you’re a half-glass-full person) is Under the Silver Lake. That’s not to say that it’s a perfect film, the word “convoluted” probably got thrown around a lot in the reviews, but I found it surprisingly engaging. Granted, it makes no sense at all, but the individual scenes, strange characters, and weird details make it fun just for how weird it gets. It’s like if David Lynch directed The Big Lebowski.

There was an unintentionally funny moment when Andrew Garfield tried to decode a message from a song. He’s writing it inside a pizza box (context is for the weak) and meticulously deciphering the message. I knew they wouldn’t, but in my heart, I was so hoping that he would read the final message and it would go, “Be sure to…drink your…Ovaltine — Oh, goddammit!”

What do you think Osgood Perkins is more proud of, directing The Blackcoat’s Daughter or being the awkward guy in Legally Blonde? (Segues!) I watched both of the Legally Blonde movies. The second one kind of sucks, but the first one’s hilarious. Especially Reese Witherspoon’s performance; she made the movie for me. I was expecting her to be more stuck up like she is in American Psycho (which features an even funnier break-up scene) or like Rachel’s sister Jill in Friends, and I expected the humor to come from her being humbled, but…that didn’t happen. She’s upbeat and friendly to everyone she meets, and the comedy is directed at the culture clash between her sorority background and the stuffy Ivy League crowd she has to contend with. Regardless, she was the best part of the movie — maybe Barnes & Noble is pro-Margaret Thatcher, and they refuse to carry Hunger because they don’t want her slandered.

This month’s edition of Quentin Tarantino Typing Control-C and Control-V into His Filmography is the film Django. Not Django Unchained, I’m talking about Django (1966). In this particular case, he reused the film’s soundtrack. Which, I guess, isn’t technically ripping off, but whatever. Do you remember the awesome song by Luis Bacalov that plays during the opening scene of Django Unchained as Django walks with the other slaves and the Speck brothers? The one that has “Django” in the lyrics. Yeah, well, that was lifted right from the opening of Django. So, Luis Bacalov isn’t singing about Django from Django Unchained; he’s singing about Django from Django. Typing this now, I never realized how ridiculous that spelling of Django looks. In movie poster font, it looks cool, but in Calibri (Bold), it looks dumb. But that’s bound to happen with any word when you pay attention long enough. (If you say “Belly” twenty times in a row, it starts to sound like a French word.)

Back to Django, Tarantino used another song called La Corsa (also by Bacalov), which was also featured in the 1966 film. It was the one that was used in the famous “I like the way you die, boy” scene. These inclusions are less obligatory than previous mentions (Tarantino’s use of the music was also way cooler); I just wanted to have them known for the record. It’s also worth noting that Franco Nero (Django himself) had a cameo in Django Unchained (He’s the slave owner who asks Django to spell his name).

After a year of waiting — no, wait…Barnes & Noble carries V for Vendetta, so I doubt my Margaret Thatcher theory holds water — after a year of waiting, starting with seeing the trailer at the beginning of Nope over a year ago, I finally got to see Oppenheimer on the big screen (in beautiful 70MM) and… I left disappointed. That’s not to say it was a bad film; on a technical level (as with all Christopher Nolan films), it was a glorious spectacle to behold. That being said, people have heralded it as possibly Nolan’s best film, and I have no idea where they came to that conclusion.

The problem I have with Oppenheimer is the same that I have with Oliver Stone’s JFK: There are many people in the film, but it doesn’t feel like there are any characters. The actors are working their asses off (Cillian Murphy is a national treasure even if he isn’t American), but every scene of someone talking — and there are plenty — felt very “Tell, Don’t Show.” There are so many scenes of people delivering exposition, but I never got a sense of personality for anyone. Everyone speaks the same way, and it feels like each character is reading information from a textbook.

I knew early on that this would be an issue when General Matt Damon (I can’t remember his character’s name) comes to recruit Oppenheimer, he talks about how Oppy’s colleagues think he’s a total asshole and how difficult of a person he is to be around…that was fuckin’ news to me! Until that point, he teaches a class that gets progressively bigger, talks with people (seemingly affably), and gets laid at least twice, so he must be charming to a certain extent. Nothing preceding that scene indicated that he was a prick; they had to tell us straight-up that that was the case. Ironically, as much as the film describes Oppenheimer’s life, I never felt I gained a better understanding of him as a person. It’s more story-driven than character-driven, and when the movie you’re watching is supposed to be a character study, that poses a problem.

I want to quickly wrap up this Oppenheimer rant with some positive takeaways. Once again, the cast was great, the music was fantastic, the cinematography was solid, and the atomic bomb testing scene was one of the most intense set pieces I’ve seen in some time. This is also one of the rare studio films that will show a character when they’re younger and (get this) not de-age them. God, that’s refreshing. I’ve had issues with the writing in some of his movies, but I’ve never seen a Christopher Nolan film and thought, “Well, he phoned that one in.” He puts love and care into his movies, and it always shows.

It’s worth noting that I’ve watched a recorded 2,014 movies as of July. That’s right. I’ve literally seen thousands of movies…one of them includes Hunger — YES, I’M STILL ON THAT!! The funny thing is that I’m not in love with the movie; it’s not even my favorite McQueen film (that honor belongs to Shame), but the fact that I can’t find it anywhere makes it frustrating. I also refuse to order it online…that’s the same as admitting defeat. Onto the list:

(NB: Bold — 2023 Films / (+) Semi-Rewatch)

237. 65 (2023)