21 thoughts on “Third Monday Movie Day: Emmy Edition”

1. Saw a few Emmy nominated things (GoT, Strangers Things, and we somehow got caught up on This Is Us). I have no idea how The Good Place isn't in the running for best comedy series.

   Ant-Man and the Wasp: Liked it, didnt LOVE it. Funny throughout, but they really doubled down om my least favorite part of the first one (nonsense jargon) and went bananas with it. Also, I'm not totally sure that Ghost or the guy from Justified made compelling villains.

2. I watched Ozark. I thought it was ok. Sepinwall called it Breaking Mediocre, which cracked me up.

3. Starting final season of Kimmy Schmidt. Season 3 was easily the best season yet. Tituss Burgess is so effing hilarious and he gets more screen time. I've had his song "Boobs in California" in my head for weeks now.

   Otherwise, haven't seen much

   Blade Runner 2049: Just like the first movie, I wanted to like this more than I did. But there's wasn't much for me beyond cinematography. I found the music distracting and the characters mostly shallow and uninteresting.
   Black Panther: Plot holey like most superhero movies, but good fun.
   (500) Days of Summer: Nice to see a movie where the overbearing guy doesn't get the girl just because he wants her badly enough.

4. I watched a whole bunch of things:

   I watched season 6 of Voltron: Legendary Defender. I completely love this show, its immensely entertaining. I also see that season 7 will be released in less than a month, so that's cool.

   Watched the first season of Ash vs. The Evil Dead. Its hitting all the right Bruce Campbell notes for me.

   I finally started Better Call Saul. No idea why I waited so long. I'm most of the way through season 1.

   Into the Badlands season 3 came out without me realizing it, so I got caught up on that. I also thoroughly love this show. The martial arts/Wuxia choreography is incredible.

   For movies, the family went out to see Incredibles 2. It was fun and entertaining, though not as much as the first.

   I watched a bunch of stuff on Netflix, too, starting with Battle Royale. What's not to love about a bunch of teenagers very violently killing each other, eh? I also watched the Netflix originals The Ritual and Cargo, both of which I enjoyed. The Ritual was a fun little forest survival movie with a pretty interest creature at the end and Cargo is a zombie flick without a lot of zombies and with a lot of racial commentary (set in Australia). Plus I watched The Descent a week ago, which was excellent. (the non-monster, stuck in a cave portions were terrifying. No cave diving for this guy.)

   Watched Annihilation on Saturday. That was a good, slow burn of a movie with a really weird ending.

   Finally saw Thor: Ragnarok and man, that instantly went near the top of my Marvel list. I laughed a whole lot and Taika Waititi should be given the reins to everything ever (I also loved every line he delivered as Korg) and Jeff Goldblum should be in everything. It was ton of fun and the Thor/Hulk buddy scenes were always great.

5. As noted in the CoC post, we've watched a ton of movies recently.

   Blockers: Legitimately great. I laughed a lot. It has a lot of heart, and seeing films about friendships between women that isn't centered around tragedy is still exceedingly rare.
   The Incredibles 2: I'm not a huge fan of the original film; I think it's good, not great. This was great. The first third is so slow, but once it picks up it really picks up.
   The First Purge: I can't stop thinking about this movie. Seriously. The first Purge flick is a mediocre home invasion thriller with a great premise they completely waste. The next two Purge flicks were decent guilty pleasures with some social commentary thrown in. The new one is pretty radical; the last half of the film is like a Blaxpoitation version of Die Hard. It rules. The teaser poster is the title of the film on a familiar red hat; that's more subtle than the rest of the movie. It's so good.
   Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom: The first JP is a good, if not a tish overly serious, summer popcorn flick. The next two were garbage. JW was dumb and fun and I love Blue with my everything. I was still pretty skeptical about this, but we went on cheap movie night. It was somehow even more dumb than JW, and it was all the more fun for it. I'm actually stupidly excited for where the final film in the trilogy takes this; it could be a darn good time.
   Ocean's 8: I love Soderbergh, but I'm not a huge fan of the Ocean's flicks. I went to this largely on the strength of the cast, and a desire to support a film with a large cast of diverse women, and was very pleasantly surprised with how fun the movie was. It's definitely the kind of movie I'd rewatch whenever I stumbled across it on TV or streaming.
   Thoroughbreds: Hoooo boy. This is my favorite movie I've watched this year. A social pariah (who is pending trial on animal cruelty charges for euthanizing her horse) and a girl who seems to have a perfect life rekindle an old friendship. This movie goes some extremely dark places, but it earns it all. This is a based on a play by the writer/director of the film, and the small, tight cast allows us to spend a lot of time with the protagonists. I won't say much else, but it's a hell of a movie.

   I've got Annihilation and Unsane sitting in my Vudu rental queue from a month full of T-Mobile credits, so I need to get around to watching those very soon.

   1. Annihalation was so unsettlingly good that I couldn’t decide if I wanted to rewatch it instantly, or never again.
      I saw Fallen Kingdom in 3D at a Target employees prescreening with my wife (marketing executives were a bit pretentious and industry-speaky, but it was a fun was to see it). You are spot on (same for your assessment of the rest).

      1. Okay, Annihilation was pretty damn good. It gave me similar feelings to Under the Skin, which I still think about quite a bit to this day. I think I will re-watch it at some point, but it might be a while haha.

6. JK Simmons in Counterpart got jobbed on the Lead Actor Dramatic Series nominations.

   Finished The Expanse, and season 3 has been my favorite. Tempted to start on the books at some point. Legion season 2 was as mind bending as the first season, and continued to have great cinematography.
   Saw Incredibles 2 (not bad). Ordered Altered States from the library -- thought Runner daughter might like it, plus it might explain some of the easter eggs from Legion to her.

   1. I still need to binge Legion.

      When does the new season of Dr. Who start?

      1. I read someplace that it will be September 23. Not sure if that was official, though.

7. I started Sausage Party a couple nights ago but only made it 30 minutes. The opening song was good. The "hot dog goes in the bun" joke was not, but it didn't stop them from trying it over and over.

   I felt 30 years too old for this movie.

8. Arrested Development Season 5 Did I talk about this last time? Whatever. It was awesome, and should be noted as such again.

   Luke Cage Season 2 - This was one of my favorite seasons of a netflix Marvel show. The familiar (especially in comic books) "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" theme gets explored, probably a bit too much. But the ride is pretty consistent throughout, excellent cast, great music, lots of fun, and the arc of the story is really really interesting.

   'Spoiler'	SelectShow
   A character going from having his identity, losing it, and then rediscovering it is common enough. This more flips that on its head, with Luke starting away from his core self, finding it, and then losing it again. Very neat.

   The Flash Season 1 - Meh. I needed something like this for a while - a popcorn show to put on while I do dishes or eat lunch or whatever. It hit the spot. I'll periodically watch episodes from here on out, but I think I've seen enough so won't be sad if I miss anything either.

   The Great British Bake Off Season 3 - It's 3 on Netflix. I don't know what that was across the Pond. Either way, this show is perfect, and remains so.

   Thor Ragnarok - A rewatch for me/first time for Philosoffette. Maybe the first Marvel movie that I didn't like more on rewatching than I did originally. I think because it was so well done and accessible the first time that it didn't really suffer at all, and on the rewatch I had higher expectations. Still fun, still cool, but not nearly as rewarding, knowing where all the good bits were going to be. It was a surprising movie the first time, and without the surprises it just wasn't quite as good.

   Coco A fun family movie, very pretty, but the whole family dynamic that gives rise to the plot is a bit too strained for me to find it credible.

   Kimmy Schmidt Season 4 - Yup, still awesome. The one episode isn't so good, but you kind of know that going into it.

   Mama Mia - We recalled it being fun, and were in the mood for something like that. Yeah... our memories were wrong. It was not good.

9. The shunning of Brockmire is a travesty.

10. I'll re-add a rec for Sorry to Bother You in this thread. Great dystopian commentary on our current situation.

    1. Saw the trailer yesterday. The Mrs. and I are going this weekend.

    2. Everytime someone recommends a movie in the theaters, I get mad at myself for going to Boundaries.

       Do you know how rare it is that all 3 kids have something going on and don't require a chauffeur?

       1. The series of tubes really, really hated that movie. I'm sorry, friend.

          1. I know. I should have read up before going.

    3. Waiting (im)patiently for this and Eighth Grade to open in the Peg so J & I can go.

11. I saw Solo a couple weeks ago. I was expecting some light summer action fare and had a good time.

    1. I chuckled at the joke in season five of Arrested Development with the narrator referencing a "Han Solo origin picture."

Comments are closed.