August Movies - Week 1

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

We're right in the middle of one of the busiest times for the art festival season... but that's been the case since mid-May, only cranked up to 11!!! Some great stories that we're going to tell on the pod soon so add & subscribe... until then...

August 3 – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (2001)
 
This apparently was a first time watch for me! I thought I had seen it… but apparently I had just seen the trailer & immediately thought I had seen the movie. Based on a book (strike 1), an Italian officer (Nic Cage) during the occupation of a Greek island is placed into the home of a doctor (Greek thespian John Hurt?) and his daughter (Greek actress Penelope Cruz?) and hijinx ensue. Oh… Christian Bale is Greek too! This movie was… a little all over the place. The romance was… questionable. The war scenes were decent. Character motivations are… questionable. The background is beautiful. For more, check out our 400th Episode on Everything I Learned From Movies!!!
 
Rating - ???/10 – Might want to hear us talk about it before making any purchases…
 
August 4 – Barbie (2023)
 
Barbie crosses over into the real world (and Ken too) and hijinx ensue. Simple enough, right? Director Greta Gerwig along with masterful performances from Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and a surprising array of actors really pull off a quite meaningful movie that I can see pissing off a bunch of butt-hurt proud boys by pointing out their flaws with cutting & cunning satire (try that in a small town) but for those with an IQ over 60 and a sense of empathy, this movie was absolutely brilliant… and based on Barbie?!? So much better than I was even expecting when I know who was involved, which let’s face it… basically the perfect way to make a movie this. Check it out! Break all the records! Pay your f**king writers!!!
 
Rating – 10+/10 – Must see… even when a few scenes maybe take it over the top
 
August 5 – Oppenheimer (2023)
 
Christopher Nolan’s biopic of acclaimed physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer & his team’s quest to make an atomic bomb… but then also getting a lot of other characters in there from a-hole senator (Robert Downey jr) to army expositionist (Matt Damon) to topless sex object (Florence Pugh) to Einstein and more… and this movie… was an excellent biopic about an interesting divisive character in Oppenheimer… and told in an expertly way to make the three hours’ runtime nearly perfect. Unique and memorable… and I highly recommend it. Okay, now that THAT’S all out of the way… let’s talk about Florence Pugh’s character. Basically topless in every scene that she’s in… including the one where she & Oppenheimer are both completely naked and having a conversation on chairs in a hotel room (because nobody bare-asses their own furniture) and… I really providing nothing else other than Oppie had affairs with socialist women or something… and he was conflicted about things… but basically trying to learn everything that he could… and… I’m just thinking her whole character typically would be just some random model body double (as no real character traits or acting ability was needed) but then Chris Nolan got a call saying “Florence Pugh wants to be in the movie!” “That’s great… but the wife role has already been cast as Emily Blunt and that seems more age-approp…” “NO NO NO NO!!! She wants to be Topless Strange #1!!!” “WHAT?!? But… we didn’t even give that character a name… was there one on the script?” “Nope.” “So she…” “Apparently she just wants to be in the movie any way that she can!” “God I love Hollywood… okay, give the character a name and ugh… see if we’ve got a good makeup person that can bronze her up… and let’s make sure we get this on 70 MM film!!!” “Yes master…”
 
Rating – 10/10 – Still recommend everyone see it but… be prepared… it’s probably can catch you out of left field too…
 
August 6 – Secret Invasion (2023)
 
I watched the latest six-episode mini-series on Disney+ where Avenger assembler Nick Fury (Sam Jackson) & his shapeshifting alien colleague Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) have apparently been trying to find a refugee camp area for Talos’ species called the Skrulls… but after 30 years & nothing happening, the younger generation of Skrulls are apparently forming a militia to infiltrate & overthrow world governments… and only Nick Fury can stop them… or can he… because he’s in his seventies? Now… a lot of people hated this series… because it’s pretty slow and frankly uneventful other than about 10-15 minutes total form about four hours of runtime. I thought it was an interesting spy flick & Olivia Colman’s character is hilarious… but overall, I can see why this was just released to fill content on Disney+ and I understand why a lotta people didn’t like it.
 
Rating – 8/10 – Was thinking a 7 but… Sam Jackson is kinda my jam
 
August 7 – Devil Fish (1984)
 
“Steve, are you watching another Italian Jaws ripoff?” NO!!! I’m watching an Italian Jaws 3D ripoff!!! Yeah, scientists from Sea World go into the ocean to find out what’s been killing a few people in their yachts… and instead of orcas (as it should be) it turns out to be… WATCH IT TO FIND OUT!!! Okay, the title is a hint… and it’s really a weird coelacanth – octopus hybrid or something… but yeah, it’s hot Italian people with bad dubbing going against fake tentacles and it’s a laugh riot!
 
Rating – 8/10 – Watch the MST3K version for maximum enjoyment
 
August 8 – Cyborg 2: Glass Shadow (1993)
 
We watched this movie for Sven-tember, because legendary thespian bodybuilder Sven Ole Thorsen has three lines in two scenes I think… but it’s set in 2074 where there are two cyborg corporations (basically US & Japan) and the Americans decide their going to use their latest sex droid model (allegedly 18 year old Angelina Jolie) laced with high explosives in her blood to go infiltrate the Japanese HQ & destroy their hierarchy in one blast… but hijinx ensue when a voice that pops up on TVs (Jack Palance) and her karate instructor (Elias Koteas) help her to escape… or can she because she’s a robot? Hijinx ensue. This movie is not really a sequel to the original Cyborg… but hey, it’s that early 90s future tech nonsense that I enjoy… and any movie that starts off with a sexbot exploding in climax while a board meeting watches is A-OK in my book!
 
Rating – 9/10 – It’s a jumbled mess… but it’s my kind of jumbled mess… details in September on the podcast
 
August 9 – Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks (1974)
 
What happens when an Italian movie about a little person assistant (basically Igor) and a Neanderthal man joined forces to try to bring down Count Frankenstein while he was trying to get laid… and Daughter Frankenstein was also trying (and succeeding) at getting laid… so hijinx ensue? I think this was a Cinematic Titanic (basically MST3K) watch of a movie I had never heard of… and it was pretty crazy… but not in a great way… just kind of a weird way… and with so many weird unique takes on the Frankenstein tale, I don’t see this one getting revisited, even though it’s one of my favorite genres.
 
Rating – 7/10 – It was hard to pay attention towards the end…

Now to get ready for the biggest art & craft festival in Utah this weekend!!! Come say hi at the Utah State Fairgrounds in Salt Lake City (or Farmers Market in Ogden)!!!

​Steve