Hi, it is Bill and Teddy the Chihuahua again and time for our AUGUST Barking Mad About Films Newsletter.
In our newsletter, we will aim to share some of our thoughts and watches of the month and what we are looking forward to in the next month.
So, without any further ado, welcome to our review of August….
BARKING MAD ABOUT AUGUST
This month was as always full of rewatches, mixed with first-time views.
It was very much an Alien August, as Alien Romulus, inspired us to watch all the other Alien movies, with the exception of the two Alien Vs Predator movies, not ready to revisit them again so soon =)
We watched some classic horrors on the new free streaming service Tubi, we did Puppet Master 1 & 2.
We also did Troll 1 and 2, we personally did not think Troll 2 was that bad, despite it constantly being named as the worst film of all time.
We did a watch of three submarine-based movies, Hunter Killer; K19: The Widowmaker and Crimson Tide
We also did a double bill of the classic Day of the Jackal and its Bruce Willis reimagining The Jackal.
Seeing M Night Shyamalan’s Trap, we did a first time watch of Lady in the Water and a rewatch of Old and still nothing comes close to his earlier movies for us.
Our cinema didn’t have any screenings of the new version of The Crow so we missed it at the cinema, but did use it as an excuse to revisit the original, and we also watched The Crow: Salvation which was on Amazon Prime.
The original Crow remains a classic and, on every watch, you realise what a loss Brandon Lee was, other movies of his like Rapid Fire and Showdown in Tokyo only showed what a promising career he would have had.
The Crow: Salvation was not the best, but it does have a stellar cast including the likes of Kirsten Dunst; Walton Goggins and even Ghostbusters/Die Hard’s William Atherton.
We very much loved Arthur the King, a true story about a dog and how he bonds with an endurance team, led by Mark Wahlberg, trying to win a big race, we had read and really enjoyed the book as well, so we were pleased that it was a great watch.
We love shark films, no matter how good or bad, and No Way Up was one of the better ones.
We also, ahead of the US remake, watched horror film, Speak No Evil, which was an incredibly unsettling watch, it will be interesting to see how much the new version with James McAvoy follows.
As ever, you can see every movie that we watched on our Letterboxd Account.
BARKING MAD ABOUT BEETLEJUICE
We are huge fans of Tim Burton, and Beetlejuice was the first of his films we ever saw, it would rank highly in our favourite films of his and we cannot wait to see the sequel.
In fact, it was our most anticipated film release of the year.
We will definitely fit in a rewatch of the original before seeing the sequel.
It will also be nice to see Tim return to one of his original works, and to see his style on the big screen again, for the first time since his live action version of Dumbo.
We are also loving the marketing that is going on for the film, from characters on bottles of Fanta, to American chain, Derry’s having an entire Beetlejuice themed menu.
With Halloween around the corner, it is also nice to see so much merch appearing for the film from Funko Pops to themed popcorn buckets.
BARKING MAD ABOUT THE CINEMA
We managed four visits to the cinema in August and it was mainly a scary time.
We started the month with Twisters, a rare film in that we enjoyed more than the original.
We saw the latest Shyamalan film Trap, and despite a good concept, the film was definitely not one of his best, despite a good lead performance from Josh Hartnett.
But if Trap was a disappointment, then Borderlands was an out and out disaster, it felt like a mockbuster version of Guardians of the Galaxy, and was probably our least favourite watch of the year so far.
Luckily the return of the Xenomorph to the big screen in Alien: Romulus was a much better watch, not without its issues, it was a great ride.
We ended the month with fun but daft AI home invasion film, AfrAId, we do doubt that it will do for Alexa what Jaws did for swimming however.
BARKING MAD ABOUT BOOKS
We once again had a few books in our read list that have been inspired by forthcoming films or films recently announced.
Whilst we didn’t get to see It Ends with us, we did do the next best thing and read It starts with us, the sequel to the Colleen Hoover book it is based on, with less domestic abuse, but whilst not a smooth journey, it definitely felt a more romance novel based read than the original.
We also read Regretting You from the Colleen, and this was a more romantic novel read, albeit it starts from an event of absolute horror.
We will definitely check out the film adaptation which is in pre-production and will star one of the newest Ghostbusters, McKenna Grace.
We loved the thriller Never Lie by Frieda McFadden, with enough red herrings to keep us from working it out, and Shawn Levy will be bringing an adaptation of it to Netflix.
One of the authors we discovered, and love is Emily Henry, but it appears every time we read one of her books, a movie adaption is announced, we loved both Funny Story and Happy Place, which will be joining our previous read of hers, Beach Read to an adaption soon.
We read a couple of books that are heading to TV, Louise Doughty’s Platform Seven for ITVX; Disclaimer by Renee Knight which is coming to Apple TV and two books heading to Channel Four, Summer Water by Sarah Moss and Trespasses by Louise Kennedy and Every Summer After by Carley Fortune, which is heading to Amazon.
BARKING MAD ABOUT HOME VIEWING IN THE MONTH AHEAD.
Beetlejuice 2 we hope will be a highlight, having watched the original, we will be intrigued to see how America remakes Speak No Evil, and then we will see what else is on offer.
At home, we might try and stay away from Horror movies as we tend to do one every day in October, in a challenge known as Shocktober.
That being said, with sequels to Smile and Terrifier, we may revisit the originals to be ready.
But home viewing for this month looks to be a see what mood takes us, with no plans or themes made.
BARKING MAD ABOUT GOTHAM.
With Joker 2 heading to cinema, we will have to try and fit in a rewatch of the original and the same with The Batman as we look forward to The Penguin TV series.
BARKING MAD ABOUT TV.
August TV saw us work our way through all 4 seasons of the Rachel Nichols starring SyFy series Continuum.
We loved Totally Completely Fine on ITVX, we also on ITV enjoyed the adaption of Louise Doughty book, Platform Seven and season 2 of Crime.
Almost as mad as Los Espookys was the enjoyable Fantasmas on Now TV.
Apple gave us Time Bandits, with no real love for the original, we liked but didn’t love this new version, but we are very much enjoying Sunny.
BBC gave us the second season of Interview with the Vampire and we loved comedy Daddy Issues with Aimee Lou Wood and David Morrissey.
But as ever, the standout for us is the weekly episode of our favourite TV show, Will Trent on Disney+
September sees the return of a few of our favourites, Colin From Accounts and Taskmaster to name two.
We are also looking forward to the Netflix adaption of The Perfect Couple as we loved the book when we read it a while ago.
So, what were your August highlights and what are you looking forward to in September?
We would love to hear from you.
You can always keep up with what we are watching by following us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/barkingmadaboutfilms/
Or you can follow us on Letterboxd to see all the movies we watch: https://letterboxd.com/Bill626/
We hope you enjoyed our first newsletter and if this has given you inspiration for films to watch or you want more ideas for what to watch then why not check out our digital calendar full of ideas and dates in movies https://barkingmadaboutfilms-com.stackstaging.com/introducing-the-bmaf-film-club-calendar/
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