Hi, it is Bill and Teddy the Chihuahua again and time for our AUGUST Barking Mad About Films Newsletter.
So, without any further ado, welcome to our JULY review….
BARKING MAD ABOUT JULY
We continued our quest to watch at least one film a day, so included may classics as well as new titles.
This month was a real mixed bag for us, with all sorts of watches, we revisited both the original Masters of the Universe and The Running Man ahead of their remake/reboots.
Sadly neither, were as good as we remembered them.
Some highlights, all first-time watches
Missing from the makers of Searching.
Inspired by our love of Jaws, we watched a film which is a clear inspiration for it, the Gregory Peck starring adaptation of Moby Dick.
We watched The Devil Wears Prada as its sequel starts shooting.
Revenge, a darkly horror revenge film from the director of The Substance.
Time loop horror mystery, Triangle.
We really enjoyed The Rainmaker, another in our watches of films based on Josh Grisham books.
28 Days, A lighthearted comedy/drama with Sandra Bullock playing an alcoholic in a rehab centre was a pleasant surprise.
And a rewatch of two great romcoms, Along Came Polly and The Truth About Cats and Dogs.
We also watched the Jean Claude Van Damme quadrilogy of Universal Soldier films.
Other than that, it was a mixed bag of watchable movies, as ever you can find every film we watch by following us on Letterboxd.
BARKING MAD ABOUT CINEMA
Our July cinema visits was hindered a little by it being mainly blockbuster movies getting a release in our local Cineworld.
We went in with low expectations on all of them but enjoyed them all.
We much preferred the new lighter Superman, we are not fans of the Snyderverse as a disclaimer.
We saw the live action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon when a couple of movies we had wanted to see did not get a local release, and we were just as invested, but we do prefer the animated version still.
We also compared to the last two Jurassic World movies, really liked Jurassic World Rebirth.
Finally we saw the legacy sequel of I Know What You Did Last Summer, we seem to differ from a lot of reviews, in that we personally preferred the second half, with the first almost feeling like a remake of the original.
We did think the surprising twist reveal of the killer was a bit obvious though.
BARKING MAD ABOUT FRANK DREBIN…POLICE SQUAD.
At first, we were not on board with this new reboot, but seeing some trailers with some big laughs we are looking forward to seeing Liam Neeson step into Leslie Nielsen’s comedy cop, Frank Drebin.
Which also inspired us to not only watch the three previous Naked Gun movies, but the original Police Squad series that inspired it.
BARKING MAD ABOUT SEQUELS
We watched a few sequels this month
The Accountant 2; Happy Gilmore 2 and Battle Royale II: Requiem
We also watched two Threequels
In Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3.
BARKING MAD ABOUT BOOKS
We, as always read a few books in our read list that have been inspired by forthcoming films or films recently announced.
We really enjoyed Summer in the City by Alex Aster; a meet cute which has a film adaptation in the works.
The Sideways Life of Denny Voss by Holly Kennedy about a neurodiverse man being accused of murder was brilliant.
That Night, a great thriller from Gillian McAllister with a Netflix adaptation in the works.
The Exchange, a sequel to the firm from John Grisham was a good read.
Count my Lies, by Sophie Stava was a thriller about a compulsive liar was another good read, a series is in the works with Lindsay Lohan attached.
Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh about a woman trying to solve a possible imaginary murder was also a good read, and a film adaptation is in the works with Tilda Swinton attached.
Much like the films, we do log every book we read and you can follow us on Good Reads.
BARKING MAD ABOUT TV.
We watched some great shows in July:
We loved Creature Commandos, an animated series bringing back some of The Suicide Squad familiar faces, including our fav Weasel.
Over on BBC iPlayer:
We actually felt season 2 of The Mayfair Witches was a lot better than the first series, and we are not saying that because our fav, Alexandra Daddario is in it.
We absolutely loved the TV adaptation of Jane Sanderson’s book Mix Tape.
Sadly, we did not feel that was the case for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, we far preferred the book in this instance.
We are not normally fans of celebrity reality shows but loved Shark: Celebrity Infested Waters a good mix of celebrity and reality with lots of faces about sharks included.
Which also brings us onto the fantastic Jaws at 50 documentary on Disney+
Also, on Disney+ we also really enjoyed Shifting Gears with Tim Allen and Kat Dennings.
Over on Paramount+ Dexter: Resurrection is turning out to be the best spin-off from the original so far and we are enjoying going back to Strange New Worlds with the Star Trek crew.
We also fitted in a rewatch of Season One of Wednesday before its new series.
BARKING MAD ABOUT THOSE WE LOST.
Following their deaths, we felt inspired to revisit those we lost.
We started with Julian McMahon in Shark movie, Bait 3-D, we had only the previous month also watched him as Doctor Doom in his two Fantastic Four movies.
We had also seen him earlier in the year in Netflix murder in the white house series, The Residence.
However, he will always be Christian Troy in Nip/Tuck for us.
Best known for his music, we watched the late, great Ozzy Osbourne in 80s horror, Trick or Treat, in a bit of fun, he played a reverend who didn’t like Heavy Metal Music
We also saw Ozzy voice Fawn, a deer in Gnomeo and Juliet, which also featured the late Hulk Hogan who voiced a lawnmower advert in the film.
We also watched Hulk Hogan in the classic Surburban Commando.
BARKING MAD ABOUT AUGUST
Our most anticipated film of the year Nobody 2 is out in August, and we will try to fit in a rewatch of the original before seeing it.
We loved Barbarian, so hoping to check out Weapons, it’s directors’ new film.
Also, as mentioned earlier, we are looking forward to Liam Neeson stepping into Leslie Nielsen’s shoes for the new version of The Naked Gun.
TV sees the return of Wednesday and the rest of her Addams Family, and sadly we will say goodbye to another of our favourites as the last season of Resident Alien begins.
The big new one for us will be Alien: Earth which brings those Xenomorphs back but this time in a TV series.
We are also looking forward to a couple of Netflix original movies this month, animated film Fixed about a dog preparing to be neutered from the animator of the Hotel Transylvania films.
Also, The Night Always Comes, we really hope this Netflix adaptation can do justice to the brilliant book it is based on.
We have no real rewatch plans, other than a revisit of Nobody before the sequel, with a new Alien TV series and a Predator movie incoming, we may revisit the Alien Vs Predator films.
Other than that, we will just work our way through our ever-growing watchlist.
How about you, what are you looking forward to entertainment wise, this August?
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/
You can also discover what we read, by following us on GoodReads at https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/28908876-bill-boswell
We hope you enjoyed our monthly reviews 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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