Hi, it is Bill and Teddy the Chihuahua again and time for our October Barking Mad About Films Newsletter.
So, without any further ado, welcome to our September review….
BARKING MAD ABOUT SEPTEMBER
We as ever continued our quest to watch at least one film a day, so included many classics as well as new titles.
This month was a real mixed bag for us, with all sorts of watches, from new films, repeated viewings and discovering old films…
Some highlights of our first-time watches
We had been watching the second part of season two of Wednesday so watched Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall which reunited stars Jenna Ortega and Percy Hynes White, and it was a better than most opposites attract, teen romance.
We also enjoyed a serial killer classic in Copycat, which we had never seen.
We really enjoyed the film Swiped, based on the true story of the creation of dating app site, Bumble.
Again, inspired by our tv viewing, enjoying the new season of Only Murders in the Building, we watched dumb comedy Clifford, and for all its problematic jokes, it was a fun ride with Martin Short being completely over the top.
We also had rewatches of two great favourites of ours, Clue, the Cluedo inspired comedy never fails to raise a smile, and Commando, with Schwarzenegger in full action mode, with lots of wise cracks along the way.
We also watched some pretty poor films, we really didn’t enjoy In The Lost Lands starring Milla Jovovich and Dave Bautista, it was a CGI mess.
And despite some amusing moments, we really did not like the latest Eddie Murphy action comedy, The Pick-Up.
Nothing else really stands out, and no real plans for October other than it will mainly be Scary, gory and full of thrills as we do the annual Shocktober challenge, of watching one film from these genre’s every day.
As ever you can find every film, we watch by following us on Letterboxd.
BARKING MAD ABOUT CINEMA
Our September cinema visits.
Like last month, it was another watch of a Stephen King film, this time it was The Long Walk.
A fantastic adaption of an enjoyable short story, with standout performances, as young men are forced to walk for as far as they can, with the last man standing, getting a prize of their choice.
We even liked the new ending which differs from the book.
It is sure to make our end of year cinema visits top 10.
We also really enjoyed the adaption of the book Caught Stealing, we had read the book about a year ago and it was great to see it come to life and may even feature the feline performance of the year.
Our final cinema trip, we saw A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, which saw two strangers reflecting on their past, via doors that took them to previous moments in their lives.
We liked it more than a lot of reviews, but felt The Life of Chuck was a far better film at looking back at moments in a life.
BARKING MAD IN MEMORIAM.
We had randomly done a mini watch of Robert Redford films, we had recorded The Old Man and The Gun, Sneakers and Indecent Proposal a while back, and watched them over 3 days, ending on the 16th September, a couple of hours later we heard the news that Robert had passed away.
After those 3 great watches we wanted more and went on a path which saw us also watch The Natural, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Spy Game, The Last Castle, The Way We Were and All The President’s Men and there wasn’t a bad film amongst them, he will be missed.
BARKING MAD ABOUT HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA.
Over four days one of the channels showed the 4 F films and we revisited them all, they are all fun, with 3 which sees the characters go on a cruise, probably being our favourite.
It was fun viewing with a spooky flavour and sets us up for the 31 days of Horror/Halloween/ Shocktober that we will be partaking in again in October.
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 loved the book The Housemaid, by Frieda McFadden so when it was announced that a film was in the works for another of her books, The Tenant, we read and loved that as well.
We liked The Husbands by Holly Gramazio, which was a kind of time loop adventure, with everytime the loft being opened, our lead gets a new husband, it is to be an Apple TV show starring Juno Temple, and should make a fun show.
We enjoyed Blood Cruise, by Mats Strandberg which saw vampires break out on a cruise/ferry ship, this has been made for a TV series in Sweden, under its original title of Farjan, we will be hoping a UK streamer picks it up to show.
From Mick Herron, creator of Slow Horses, we also enjoyed investigative thriller Down Cemetery Road, which is coming to Apple TV this October.
We loved the six mini novels of The Boy in the Iron Box, which features a creature in the mountains from Guillermo Del Toro, which is to be adapted for a six part tv series.
And we loved The Trees, which sees white men being killed, all with the same dead person of colour from many years ago, a powerful and great read from Percival Everett which is to be a TV series starring Sterling K Brown.
As we do with 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 September
We loved the return to the Dunder Mifflin buildings for The Paper, The Office is one of our all time favourite shows, so we didn’t expect to enjoy this, but happily proved wrong.
We also loved Black Rabbit on Netflix.
We really liked I Fought the Law, the Ann Ming true story of getting justice for her murdered daughter.
We also enjoyed BBC drama, The Guest starring our Torchwood fav, Eve Myles.
We also really enjoyed Amazon’s adaptation of The Girlfriend, based on a book we loved, and this was despite changing the ending.
But it was mainly the returning shows that we loved.
A perfect end was the final season of The Newsreader, just brilliant as always.
We are also loving the return of High Maintenance and Only Murders in the Building, and for laughs you can not go wrong with the latest season of Taskmaster.
BARKING MAD ABOUT OCTOBER.
It is the month of Halloween, so we will be watching a horror/scary movie a day, mainly at home so cinema will feel an escape from it, as we really look forward to seeing The Smashing Machine, having watched the original Mark Kerr documentary that is based on recently.
Being big Keanu fans, and in our top 10 anticipated films, we cant wait to see him in Good Fortune.
We loved the first Black Phone, so will try to fit in a rewatch and its sequel as well.
The Roofman and Good Boy are also two we would like to see but feel it may be a matter of if our cinema shows them sadly.
TV shows in October we are looking forward to seeing are IT prequel, Welcome to Derry, a return to TV for Steve Coogan’s brilliant Alan Partridge, having read the book, we will look forward to the adaptation of Mick Herron’s Down Cemetery Road and Monster: The Ed Gein story.
How about you, what are you looking forward to entertainment wise, this October?
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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