Movies Of Summer 2023
I'll get back to video games soon, I promise.
I got oddly into movies this summer. I barely played any video games apart from occasional bouts of FIFA, and ended up watching a lot more films. 16 to be exact. Here are my thoughts on all of them.
The Intern
The Intern is very funny. Robert de Niro is great. Anna Hathaway is great. The film makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It’s light hearted, until it isn’t. Around halfway through, it gets serious and deep. It’s still definitely funny, but loses that bouncy vibe.
4/5
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The ideas explored in this movie but Marvel to shame. Superhero movies should learn from this. Evelyn is just a human with powers, but her fight scenes are way more interesting and fun to watch than any other superhero movie out there. Ratatouille.
The movie kinda lost me around 3/4ths of the way through. My eyes were watching the screen but my brain wasn’t processing what was going on. It was by no means overly complex yet to me at least it seemed to be chasing its own tail. I don’t know what that means, just like I don’t know what happened in the last 45 minutes of this movie.
3/5
The Bucket List
I started watching this on a plane. Well the person in front of me was watching this and I kinda paid more attention to his screen than my own. I think that speaks to the captivating nature of its story. On the way back, I finished Bucket List on my own screen, and really enjoyed it.
4/5
Bad Education
Just when I thought it was over, Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman) revealed another one of his partners. No but really, this movie is pretty good. The concept is one that could very well be taking place all around us. I like how it explores the plot from the perpetrators point of view. This was another airplane movie.
4/5
Love & Other Drugs
I watched this movie because I saw clips of the “Lisa” scene everywhere on the internet I seemed to go. Jake Gyllenhaal is great, and I seemed to like the opening 20-25 minutes of him masquerading around the pharmaceutical sales world better than once the actual rom-com started. Starts off great and slips away as it progresses. Still a solid package however.
3/5
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
I was one of the few who didn’t like 2019’s Into the Spider-Verse that much. I felt like that movie was just missing a giant roll of film in the middle. I love this one however. I love the visuals and art, I love the characters, and I love the music. Oh I especially love the music. I’ve been listening to Metro Boomin’s soundtrack since I left the cinema hall on that fateful day.
Oddly enough I’m not too bothered by THAT ending. Can’t wait for next year. Beyond the Spider-Verse, bring it on!
4/5
The Social Network
This is another movie I found out about through clips on YouTube. I liked it. It was fun, always moving forward. Fast paced and captivating. Many scenes reminded me of the series Silicon Valley - another one of my favourites. I also liked the way it was shot, with the movie essentially being a recounting of the past narrated during a lawsuit.
3/5
The Dark Knight Trilogy
Prior to last month, my biggest shame in life was not having watched Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies. I can’t believe I slept on these for so long. They are absolutely incredible. I watched all three movies back to back to back over the course of a few days. The moment Batman Begins started with Bale in some random prison I thought I wasn’t going to make it through even one but I was sucked right in.
Gotham City falls off aesthetically after the first one. It starts to look exactly like New York City in The Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises. Wayne, Alfred, and Gordon are superb anchors to the story. And the villains cycled through the movies are top-notch too. Joker stands out as the best of the bunch, but it was always a nice moment when Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow popped up in the second and third movies.
5/5 trilogy
The Dictator
I had no clue this movie would be like this. It’s light-hearted, slapstick offensive, and really fun to watch. Sacha Baron Cohen, who I will always refer to as the Borat dude, is superb. All hail Wadiya!
3/5
The Founder
A rare movie where the main character is the bad guy. And at the start of the movie he is made out to be the good guy. I genuinely hated Ray Kroc by the end, or even the middle, of the movie, and that speaks volumes to the way it was written. Just like all biopics, the factoids in the end credits were always fun to read.
3/5
Ford v Ferrari
At some point before I saw this movie I found an Instagram reel that said subtle nods make the best endings with a montage of films that end this way. Thus began my obsession with watching all of them. I had already seen The Dark Knight trilogy by this point, so I started with Ford v Ferrari.
The movie takes itself seriously. And that’s a good things because in some of its more poignant moments it really hits home. Another movie where you really start to despise some of its villainous characters. The subtle nod at the end doesn’t hit as hard as Alfred’s and Batman’s, but the scene where Ken Miles dies does.
4/5
La La Land
Round 2 of the subtle nod ending obsession was La La Land. This movie is very weird. I really liked the parts where there was just dialogue between characters, and even surprisingly enjoyed much of the musical segments. However at times, especially that observatory scene, it felt a lot like a fever dream. While Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling don’t end up together at the end, the movie does end on an uplifting note. I was mainly in it for the subtle nod ending once again.
3/5
Karwaan
The one Hindi movie I watched this summer. The movie actually made me laugh a lot. Irfan Khan will go down as one of my favourite Bollywood actors, and it was really nice to watch one of his movies again. I feel like it could have done without the unnecessary Shaukat - Gang storyline though.
4/5
Good Will Hunting
Robin Williams and Matt Damon have such incredible chemistry. The narrative is very interesting and rarely explored. It is simple, heartfelt, and relatable. You feel like the movie is going to devolve into a prodigal film with shows how Will goes from zero to hero. Then it diverts and is actually all about Will discovering himself. The thing I take away the most from this movie is its title. I mean who thought of that? What does it mean? I simply love it though.
4/5
I have been finding it really hard to write these past few months. I’ve had plenty of ideas since that Stray review in February, but putting word on screen has been hard. This was a refreshing change, and was that was well overdue. I just sat down with a list of films and typed out my thoughts on all of them.
I hope to write a lot more in this latter half of the year. Get back into games writing, and also slide in more stuff about other forms of media. My main problem is I build things up too big in my mind before sitting down to write. At the start of the year I said I’ll write more this time around and I intend to keep my word.