Ah June, a hot summer month that’s perfect for movie watchin’. I cranked out 26 movies which is back to normal. With all these movies though, this turned out to be the worst rated month of all of 2018. The average rating was a weak 6.4/10 and as you’ll find out in a minute, there were no shortage of worsts. But before that, let’s talk about the few bests.
Best of the Best
To Each, Her Own – 7.8
To Each, Her Own could almost be the biggest surprise winner for the fact that this was a Netflix recommendation. If you’ve read my past monthly summaries you’ll know just how terrible of a track record Netflix has with me. This movie is about a woman in a same sex relationship who starts to have feelings for a man. It’s an interesting flip on the usual story where it’s a straight woman falling for another woman. Not only was it a neat twist, but there were some genuinely funny moments. I liked the characters and was interested to see where the story would go. I can honestly say I didn’t see the ending coming. It’s a little weird, but the journey to get there wasn’t bad.
A Quiet Place – 8
If you’ve been a part of the world this past year you’ve probably heard about A Quiet Place. A movie set in a world where if you make a single noise you’ll be murdered by monster aliens. There was so much talk about this movie and for good reason. It’s a well made, original movie that you don’t see too often these days. I liked the creativity required to pull off a movie with very little dialogue and the relationships between the characters which felt genuine and real. This one is definitely worth a watch.
Zodiac – 8
And my favorite movie of June is Zodiac which is a 3rd watch for me. Long time readers might have read my last post discussing this movie. I’ll summarize it and say that this movie has held a strong 8 rating across all viewings. The quality of the story, acting and effects are never brought into question. This is an incredibly well done movie. The only thing that loses its magic on multiple viewings is the ending. The first time you watch it, the ending is so suspenseful, but once you know the outcome you can relax a little and it doesn’t pack the same punch. Obviously, I can’t fault a movie just because I know how it ends. Ending aside, the thing that this movie does for me the most is renew my interest in the Zodiac killer. Every time I watch it I have to go look into any new revelations on the case and research a little more into the facts. This is a movie that always sticks with me when its finished and why it was my best of June.
Worst of the Worst
Annabelle – 5
I thought I heard that this was actually one of those good horror movies that exist out there and I wanted to give it a watch one Friday night. Little did I know, this was just your run of the mill jump scare ridden horror movie. Let me just say that loud noises are not scary. They may be surprising, but that is not horror. This movie had so many jump scares in it that by the end I just started laughing. I could tell whenever it was going to happen and it ruined the entire movie. I was more scared near the beginning when the doll did nothing because I was in suspense waiting to see if it would move. If you’ve never seen a scary doll horror movie maybe this would be new and exciting, but if you have then this is not worth your time.
Bicentennial Man – 5
I watched this movie directly after reading the short story and like usual that was a huge mistake. This movie in no way lives up to the short story. The story was more inside Andrew’s head and it explores what it means to be human. The movie, on the other hand, took most of that out in favor of having a romance plot. I don’t see why that was necessary and I actually found it creepy how a robot falls in love with a human. Not just a single human, but generations of humans from the same family. It’s like, “Hi, I’m Andrew. I was in love with your mother, now I’m going to be in love with you.” The story just didn’t do it for me, and I hate to say it but I’m not the biggest fan of Robin Williams because I can never get lost in the characters he plays. Another thing that bothered me was how they tried to tie in the original material by having a scene explaining the 3 laws of robotics, but it literally never comes in to play for the rest of the movie. I felt like they wasted the opportunity to tie that in more especially since it was so integral to the short story. Now, I can’t say for sure whether any of these things were in the novel because I haven’t read it, but overall I preferred how the idea of a robot trying to become human was handled in the short story more. I will say one good thing about this movie before I move on though. The old age makeups were absolutely stunning. I couldn’t find a single flaw with any of them. They are literally the best I’ve ever seen and I’m just blown away by it. If only they could’ve put that much effort into the rest of the movie.
Ghostland – 4.8
If Annabelle drove me crazy for its overuse of jump scares, Ghostland drove me crazy for its incessant screaming. Everyone in this movie would not stop screaming. It’s not scary or helpful in any way to the plot, it’s just loud and annoying. This almost maybe could’ve been an interesting movie because there was this sort of plot twist in the middle that I didn’t think of. It took the movie in a slightly different direction and gave it a bit of depth. But then the women kept screaming and screaming and screaming. Screaming is the only thing I took away from this movie. If you love mediocre makeup effects and have partial hearing loss then this could be right up your alley.
The Collector – 4.7
Down down we go. Another awful horror movie to add to my worst of the worst. I got this one as a recommendation saying that it was actually good and that it turned the torture porn genre on its head. I love me a good genre bending movie, but this wasn’t it. It was a tiny bit interesting having a main character who isn’t totally inept, but everyone else in the house was so it really cancelled it out. There was one moment where the main guy saves a woman and then she acts like an idiot, starts screaming and gets herself killed moments later. This is your below average torture porn gore fest movie where people do stupid things and are killed by a supernatural psychopath.
Mothlight – 1
I’m not going to beat a dead moth, you can read just what I thought of this “movie” in my previous TSPDT post. Giving this a 1 might be the reason why this was the lowest rated month of the year, but honestly it deserves it.
Biggest Surprise
Contagion – 8
Thankfully things are back to normal this month and I have a biggest surprise to give out. This is the same one I almost gave out last month by accident. Contagion is about a spreading disease, how it affects people and how the CDC works to stop it. This is the biggest surprise for me because I’ve seen it once before and remember not liking it. I watched it because it found its way into my random queue. This is exactly my kind of movie. I found it so interesting how a disease spreads and how they come up with vaccines. They also weren’t afraid to pull any punches. People contracted the disease who, in a regular summer blockbuster, would survive because they’re a main character, but in this movie they don’t. A lot of different plot threads were weaved together so well that it never felt like too much was going on. I particularly loved the ending which I won’t spoil. I highly recommend this movie and it might have just made its way into my rewatch rotation.
Biggest Disappointment
Tomb Raider – 6.64
And finally the movie I was waiting to talk about for the entire month. This was the movie so disappointing that I almost put it on last month’s summary. I’m a female and I absolutely stand behind movies with strong female leads so right off the bat I was interested in this. To top it off, I heard that it was actually a good video game adaptation and I thought I was in for a good movie. Clearly that isn’t what I got. While it had its moments, overall I found myself wishing it was over. It was boring and the story was super crazy predictable. Stop pulling the “my parent disappeared x years ago on an island and I just want to find out what happened to them” while pretending like the parent is actually dead. I don’t even feel bad about ruining anything because it was so damn obvious. I would’ve been more surprised if he was actually dead. I didn’t even like this as a mindless popcorn movie. There was nothing new or exciting about it at all. The only thing that gave this movie any legs was that they called the character Lara Croft. If you replaced her with generic action movie man, this wouldn’t have gotten much buzz. I appreciate trying to introduce stronger female leads, but please put them in better movies. Let’s take Wonder Woman and build on that, not go 1 step forward and take 2 steps back.
This month had a lot of worsts in it and very few bests so the quality wasn’t there, but the quantity sure was. I think I’m back in my movie watching groove which feels good so I don’t even mind how much garbage I had to sit through. I knocked out quite a few TSPDT movies which I have queued up to review and will be posting in a few days so stayed tuned. I want to finish with a shout out to my favorite non-movie thing I watched in June which is The Staircase on Netflix. I watched the first 8 episodes in 2 days with no regrets. I absolutely love crime docuseries and this one was even better because it had a lot of courtroom footage. If you liked Making a Murderer or Paradise Lost, absolutely check this out. Stay tuned for my next post, hopefully in a few days.
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