Meanwhile, Over On Substack…

Hi, all! I’ve been thinking about something: There’s been a lot of stuff happening on my Substack page lately, and I thought it might be fun to do a little recap on the first Thursday of each month of either the five best movies and shows I’ve seen, or the five worst, depending on what’s been on.

Why Thursday? Meh, I picked a day.

So anyway, we’re obviously going to kick off with July, which was unusually full of theatrical releases. Anyone who has been watching my Instagram knows I saw more movies this summer than I have in a year, sometimes even two a day. Thank goodness for Fandango VIP Points, because now I’ll get some movies for free in August.

Anywhoo, here are my Top Five July flicks, listed in ascending order with one Honorable Mention. Click the images to read the reviews:

Barbie

Shocker, right? I was never a huge Barbie fan growing up, but this movie is undeniably cute and innocent although not entirely, and it leans into the whole Barbie aesthetic very naturally. The musical numbers definitely grew on me as well, and Ryan Gosling in particular kills it in that department. All in all, the movie was one of the nicest surprises of the whole month.

Asteroid City

Asteroid City is a typical Wes Anderson movie while not being a typical Wes Anderson movie. As a result, it’s Wes Anderson-lite while also being Luigi Pirandello and Thorton Wilder-heavy. Seriously, I saw so much homage to these two playwrights that it just made me grin all over. There’s also an alien who comes down from a flying saucer and he’s really cute and photogenic.

Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One

Tom Cruise, the man, the myth, the legend, is back as Ethan Hunt, the man, the myth, the legend, and oh boy, it’s so much fun. The basic premise is slightly laughable, as it concerns a key that goes to some mysterious device that controls a rogue AI known as “The Entity,” but it also gives us everything we expect from the Mission: Impossible franchise and Tom Cruise. Not only that, but the movie opened with a personal message from Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie where they tell us, the audience, that the movie was made just for us, and the respect they express in that clip is reflected in the film.

Sound of Freedom

Don’t believe the media on this one. The screenplay for Sound of Freedom was written in 2015, the film was shot under the Twentieth Century Fox banner in 2018, and the movie was shelved by Disney for five years after they bought Twentieth Century Fox, so QAnon doesn’t enter into it in the slightest. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s an important one that’s hard to watch and yet impossible to look away from. Jim Caviezel as former DHS agent Tim Ballard gives a haunting performance.

Oppenheimer

The competition was fierce, but Oppenheimer is my favorite movie of July, possibly of the year so far, by Christopher Nolan, a director and writer who’s probably my favorite filmmaker working today. There’s a lot to unpack when thinking about this movie, and everyone’s viewpoint will be different, but Nolan avoids revisionism and presentism in favor of showing what people were really thinking and doing in that era. It’s a heavy subject presented with the right amount of weight so as to still be manageable and balanced. Excellent, excellent film. Be warned, though: There is some nudity and it is R-rated.

Honorable Mention: The Room

OK, this review is from June, but I had to include it because I got to go to a Celebration screening. It was probably the most sedate screening ever, with not a single spoon or football thrown, but it was still a blast. And yes, The Room is a terrible movie. Wonderfully, hilariously terrible.

So yeah, that’s a very slight idea of what happened on Substack last month and it’s just the beginning (I also reviewed Joy Ride and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, for starters). I hope you all like this recap, want to see more, and consider subscribing to Taking Up More Room in addition to this blog. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you on Thursday for another review…

---

~Purchases made via Amazon Affiliate links found on this site help support Taking Up Room at no extra cost to you.~

If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please look for additional content on Substack, where you’ll find both free and subscriber-only articles. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.