Thursday, June 30, 2016

Films That I Saw: June 2016



2016 is nearly half-over but honestly, I wish it was over right now. Not just because of the numerous deaths of famous figures in art and sports but also with the chaos that has been happening with the shootings in Florida, the recent attack in Istanbul, Great Britain leaving the European Union, and all of the bullshit that is happening over who will become the next President of the United States. It’s really a fucked up year that is likely to get worse as it’s just bad all around. Is this what will happen? Maybe it is time for the world to just implode since there’s too many fuckheads who are just there to make things worse with no sense of reason or rationality.

Earlier this month, I did switch digital cable providers from the very expensive AT&T U-Verse to the more affordable Direct TV. Direct TV does offer some excellent channels in HD as well as some easier navigation in the DVR as well as broader and more free selection of stuff on demand. That is the upside but the downside is that the package I got didn’t include VH1 Classics nor anything relating to EPIX which had been part of the Dish Network and U-Verse as preview-like packages of sorts but only comes for free every few months in the year. It definitely screwed up a lot of the things I wanted to see but thankfully there’s some really good films coming that I will record so it’s not really too bad.


In the month of June, I saw a total of 30 films in 15 first-timers and 15 re-watches as it was down from last month though it's not surprisingly due to the change in cable providers. One of the highlights of the month was my Blind Spot assignment in Seven Beauties as here are the Top 10 First-Timers of June 2016:

1. The Martian


2. Je Tu Il Elle


3. Love & Friendship


4. La Cage aux Folles


5. Gertrud


6. The Stanford Prison Experiment


7. Pride


8. All Things Must Pass: The Rise & Fall of Tower Records


9. Ordet


10. Chico and Rita


Top 10 Re-Watches:

1. The Apartment


2. The Man Who Fell to Earth


3. Sleepers


4. Battle Royale


5. Bull Durham


6. Slacker


7. Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief


8. Hot Rod


9. Batman Returns


10. Ocean's Thirteen


Well, that is all for June 2016 as there’s no mini-reviews this month while there’s nothing much to report in the world of music as I didn’t hear any new albums this month as my work on the list on Prince is still in the works. I didn’t get to see the Cure this month as I wanted to so my list on them is shelved for the time being. Next month will focus largely on American films from westerns, New Hollywood, and other kind of films based on this list as well as a few on Richard Linklater who is the next subject of my Auteurs series. Until then, this is thevoid99 signing off…

© thevoid99 2016

3 comments:

ruth said...

Yeah, 2016 hasn't been good to us music/film fans :(

Great recap Steven, I need to see Chico & Rita soon, that sounds lovely. The Apartment is a great rewatch!

Courtney said...

I watched Battle Royale for the first time a few months ago...truly twisted, and you can see where Hunger Games got it's source material ;)

thevoid99 said...

@ruth-Yeah, I wish it was over already. I hate 2016.

@Courtney-Battle Royale is just a masterpiece and it's what The Hunger Games wishes it could be.