Films That I Saw: June 2023

 

Summer has arrived as does the heat as it’s going to get hotter as the days go by. While it is often the time for people to have a vacation and such yet I’ve been reading a lot of things about this heat that is emerging from El Nino and that is worrying. Yet, this is just one of many things happening around the world as the war between Ukraine and Russia is still ongoing with chaos already looming in Russia as the country has become divided under Vladimir Putin’s reign. Meanwhile here in the U.S., things are still crazy with Ron DeSantis being a fucking moron with Florida being a shithole with El Pendejo making things just as bad. Even as he’s being indicted on serious federal charges and all sorts of shit while his stupid followers do what they can to help them even if it means getting stiffed at a Cuban restaurant in Miami after claiming he will buy them food only for them to pay. What a piece of shit.

With all of this news happening, the big news this month revolved around a mini-sub that imploded in the Atlantic Ocean in the area where the Titanic sank. The idea of being in a mini-sub the size of a mini-van just to go deep towards the bottom of the ocean to see a sunken ship for a quarter of a million dollars is not my idea of adventure. Especially if the sub is controlled by a video game controller with little room and all sorts of shit where safety regulations are ignored. When James Cameron of all people talks about safety and the what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos in the world of engineering. Yeah, the people who run OceanGate are absolutely fucked. For those people who died including a 19-year old kid who didn’t want to go but only went just to be with his dad on Father’s day. This shit never should’ve happened no matter if a waiver was signed. As far as I’m concerned, fuck the waiver as the family of those that are gone shouldn’t just sue but should fucking destroy OceanGate for everything they have.



Plus, all of that stuff Cameron talked about and the amount of work he put into his own subs through the 33 expeditions he did made me respect the man even more. This is someone who gives a shit about safety when it comes to these situations. Yeah, some of the ideas in his films aren’t so great but the man at least gives a shit about wanting to do something great in whatever field he’s in while also trying to go through every detail of what to do and what not to do. That’s why South Park create this great song about him.

In the month of June 2023, I saw a total of 27 films 22 first-timers and 5 re-watches with 15 of those first-timers being films directed or co-directed by women as part of the 52 Films by Women pledge. One of the highlights of the month has definitely been my Blind Spot Series pick in Polyester. Here is the top 10 first-timers that I saw for June 2023:

1. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

2. Mangrove

3. Asteroid City

4. De Djess

5. Les Boutons

6. Le Donne della Vucciria

7. That One Day

8. Seed

9. The Door

10. Brigitte

Monthly Mini-Reviews/What Else I’m Watching

Billy’s Dad is a Fudge Packer



This short film that serves as a parody of 1950s educational films revolves around a boy trying to understand what his dad does for a living. It is a hilarious short filled with a lot of double entendres as well as all sorts of things. Even as little Billy also wonders about his sister’s social life and the fact that she wants a pearl necklace. Is she really sure? The short features an appearance from Alex Borstein of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel who is a neighbor that seems to take a liking towards Billy’s mother. It’s fucked up in all of the right reasons.

Howard

From Disney+ is a documentary that was pulled recently from the service only for a bunch of people to protest it as it returned to the service due to the demand and it is foolish for the people at Disney to pull this documentary from Disney+. Notably as it is this incredible short film about one of the unsung heroes of the Disney Renaissance period in songwriter Howard Ashman as it is told largely through pictures, rare home footage, and audio interviews with those that knew him until his death in April of 1991 months before the premiere of Beauty and the Beast at that year’s New York Film Festival. The film covers his work in plays as well as his life as a gay man though many of the people who worked with him didn’t seem to mind that he was gay as they loved him as the film does make a great case for him as the man who saved Disney from near-irrelevancy during the 1980s through the songs he created for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin as I’m sure he would’ve had a fucking tirade over these remakes.

Ad una Mela



One of three shorts that served as trailers to promote the Vienna Film Festival in different years as the first that I saw is from Alice Rohrwacher. It does play into her own unique idea of surrealism but also with a sense of wonderment as it revolves around a young girl who grabs an apple and goes into some strange adventure of sorts.

AI



Made for the 2019 Vienna Film Festival is this short by Lucrecia Martel as it plays into a pianist talking as he is pixelated except for his right eye as he talks about his work. It is a short told in 2 minutes yet it is effective as it does play into the many fallacies with artificial intelligence.

The Making of “One from the Heart”



With news concerning the sequel to Joker underway with mentions about the film’s look being inspired by Francis Ford Coppola’s 1982 musical-romance. It does raise a lot of interest towards the film though a proper Blu-Ray release for Coppola’s film in the U.S. still hasn’t been released. Yet, the DVD that was released in the 2000s had a lot of extras as some of them are currently available on YouTube including this 23-minute making-of documentary that features interviews with Coppola, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, production designer Dean Tavoularis and some of its cast including Frederic Forrest who died this month. It is a fascinating documentary that shows the kind of ambition Coppola was hoping to have for the film as a lot of his ideas were ahead of its time though it would put him in serious debt for more than a decade.

Empire



Made for the 2010 Vienna Film Festival, Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a 2-minute short that has a diver going underwater to view caves in the sea. It is a gorgeous short that manages to do a lot in such a small amount of time as fans of Weerasethakul should seek this one out.

Dark Side of the Ring (season 4, episodes 1-5)

The new season from Vice TV (which I don’t have along with many other cable channels as my mother and I are still trying to figure out where to go once we kill the cable) has arrived and it definitely gets dark. Notably as the first five episodes go into some serious subject matters with four of them relating to some serious dark shit as the first is about the relationship between Chris Candido and Tammy Lynn Sytch aka Sunny as the latter was a popular woman in the 90s while the former was a talented worker as they were both a couple. Yet, Sytch’s affairs with other wrestlers including Shawn Michaels and their drug use would play to their downfall with Candido eventually cleaning up until an injury in 2005 lead to his death while Sytch has become this trainwreck whose usage of drugs and alcohol eventually lead to her killing someone in 2022 as she is set to go to prison.

The stories on the Graham family in Florida in Eddie Graham and his son Mike who were both stars in Florida Championship Wrestling as they would both kill themselves as would Mike’s son Stephen along with the stories on Matt Bourne who was famous for playing Doink the Clown in 1993 in WWE who was destroyed by his drug abuse. The most recent episode on the Junkyard Dog who would die in 1998 in a car accident after having achieved fame in the 1980s only to succumb to drug abuse and such. Then there’s the second episode of the season on Magnum T.A. as this was about a popular wrestler in the 1980s who the hottest guy outside of WWE at that time and was set to become the face of NWA until a car crash in 1986 left him nearly paralyzed but sadly would end his wrestling career. That episode was also about a lot of what ifs as it played into what would’ve happened had he not been in a car accident and would the NWA under Jim Crockett Promotions would still go on in the 1980s. Three more episodes are coming in July about Adrian Adonis, Abdullah the Butcher, and the Bash at the Beach 2000 incident with August set to air 2 more episodes with one on Bam Bam Bigelow and the highly-anticipated season finale on Marty Jannetty.

Secret Invasion (season 1, episodes 1 & 2)

Two episodes have arrived for this new show from Marvel that appears on Disney+ as it is so far an amazing show as it plays into a growing civil war between different Skrull factions with a rebellion faction wanting to take over Earth after feeling that a promise that Nick Fury, Talos, and Carol Danvers had made years ago was broken. Yet, Talos and Nick Fury are both struggling with this rebellion as the latter is a completely fragile figure who spent the last few years recovering from the Blip as well as the loss of some friends. Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn are solid so far in their respective roles as Fury and Talos while Emilia Clarke and Kingsley Ben-Adir are real standouts in their respective roles as Talos’ daughter G’iah, who is conflicted in her role in the rebellion, and the rebel leader Gravik. Yet, it is Olivia Colman as the MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth that is just a fucking joy to watch as she’s just devilishly fun as this former ally of Fury who is suspicious about the Skrulls. The ending of the first episode is upsetting though it does lead to Fury realizing what he must do as his back is against the wall.

Wrestling Match of the Month: Kenny Omega (c) vs. Will Ospreay for the IWGP United States Championship at AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door – 6/25/23



Having seen their match earlier this year at WrestleKingdom 17, there was no question that a rematch between these two men was going to happen and what better place to do it at Forbidden Door in Toronto for both AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling for the IWGP United States Championship. This time around, Don Callis was in the corner of Will Ospreay in an act of defiance against his former protégé Kenny Omega as that turn was something everyone saw coming. Callis did interfere on Ospreay’s behalf but it did little for Omega to quit as he took everything Ospreay did but Ospreay would win this match. It was the best match of the night on a pay-per-view event that is another solid win for the company that also featured an incredible main event between Bryan Danielson and Kazuchika Okada that Danielson won despite breaking his arm 10 minutes into the match.

Top 5 Re-Watches

1. Rocco and His Brothers

2. Beauty and the Beast

3. Tangled

4. Cars 3

5. Presto

Before I close this piece. I want to reveal some news as it relates to my Lit20 project which I am going to suspend the project for five years for a lot of reasons. Among them is technical as I wanted to have something visual in terms of backgrounds and such as well as the font from the film. There’s also the fact that I was hoping there would be a 4K Blu-Ray release this year to emerge but that’s not going to happen right now as I’m stuck with the $10 Blu-Ray I bought late last year. Another factor is timing as well as the fact that the essay I was writing about why I love this film didn’t meet my own standards as I’d rather push it to another five years to do other things and hopefully learn some work on creating something that would be in the standard of the visuals of that film. So it’s likely I’ll try and create a list relating to the 20th anniversary of Lost in Translation and then work on something that I feel would play into the film’s greatness.

That is all for June 2023 as I will finish the Women’s Tales series next month as well as the Small Axe film series as well. As far as theatrical releases are concerned, Barbie is the most likely candidate unless I also get time and money to watch Oppenheimer but there is something far more important coming to theaters in July which is a special 50th Anniversary screening of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars as I plan on writing a review on this version of the film that features restored footage of Jeff Beck’s special appearance that was cut from the original film. Along with whatever films I can have the time to watch, my Blind Spot pick for July will be the Marlon Brando western One-Eyed Jacks. Before I bid adieu, I’d like to express my condolences to those that have passed away including the people at that tiny sub, Darren “Droz” Drozdov, Julian Sands, bluegrass musician Bobby Osborne, Nicolas Coster, Frederic Forrest, Megadeth drummer Lee Rauch, Teresa Taylor, Paxton Whitehead, Glenda Jackson, Urge Overkill drummer Blackie Onassis, the famed novelist Cormac McCarthy, Treat Williams, Margit Carstensen, songwriter Cynthia Weill, and announced earlier today is Alan Arkin. Finally, there’s Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri who is probably known many as the Iron Sheik. One of the greatest figures in professional wrestling but also one of the funniest and I will not allow any slander of this man or else he’ll put camel clutch on you and make you humble. Until then, this is thevoid99 signing off and I will miss you Sheiky baby. And yes, fuck Cunt Hogan!



© thevoid99 2023