Well, July ended up being a pretty lopsided month, with yet another big disappointment from tentpole A24 release while all the actual cynical franchise blockbusters ended up being pretty good and a weekend so bad it came out with two different movies I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. A pretty shallow selection this month. Fortunately August is surprisingly stacked. Just this weekend I'm looking forward to both major releases with The Bad Guys 2 and The Naked Gun. Weapons is one of my most anticipated of the year, and Nobody 2 seems like a solid little dark horse that actually looks a lot more separated from the "John Wick rip off" vibe the first movie had.
5. Eddington
The "greased up deaf guy" of A24 art house schlock. My god has Ari Aster fallen off a cliff. I think at this point A24 has written the man too many blank checks and he really doesn't know where to reign in his crazy ideas. I really liked Eddington in the first act, but a mid-movie plot twist basically drained all the intrigue out of the story. It was "Bryan Cranston getting killed off 20 minutes into Godzilla 2014" levels of the air of excitement straight up being deflated from the movie by a single plot point. At this point I'm getting pretty sick of Joaquin Phoenix's pathetic whiny idiot characters and the rest of the stacked cast is pretty much wasted. Great production value and Aster's camera work never disappoints, but this continues the downward spiral of the man's storytelling capabilities that started with Beau is Afraid.
4. Jurassic World: Rebirth
Much like my beloved Jurassic Park 3, you're either going to buy into the B movie slop that this film is or you're going to see it as yet another cynical cash grab in an obviously aging franchise. I straight up have Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to the Jurassic movies. I never really rewatch the World movies, but at the very least I've enjoyed them all in theaters (yes, that includes Dominion). This might be the absolute best of the "World" movies...so like...a solid 7/10 haha. It's got some of the more memorable dino set pieces in the entire canon of the franchise with the T Rex river chase being a particular all timer. The cast is also a lot more engaging than the charisma vacuums that were Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, so I really can't ask for much more from the franchise in the state it's in.
3. Fantastic Four: First Steps
I had very mixed feelings about First Steps, and I wish I loved it as much as a lot of other people on here seem to. The high points are hands down some of the best stuff the MCU has ever done. I love the production design, the score is an all timer, the visual effects are genuinely impressive, and the cast by and large delivers. My problems with this movie come in the little details. It's just so obvious there was a studio mandate to keep this movie under two hours, and the awkward editing really showcases that. Whole plot points go basically nowhere, while others feel like they really needed at least another scene or two to really flesh out. It kind of reminds me of The Dark Knight Rises being a technically amazing movie with a "death by a thousand cuts" number of little plot holes weighing it down. All this being said, I still had a ton of fun with this movie and definitely think this cast being the driving force for the next Avengers has a ton of potential.
2. Together
It seems that we might be entering a bit of a horror hot streak that Together is kicking off. I loved this thing! I think it tackles a lot of the deeper co dependency themes that a movie like Companion barely scratched the surface of. This film has some absolutely stomach turning body horror while still being a campy good time with a lot of really good twisted humor thrown into the insane scenario. I love the claustrophobic, almost "bottle episode" quality to this thing. I also think the build up to the mystery of what's actually going on is handled really well, but it also reminded me of something like Talk To Me where we get a lot of cool little nuggets of lore but don't have anything explicitly spelled out. An all around sick and twisted good time and with stuff like Weapons coming out next month and Sinners being THE movie is I really think 2025 is going to be a movie year that's by and large defined by the horror genre.
1. Superman
"James Gunn has crafted a Superman movie that's everything Zack Snyder's version of the character could never be. This is a cosmic shift in the superhero genre. "I think I have one of the more definitive critic pull quotes I've ever come up with for this movie, so I'll just leave my thoughts as that. I'm seriously in love with this thing. James Gunn is the best to ever do it in the superhero genre hands down and proves that the Guardians movies aren't a fluke. This is one of the most definitive representations of the true comic essence of a superhero that's ever been put to film, right up there with Batman 89, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and The Avengers. I'm a punk rocker, yes I am!
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