in which I escaped on a ‘Jungle Cruise’...
everything that happened at Flick Filosopher from Monday, July 26th, to Sunday, August 1st
I’ve made so secret of how I’ve been struggling over the past 18 months. It’s mostly been a mental struggle — pandemic brain fog is real, and I’ve had a lot of trouble focusing on much of anything, whether that’s watching and reviewing films or even just recreational reading.
But I’ve been dealing with a physical issue, too, a hamstring injury that is relatively minor but which has forced me to be less active than I had been before. (I would have been walking much longer distances than I was able to, for one thing. There were times during our several lockdowns when I was getting sick of seeing the same streets on my walks!) The hamstring is getting better, but incredibly slowly. Which only adds to the mental struggle: it’s depressing as hell to not be as fit and able as I was before.
But this will pass. It does feel a bit as if I am beginning to defog in a meaningful way, and I am planning to spend August ramping up on all the many new things I want to be doing with Flick Filosopher (part of that is focusing more on classic films). And I’m hoping to finally debut something I’ve been wanting to do for years now in time for the site’s 24th anniversary in early September.
I’m enormously grateful to all of you, dear readers, for being patient with me during this time. I hope to be able to pay you back with lots of fun, engaging movie stuff very soon.
—MaryAnn
new at flick filosopher, Jul 26–Aug 01
curated: “Arctic thriller’s film crew struggled to find true frozen waste”
Soon we will see ice and snow only if it is CGI’d into science fiction movies, or ones with historical settings. [read more]
new and ongoing cinema releases, US/Can, Jul 30
Disney’s Jungle Cruise; documentary Enemies of the State… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, US/Can, Jul 27–30
Musical drama In the Heights and kiddie adventure Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway arrive on premium VOD; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing cinema releases, UK/Ire, Jul 30
Disney’s Jungle Cruise (based on a theme-park ride), and DC Comics’ The Suicide Squad… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, UK/Ire, Jul 26–30
Action-adventure comedy Jungle Cruise lands on Disney+; sci-fi drama Settlers is on VOD; more… [get the full rundown]
question of the weekend: what place that exists only in a movie would you like to visit?
Movies are fantasy factories, creating places that do not exist in the real world: settings so hugely imaginative that they could not possibly exist, and settings that could conceivable exist, yet don’t. [post a comment at Flick Filosopher | post a comment at Substack | post a comment at Patreon]
Jungle Cruise movie review: raiders of the recent swashbucklers
Wonderfully escapist, dripping with magnificently congenial charm thanks to the comic chemistry of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Plus it’s sure to enrage people who use “woke” as an insult. Yay! [read the review | cinemas+Disney+ US/UK]
Peter Rabbit 2 (aka Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway) movie review: carrot and shtick
Cynical sequel — you know, for kids! — doubles down on the nihilistic money-grubbing of the original. Thinks that being clever and meta about its own disenchantment will win us over. It does not. [read the review | VOD+DVD UK, premium VOD US]
Tweet of the week…
(Part of a must-read thread that begins here.)
coming up at Flick Filosopher…
Hey, I actually knocked a couple of films off last week’s list!
The Suicide Squad
Pig, starring Nicolas Cage
Space Jam: A New Legacy
Mark Wahlberg as Joe Bell
Old, the latest from M. Night Shyamalan
Summer of Soul
The Forever Purge
Gunpowder Milkshake
Fast & Furious 9
Luca, the new Pixar animated feature
The Tomorrow War, starring Chris Pratt
Oscar’s Best Animated Feature Soul and Best International Feature Another Round
Disney origin story Cruella
Riders of Justice, starring Mads Mikkelsen
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