weekly digest: beasts galore...
everything that happened at Flick Filosopher from Monday, August 29th, to Sunday, September 4th
You know how people joke like, “If I’d known I was gonna live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself”? That’s me right now, except about my work: FlickFilosopher.com will be 25 years old on Thursday. Maybe I’d have done things differently if I’d known the site would still be around a quarter of a century later? Or maybe not, either, because the Internet — and the world at large! — has changed so much since 1997 that I couldn’t possibly have predicted back then what anything would look like today. I’m not sure there was any way to have planned for where we are now.
Later this week I’ll be sharing some thoughts on this momentous anniversary, and ideas I have for going forward. Because as tough as it has been to make a living at this — which I have never been able to manage — it absolutely breaks my heart when I think about giving it up. I love movies, I love thinking about and writing about movies, and I love sharing it with all my wonderful readers. I hope I can keep doing this for another 25 years.
Stay tuned…
—MaryAnn
new at flick filosopher, Aug 29–Sep 04
new and ongoing cinema releases, US/Can, Sep 02
French romantic drama Waiting for Bojangles and family drama Gigi & Nate are new and exclusively in cinemas; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing cinema releases, UK/Ire, Sep 02
Adventure thriller Fall and fantasy romance Three Thousand Years of Longing are new and exclusively in cinemas; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, US/Can, Aug 30–Sep 02
Biopic spectacle Elvis arrives on HBO Max; winemaking documentary Blind Ambition debuts on premium VOD; more… [get the full rundown]
new and ongoing dvd/blu/vod releases, UK/Ire, Aug 29–Sep 02
Animated superhero adventure DC League of Super-Pets and historical family drama The Railway Children Return debut on premium VOD; more… [get the full rundown]
Beast (2022) movie review: he fights the lion
Idris Elba fights a lion. This is what we are promised and this is what we get. The purity is sort of beautiful. But is it a failure of the movie, or a success, that it treats such nonsense earnestly? [read the review | cinemas US/UK]
loaded question: what movie characters’ bad experiences make you feel better about your own life?
Inspired by TV writer JP Larocque noting that from Ripley’s perspective, Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 took place over about six weeks. [reply at Flick Filosopher | reply at Substack | reply at Patreon]
weekend watchlist: rethinking monsters (of the sea) and munchkins (aka kids) [pictured]
Plus teenaged gymnasts, confused cops, and more. (First published July 29th, 2022, on Substack and Patreon.) [read more]
what I’m bingeing
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law [Disney+ globally]: so much lawyering now — I love it; truly, it’s really cool to explore some of the ways in which the reality of superheroes would impact the rest of our culture beyond the battles and the Avengers soap opera
Ted Lasso [AppleTV+ globally]: finished Season 1! was surprised to find myself a little choked up at the end…
The Rings of Power [Prime Video US | UK | globally]: watched episode 1, can’t say I was hugely enthralled, but I’ll probably keep watching cuz I’m such a dork
Tweet of the week…
coming up at Flick Filosopher…
adventure thriller Fall
kiddie superhero stuff DC League of Super-Pets
John Boyega in Breaking
Korean airline thriller Emergency Declaration
Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis
oddball buddy dramedy Brian and Charles
period drama Mr. Malcolm’s List
Pixar’s Lightyear
horror Dashcam
Jurassic World Dominion
trips through multiverses with Everything Everywhere All at Once and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Oscar Best Picture CODA
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, for my sins
adventure comedy The Lost City
historical revenge drama The Northman
Moonfall
time-traveling ghost story Last Night in Soho
Kenneth Branagh’s autobiographical Belfast
based-on-a-videogame action-adventure Uncharted
And more!
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