What I Watched in August 🎥

Three coming of age movies, the Katharine Hepburn movie I have memorized, a musical, football doc, and more.

Roy Scheider in All That Jazz/me all Leo season.

I’m never making a Letterboxd, but this month I’m starting a new Hung Up series. Brief thoughts on select things I watched over the last month. Next month’s will be behind the paywall! Here’s a subscription button if you need it 🫶 And comment anything notable or memorable you watched this month!

Oppenheimer (2023)
new release

You Are So Not Invited To My Bat Mitzvah (2023)
new release

A little bit To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, a little bit Catherine Called Birdy — I loved it. I wish I had this as a sleepover growing up, not that Amanda Bynes wasn’t putting in the work. I didn’t realize until after that the lead is Adam Sandler’s actual daughter. She’s so good! Nepo babies up at the half, I fear.

All That Jazz (1979)
first time watch

Maximalist, over the top, outrageous. I loved it.

Flirting (1991)
first time watch

I’d never heard of this before Alex asked Thandiwe Newton about it in the Vulture interview, and I remembered it when Greta Gerwig cited it as a Barbie reference. There’s some manic pixie stuff happening at the end that I didn’t like, but it was really lovely. Newton is great, and it’s mind-boggling that Nicole Kidman has just always been so good. I had to get a DVD of this, btw, couldn’t find it streaming anywhere.

Easy A (2010)
rewatch

Just a little thought exercise: when you think of Emma Stone’s career and popular YA actors in the 2010s, who do you think is the male lead in this? Penn Badgley, for some reason. I dont know why, but I’d totally forgotten that he was in this movie!

House of Cards season one (2013) and exactly one episode of season two (2014)
rewatch 

Andrew had never watched this and I watched some eps with him, mostly to get to the season two premiere. Robin Wright as Claire was formative when I watched it as a college sophomore. On rewatch, the pregnancy stuff feels sort of reductive for that character. Remy is named after Remy Ma, sometimes Remy in Ratatouille, and maybe Mahershala Ali as Remy Danton, too. 

The Philadelphia Story (1940)
rewatch

A big wedding, a dysfunctional family, a love triangle, an irascible perfectionist — candy to me! I truly believe I’ve seen this movie 90 times, I would watch it all the time in high school. I haven’t seen it in maybe five years, but I had so much fun watching it on a Saturday morning and reciting Katharine Hepburn’s sing-songy line readings.

How To with John Wilson (2023)
first time watch

How To is every boyfriend’s favorite show. If there is a boyfriend within a few feet of you, anyone’s boyfriend, you’ll hear about it. Boyfriends and How To go to together like dogs and Lamb chop. I have to report that finally got me, girls. I’m always like “sure I’ll watch the one about how to clean your ears” and it ends up getting really to internecine drama of a bunch of people who are very sound sensitive?? Spectacular.

Untold: Johnny Football (2023)
new release

This Untold doc was totally serviceable for someone who only knows about Johnny Manziel via Drake songs and whatever my high school friends told me at the time. But this list of famous people Johnny Football’s friend wanted to meet … I have been thinking about “5. Meg Ryan” daily since I watched this.

Snoop Dogg … Willie Nelson … Drake … Johnny Knoxville … and then this kid thinks about someone else but changes his mind and goes with Meg Ryan. I have to know more about this!

Passages (2023)
new release

I wrote a little something about it here.

Something else that happened in August: My birthday is, famously, August 9th. I accidentally sent myself two separate bouquets of flowers. Like I thought “Wouldn’t it be nice to surprise myself with flowers?” once, arranged that delivery, and then forgot and did the exact same thing again. I love being a Leo!