August movies

Hobbs and Shaw

The Fast and the Furious spinoff is almost a full blown cartoon. For all the shit the core franchise gets, those films at least put in some effort to ground things at least a little bit. This one is just nonstop absurdity. Now, since it has Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham it's also quite a lot of fun. And Idris Elba rips into his bad guy role. I wouldn't object to another one of these, but the true Fast films are still the highlight.

The Art of Self Defense

Kind of a brilliant ultra dark comedy. Jesse Eisenberg hasn't been this well cast since The Social Network. A rare film that really gets better and better as it goes, up until an ending that is exactly the right punchline you want it to be. This made no money and was out of theaters very fast but I expect it to live on as one of the year's best cult films.

The Lion King

The original is not a sacred text for me. It's fine, but meant nothing to me. This remake is pretty lazy from a story standpoint, as very little new stuff is there, and much of that is devoted to giving Beyonce(a bad actress even in voice-only form) more to do. The animation is incredible stuff just to look at.

The Kitchen

This mob dramedy feels seriously hacked to pieces, as if major connective scenes are missing all over the place. The plot simply moves between things happening for no apparent cause. And then just kind of ends randomly. Too bad, cause the film has a nice grungy look, and the against-type leads are good. Glad to see Tiffany Haddish stretch, even if her character is hurt the most by the seemingly missing material.

The Farewell

A nice, emotionally satisfying little movie. Awkwafina is very good here in a more dramatic part.

Brian Banks

A film about the NFL prospect whose dreams were shattered by being falsely accused and then convicted of rape. I knew the story vaguely, and this telling has maybe a little too much Hollywood gloss on it, but the inherent drama carries it. I liked how this got into the details of how hard it can be to clear one's name, and how hard it can be to get your life back on track even after leaving prison.

Good Boys

Superbad and Booksmart are both probably better movies overall, but I might have laughed more consistently at this. This is one of the most consistently funny comedies of probably the decade. And it has some legitimate sweetness to it. It probably leans a little too hard into the kids swearing at times, but the laughs keep coming.