Weekly Watchlist: Week 6. Unfortunately, finals week took its toll and took my time away from films this time around as I had to study for once.

We have a good mixture of oldies and modern films in this batch, though not that many in quantity. This summer I plan on watching around 200 movies before I have to go back into regular school year. Yeehaw, au revoir this is my last article of the semester and maybe for a while now as I am taking on new responsibilities as the new Video Director of this fine website/organization.

So here’s what I watched this time around.

Monday (4.29.19)

Boyz n the Hood (1991) – 4.5/5

  • Rip John Singleton: dude made this when he was 23. This movie is good and real af n I’m mad I haven’t seen it before. Quote of the decade: “They either don’t know, don’t show, or don’t care about the hood”

Tuesday (4.30.19)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – 4/5

  • Planet of the Apes + Gravity + Star Wars – any logic + awesome lighting & set design + interesting mixture of cinematography styles – any more logic that remained + a huge baby = this movie

Guava Island (2019) – 3.5/5

  • Really big fan of the cinematography; it looks really beautiful and I’m glad they shot it on film,., BUT,.,., this is basically a super long music video with a cool animated intro. Rihanna’s talent is hugely wasted and the story/plot doesn’t entirely work that well; I wish I liked this more

Madeline’s Madeline (2018) – 4/5

  • Everything about this is wow; the cinematography flirts with a documentary style of filming at times. The plot is great and the acting is phenomenal. Lots more I could say but hard to put into words really.

Saturday (5.4.19)

Avengers: Endgame (2019) – 4/5

  • A second viewing I went to with my friend who hadn’t seen it. Glad I saw it though cuz I was able to catch more jokes and step back to analyze the cinematography/visual aspects more.

Tuesday (5.7.19)

The Last Summer (2019) – 1/5

  • Only watched this because my girlfriend had it playing as I woke up. Sad to see that Netflix is spending money on s**t like this. Overall: dumb, fake, & a waste of time.

Saturday (5.11.19)

Whiplash (2014) – 4.5/5

  • I don’t remember the last time I got so emotionally invested into a movie; very nice cinematography, extremely tight framing & extremely tight focus. The acting/directing is incredible w anxiety ridden writing fueling the entire plot. A good movie to watch at 9am but gives me PTSD to when I played the drums

Whiplash (Short Film) (2013) – 4/5

  • I prob should’ve seen this before the feature-length film but I enjoyed it nonetheless; they basically took out one great scene from the feature and made that into a short (which is a great way to get a feature funded; its cool how they translated some of the exact same shots into the feature and kept some of the same actors but I’m very glad they replaced the dude who was eventually played by Miles Teller.

Badlands (1973) – 4.5/5

  • I love the colors in this a lot; the cinematography is simple and nice. This is an extremely impressive director debut: i like the story of people on the run tbh. This film is like bonnie n clyde except bonnie ain’t really feelin’ it; I’m a fan

Naked (1993) – 3.5/5

  • sex -fueled monologues for days in this film; David Thewlis’ character is a god of sarcasm in this. This has a rather nice score & an extremely interesting storyline that goes in every direction. The long takes mixed in with long monologues by Thewlis’ hobo-esque character is such an interesting combination that we see multiple times in this film; each time either ending in screaming or sex. Felt dragged on and annoying at times though, especially towards the end.

Thank you for reading along for this week; I hope these comments offer insight into your choice of what to watch and what to avoid.

I thank those who read along and hope that you watch as many movies as you possibly can; this way, people can become educated on cinema.