Favorite First Time Watches of July 2024
My July movie-watching was bountiful. Almost too many movies I want to recommend. I try to keep these to five total films, but this past month was too giving I have 7 films to recommend. I will try to keep these recommendations short.
Vera Drake (2004) – Mike Leigh
In 1950s England Vera Drake (Imelda Staunton) is a house cleaner and a very devoted wife and mother to two grown children. In her spare time, she helps women with abortions who cannot afford to go to a doctor by performing them herself.
Eventually, she is caught when one person becomes very ill. Everything comes out in the open and causes a rift in the family when Vera is arrested.
For most people, Imelda is known as the awful Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter films. If you only know her from those films you’ll be shocked at her performance here. She is a heartwarming woman. It’s easy to see why women would come to her for help.
Mike Leigh’s film deals with an issue that sadly remains present. Mike’s true to life family dramas are the best in this subgenre. His biggest flex here was keeping Vera Drake’s arrest. What she was doing under wraps.
The other actors thought they were making a family drama, so their reactions to her arrest are genuine. It is an impressive feat to pull off and shows his commitment to the craft.
The Straight Story (1999) – David Lynch
Alvin Straight (Richard Farnsworth) is retired and living a modest life in a small town in Iowa. He hears about his distant brother Lyle in Wisconsin has had a stroke. With no vehicle, Alvin sets out on a lawnmower to Wisconsin to make things right with his brother.
For many David Lynch is a weird filmmaker who makes nightmarish hellscapes. This is a take from people who have only watched 10 minutes of Mulholland Dr.
His television series Twin Peaks has a lot of genuine humanity, broken up by nightmare moments. The Straight Story is pure humanity.
It’s a beautiful story about family and connection. What we have to contend with at the end of our life and how we should live so we minimize those contentions.
It’s the kind of film so pure in humanity it’ll make you cry from its earnestness. For anyone who does not like Lynch’s work, I implore you to try this film.
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) – David Zucker
Growing up I loved the Mel Brooks comedies of Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and Blazing Saddles. The Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams kept that genre alive first with Airplane! A spoof of the 70s disaster films specifically Airport.
Then they made The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Police Squad is a short-lived television show, a spoof cop show. From the television series, they made a film that is arguably the funniest spoof film ever.
I cannot believe I did not see this as a kid. I watched Airplane! countless times, but I never saw Naked Gun. The scary movies dive deep into toilet humor, but this early Zucker/Abrahams effort is pure dumb joke after joke. Like a film full of puns.
North Dallas Forty (1979) Ted Kotcheff
Phillip Elliot (Nick Nolte) is a veteran receiver for the North Dallas Bulls, a stand-in for the Dallas Cowboys. The film is based on Peter Gent’s Semi-Autobiographical novel about his time on the Cowboys in the late 1960s.
The NFL refused to help in the production as well as certain players who helped in the making of the film were blackballed from the NFL after the release of the film. Like Fred Biletnikoff who coached Nolte for the film was not asked back to the Raiders camp.
It suggests the film is too close to the truth. These teams acting in this way post-release only solidify people’s suspicion about this film’s honesty.
Unfortunately, this film is still too close to the truth, only acting in a corporation’s interest. If it makes money for the league it’s all good, as long as you fall in line.
Friday Night Lights has always been my favorite football film, and the best in my opinion. However, North Dallas Forty gives it a run for its money, especially in the latter.
Kingpin (1996) – Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly
The Farrelly brothers follow up to the first feature film Dumb and Dumber. Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson) is a prodigy bowler.
Ernie McCracken (Bill Murray) cuts his career short after tricking Roy into hustling a bowling game and Roy is severely hurt.
Years later Roy discovers Amish bowler Ishmael (Randy Quaid), he is Roy’s ticket out of poverty and back into the spotlight. Though it’s not as remembered or as hailed as Dumb and Dumber is, I believe this is a better comedy.
The story is stronger and the jokes have matured, mostly. I have not seen There is Something About Mary, which is widely considered their best.
I will need to correct that blind spot, but until then I will consider Kingpin the Farrelly brothers’ best movie, this includes Peter Farrelly’s Oscar-winning Green Book.
Go (1999) – Doug Liman
Doug Liman’s third directorial effort and his follow-up to the indie hit Swingers. Go tells three intertwining stories of one crazy night out.
Three friends who work at a grocery store, Ronna (Academy Award Winner Sarah Polley), Simon (Desmond Askew), and Claire (Katie Holmes). Including two guys played by Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf.
People talk about how this is a Pulp Fiction rip-off. I can get that from the standpoint of intertwining stories, but this feels like America’s answer to Trainspotting. Drug-fueled, high-octane storytelling.
I would get why some people don’t like this film. I had a lot of fun with it, my main issue is the third storyline goes on too long and I wish we got more of Katie Holmes’ character. The talented cast and wall-to-wall soundtrack make this a ripping good time.
Targets (1968) – Peter Bogdanovich
Two stories play out simultaneously in this chilling film. One follows Boris Karloff playing Byron Orlock, an aging horror icon set to make his last public appearance at a drive-in movie theater. The other story follows a disturbed Vietnam Vet who goes on a shooting spree.
When people talk about the best directorial feature film debuts I never see Targets mentioned which no baffles me. Peter Bogdanovich carries tones like the best of them. He also has a real talent for making films that feel true to life.
This, The Last Picture Show, they feel like documentaries with how real the characters and environment feel. Sadly Targets has become all too real.
Issues of mental illness and the availability of guns in this country have only become worse and worse in the last 56 years.
Some may find the subject matter too disturbing, and there is no flare in the storytelling, it’s chilling, upsetting, disturbing, and any other adjective you want to use. But if you give it a chance it is worth the watch.
