Week 26 of 2019 (6/24 – 6/30)

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DateTitleReleased
6/24A Man Called Sarge1990
6/25Seat 252017
6/26The Next Three Days2010
6/27Cold Souls2009
6/28Eight Men Out1988
6/29Deathstalker1983
6/30Three Days of the Condor1975

Wow! We’ve kind of hit the halfway point for this challenge. I mean, I know the official halfway point is sometime on Tuesday. But ending this week and the month on the same day, with 26 weeks and 6 months down, feels more like the halfway point. Kind of like how the year 2000 was considered the turn of the millennium, although it was truly on 1/1/2001 (when the century changed). Not important to harp on, just worth sharing.

I have a feeling the back half of this challenge is going to get more interesting. Primarily for financial reasons, I’ve had to cut back on a lot of streaming subscriptions, and let’s face it folks, that stuff is NOT going to get easier soon as studios and networks each release their own subscription streaming service and take their content off of sites like Amazon or Netflix. (Disney will have at least two, now that it will wholly own Hulu as well). So finding opportunities to watch stuff has me going to backup plans. I still have Hoopla through the Atlanta public library system (yay!), which has some really interesting choices, and I’ve also got the old Netflix DVD subscription, so I can watch a wider array of more current films coming up in the year. I’m debating whether to hold on to my Amazon Prime account, since I mainly just use it for Prime Video these days. I rarely order anything anymore because I just don’t have the money. When that turns around, I’ll probably bring it back. Plus, it will get me off of bingeing TV shows when I should be working on stuff that will make me money!

Anyway, I’ll keep plugging away at this Movie Challenge, undaunted! (At least, until Dragon Con at the end of August… that could get interesting.)

I had planned a bit for this next week (covering the 4th of July holiday) to be filled with patriotic movies. Trouble is, I’ve seen almost all of the really good ones at this point. I did find enough movies to fit a good theme for the week, but you may find some of the choices interesting… But enjoy as we head into the back half of the year!

Week 25 of 2019 (6/17 – 6/23)

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It’s Hollywood Week for the Movie Challenge!
DateTitleReleased
6/17How to Make It in Hollywood2017
6/18The Hollywood Complex2011
6/19Strictly Background2007
6/20Actors of Sound2016
6/21Game Changers2018
6/22Life After Flash2017
6/23Chaos on the Bridge
Doomed!: The Untold Story of Roger Corman’s
“The Fantastic Four”		2014
2015

So this was an interesting week of films to watch. It started out tough for me, as it stirred up some internal stuff, but as the week went on I started feeling more upbeat with the movies I chose. They definitely helped to start breaking me out of a bit of a funk I’ve been in for quite some time. I thin a lot of it for me was just a rut that I fell into. I had hoped that this challenge, along with some cost-cutting measures, would break me of out if, but no joy so far.

But this weekend was interesting. I had a long power outage last night, followed by a long local Internet outage today. The former made me feel just miserable, behind I had no way to cool off enough to go to sleep until very early in the morning. But the latter provoked a surprisingly productive day. If nothing else, it reminded me that the Internet is an incredibly powerful distraction, especially for someone like me with major FOMO and a really bad perfectionist streak when it comes to consuming TV and film. If I start watching a show, I am often compelled to binge watch the whole damn thing, even to the detriment of other essential tasks that need to get done. Yes, there are apps and programs and the like to block off access to the Internet for periods of time, but that never helps me because I can usually circumvent them pretty quickly to get back to the sweet, sweet oblivion of TV…

Right! Yes… as I was saying, I’m going to start revving back up into the more productive ways I used to have just a few years ago. As long as I can make enough money to pay the bills and have a little left over to build the future, that’s just keen. Beyond that, who knows? Maybe something good will come out of all this.

Week 23 of 2019 (6/3 – 6/9)

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JCVD Week!

DateTitleReleased
6/3Death Warrant1990
6/4Replicant2001
6/5In Hell2003
6/6Wake of Death2004
6/7Second in Command2006
6/8Black Water2018
6/9JCVD2008

This was an interesting week to be watching these movies. I had a couple of days where I had to really figure out where to fit these films into my schedule, including on Saturday when I was at an all-day event. I ended up watching Black Water at 5:30am before starting my day!

Anyway, I was glad to see these movies, although some of them I totally get why I skipped them the first time. I can recommend what I think are several really good Van Damme projects that I’ve already seen but are worth it if you haven’t:

  • Bloodsport – 1988 (his breakout starring role)
  • Hard Target – 1993 (John Woo’s first English-language/Hollywood film, cheesy and violent)
  • Timecop – 1994 (ummm, because it’s awesome… duh!)
  • Street Fighter: The Movie – 1994 (more for the silliness as well as a great penultimate performance by the late Raul Julia, who passed away before the movie’s release)
  • The Quest – 1996 (Van Damme’s directorial debut. I mean, it’s basically Bloodsport with a different framing story, but I liked it)
  • Legionnaire – 1998 (quite a different story from the usual Van Damme fare at the time)
  • Welcome to the Jungle – 2013 (Van Damme has just a supporting a role in this, but he and everyone else are really f**king funny in it)
  • Jean-Claude Van Johnson – 2016 (TV series this time on Amazon Prime Video. He again plays a version of himself, this time where his being a movie star is cover for his real career – international superspy. Very silly and tragically short-lived.)

Week 21 of 2019 (5/20 – 5/26)

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Keanu Reeves Week!

DateTitleReleased
5/20Brotherhood of Justice1986
5/21The Night Before1988
5/22The Last Time I Committed Suicide1997
5/23The Gift2000
5/24Henry’s Crime2010
5/25Generation Um…2012
5/26Siberia2018

This was an interesting week, exploring a lot more of the filmography of Keanu Reeves, a number of which I was not even aware of. I will say this — of the ones I saw this week, I highly recommend both The Night Before and Henry’s Crime. Wonderfully done comedies that really resonated with me.

I know I haven’t posted a lot with the other weekly summaries, but some weeks, we just don’t have much to say and no time in which to not say it. (Yes, I’m sticking with that grammar.)

Anyway, I’m slowly steam cooking in the Atlanta heat and humidity like a helping of boil-in-the-bag veggies. In between sauna sessions, I went with my brother to the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, which is a conveniently a short drive from my apartment. The location is almost idyllic in the center of a major city. Walking through the gardens to the museum is incredibly quiet and calming. The exhibits in the museum are pretty much what you’d expect — lionizing the subject (probably rightly so in this case) and well laid out as a path through his life and works. There was also a temporary exhibit about the film industry in Georgia. (The GA Film Commission was started by Carter in the 70s when he was governor.) I really kind of want to check out the library side of things more than the museum, but maybe that’ll be a future visit. In any case, check number 1 of 13 (eventually 14) presidential libraries off my bucket list!