A Month of Movies

+11

In case you missed my introduction blog about this endeavor, you can catch up with that here. In any event, I will mention there was an instance where I simply couldn't watch a movie (I had a very full day starting with a run early in the morning and ultimately not returning home until 2am). So I was unable to watch something that day. I also sadly wasn't able to get to all recommendations due to restrictions (e.g., a lot of the films needed to be rented or were only available through Prime). I don't personally like pirating movies, so I didn't end up resorting to that. So I'm sorry if I didn't get to get all of your recommendations or even any (sorry BautyArg, Tayger, & Neodymium).


Anyway, without further ado, here are all the films I watched in August, along with some stats!

Aug 1, 2025

Seinfeld Finale

Recommended by N/A • Sitcom • N/A

I must be honest here, I technically didn't start on the first day here because I was busy finishing up Seinfeld. Though I watched enough of this (altogether the finale is like a movie), so let's count it...

Aug 2, 2025

Fantastic Four: First Steps

Recommended by Claptime9558 • Superhero • 1h 55m

I got the chance to view this movie in theaters, and while I enjoyed Superman more, it was still enjoyable at the very least.

Aug 2, 2025

Harvey

Recommended by N/A • Comedy/Fantasy • 1h 44m

I recall watching this movie as a young child and loving it. Perhaps I related to the titular character since I was teased as a toddler for having an imaginary friend. Now watching it as an adult, I very much enjoyed paradoxical down-to-Earth-ness that he had shown in his ability to be present and caring to all those around him.

Aug 3, 2025

Dial M for Murder

Recommended by N/A • Thriller/Mystery • 1h 45m

This was another film I remember from my younger days, though I couldn't remember anything about it, so this was a very fresh re-watch. Gotta love Hitchcock films.

Aug 4, 2025

KPop Demon Hunters

Recommended by Real life friend • Musical/Action • 1h 36m

I remember seeing this title for the first time and thinking how stupid it sounded. It actually was really solid with what I thought were solid, Christian themes!

Aug 4, 2025

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story

Recommended by Insaniot • Comedy/Musical • 1h 48m

Thank you, Insaniot for this recommendation. I had to literally stop the movie a few times just to stop, laugh, and appreciate the humor. Gotta love a good parody film, and a Weird Al biopic is perfect for it!

Aug 5, 2025

The Irishman

Recommended by MasterRocket • Crime/Drama • 3h 29m

I liked this film's depiction of the struggle mistakes and imperfections can cause within a family. It was nice to expose myself to the gangster genre, as I admittedly haven't seen Godfather or Goodfellas (I can only think of Scarface). Anyway, my favorite part was seeing Fr. "Jimmy" Martin speaking Latin.

Aug 6, 2025

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Recommended by Insaniot • Myster/Thriller • 1h 20m

This didn’t feel as much like a Sherlock Holmes mystery, but either way I enjoyed the mystery!

Aug 6, 2025

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror

Recommended by Insaniot • Thriller/Mystery • 1h 6m

Another Holmes mystery! I found this outcome more fun than the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Aug 7, 2025

Meiyazhagan

Recommended by AntiMatter8192 • Comedy/Drama • 2h 58m

This was a very beautiful film, and my first Indian film as well! It serves as a reminder to never take for granted your kindness.

Aug 8, 2025

Who Killed Captain Alex

Recommended by AntiMatter8192 • Action/Comedy • 1h 14m

I had no idea until I started the film what I was getting myself into. Thank you, Antimatter! I now understand the meaning "it’s go good it’s bad". This is the epitome of low budget.

Aug 9, 2025

The Prestige

Recommended by michaelngwa & thegoatisgoaty • Thriller/Sci-Fi • 2h 10m

I was unsure about this movie at first. I didn't seem to relate to appreciate the characters, but I certainly appreciate a good plot twist. And let's just say the plot twist turned the movie (and hence my opinion of it) upside down.

Aug 10, 2025

Grave of the Fireflies

Recommended by MasterRocket • War/Drama • 1h 39m

My gosh is this movie sad. Who would’ve thought this Ghibli masterpiece is from the 80s?

Aug 11, 2025

A Whisker Away

Recommended by DrewFan • Fantasy/Romance • 1h 44m

With some clear inspiration from Spirited Away, this movie serves as a reminder to cherish friends and family.

Aug 12, 2025

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In

Recommended by cuotak • Action/Crime • 2h 6m

The action was fun, and I thought it was neat to see a film take place inside the Kowloon Walled City, a place I first heard about thanks to JetPunk!

Aug 13, 2025

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Recommended by InfiniteBulk • Comedy/Musical • 2h 3m

With as much Will Ferrell humor I had to grow up with, I don’t think I was able to fully appreciate this. I was however very happy to now understand and appreciate the phrase “Play Jaja Ding Dong!” that I always saw on cardgames.io, but never understood.

Aug 14, 2025

Summer Holiday

Recommended by toowise • Musical/Comedy • 1h 47m

This was a fun travel/romance/musical type movie. It’s always fun to see depictions of eras that were well before my time. Oh, how times and customs have changed.

Aug 15, 2025

Our Times

Recommended by DarthKnight • Drama/Sci-Fi • 1h 30m

It’s always cool to see the hypotheticals of time travelers, but I unfortunately didn’t seem to appreciate this one as much. (Spoiler) I didn’t really like they the main character choose her career over love.

Aug 16, 2025

District 9

Recommended by N/A • Sci-Fi/Action • 1h 52m

An alien film that also doubles as a critique on racism and depicts a more dramatic "coexistence" between aliens and humans is an interesting spin!

Aug 17, 2025

OSS 117: Lost in Rio

Recommended by baptistegorce (sort of) • Comedy/Action • 1h 41m

I didn’t realize until the film ended that Baptiste actually recommended the 2006 OSS 117 film, but this one was still a funny spy parody. Almost like the French Johnny English.

Aug 18, 2025

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

Recommended by baptistegorce • Comedy/Thriller • 1h 39m

I’m glad that I moved on to baptiste’s actual recommendation for this one. I enjoyed the film, most especially the humor, more!

Aug 19, 2025

Zoolander

Recommended by N/A • Comedy • 1h 29m

Somehow I’d never seen this before. It was even more of a stupid-comedy than I imagined. Should I be embarrassed that I laughed as much as I did?

Aug 20, 2025

Night Always Comes

Recommended by N/A • Crime/Thriller • 1h 48m

I made the mistake of choosing the first Netflix original that popped up when I opened the app. Not that the acting or cinematography was great, but the main character wasn’t really heroic nor did there seem to be any direct repercussions for her mistakes.

Aug 21, 2025

Barbarian

Recommended by N/A • Horror/Mystery • 1h 42m

This horror movie was a bit more chilling and disturbing than I expected, but cinematically not bad in these two areas. Maybe it would’ve been nice to have a stronger thematic overtone, though that’s more a personal preference of mine.

Aug 22, 2025

Grown Ups

Recommended by N/A • Comedy/Drama • 1h 42m

I’m pretty sure I watched this years ago, and it was just as "funny" with a surface level, feel-good climax as you’d expect for a film of its time.

Aug 22, 2025

Grown Ups 2

Recommended by N/A • Comedy • 1h 41m

I guess I actually laughed a few times during this sequel as opposed to the original.

Aug 24, 2025

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Recommended by N/A • Horror/Comedy • 1h 45m

The plot was interesting, but ultimately this wasn’t as interesting as the original.

Aug 25, 2025

Inheritance

Recommended by N/A • Mystery/Comedy • 1h 34m

This Polish mystery had its ups and downs, and everything in the plot ended up coming together nicely at the end!

Aug 26, 2025

La Haine

Recommended by michaelngwa • Crime/Thriller • 1h 38m

I love what they did in regards to the artsy side of things in this film. The way things build up to the end and seemingly resolve (as well as some of the cinematographic techniques) was great. However, as someone that looks for beauty in art to bring me out of myself or who appreciates a cunning plot, I personally didn’t connect to this film as much as I connect to others. And admittedly my appreciation some of those others can be surface level.

Aug 27, 2025

Family Pack

Recommended by N/A • Comedy/Adventure • 1h 34m

This movie was a bit weird to be honest, but the concept of it, a family gets stuck in the late Middle Ages playing a game, wasn’t so bad and some concepts of it were pretty neat.

Aug 28, 2025

Marmaduke

Recommended by N/A • Comedy/Drama • 1h 27m

A silly dog movie. Don’t miss out on the closing dance sequence.

Aug 29, 2025

Lost City of Z

Recommended by N/A • Adventure/Action • 2h 21m

I had no idea this film was based on real events until it was over. With that in mind and reading about what actually happened, I thought the ending made more sense. So all around it was mostly enjoyable.

Aug 30, 2025

Contraataque

Recommended by N/A • Action/Thriller • 1h 24m

Good to get in another Spanish language film. Action packed Mexicans with honor.

Aug 31, 2025

Airplane!

Recommended by N/A • Disaster Comedy • 1h 25m

What a great film to round off this month. It was my friend's recommendation and even though I remembered 90% of the scenes from the many times I saw it when I was younger, I still had so many good laughs. Watching with a priest who is old enough to get all the culture references also helped me to understand the film better. It makes me excited to watch Space Balls 2 next summer in theaters as I'll be able to get all the modern cultural references that are made in it.

Thanks for all of your recommendations!!

23 Comments
+2
Level 63
Sep 2, 2025
Nice!

also why did bro make bro watch fireflies? the first sentence of that review is very apt

ive only seen like 5 of these

chart of genre and runtimes?

+2
Level 78
Sep 2, 2025
I’m not sure Grave of the Fireflies was actually one of the mentioned Ghibli movies. But it’s classic and one of the first (and available for me) so I chose it.

And a chart is a nice idea!

+1
Level 70
Sep 2, 2025
It's one of his classics and many people love it, but I very much dislike the subtext of the film that glorifies the sacrifice of the Japanese people during WW2. Imagine a movie featuring the ghosts of some Nazi soldiers watching over the prosperity of nowadays Berlin.
+2
Level 83
Sep 3, 2025
Hmmm. I have to disagree. First, Fireflies is not a Mayazaki film. Ghibli animated it, but Mayazaki didn’t write or direct it. Second, I disagree that it glorifies the suffering of the children… it doesn’t make it seem like a noble sacrifice or anything. I think the movie shows civilian suffering during war. Yeah, I guess the movie doesn’t overtly criticize the Japanese empire’s militarism, but it doesn’t seem to glorify it either. The overall theme seems to be the catastrophic consequences of civilians and children during war.
+2
Level 83
Sep 3, 2025
I in fact did not mention that one but I have seen it and do like it, just like every other ghibli film I've seen.
+5
Level 72
Sep 2, 2025
very nice formatting
+3
Level 68
Sep 2, 2025
Was about to mention the same thing, I love how this blog looks!
+1
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Thank you both! I was hoping it would come across in a good way.
+2
Level 63
Sep 2, 2025
Glad you liked the Weird Al movie! It was one of my favourites from recent years. Enjoyed reading your thoughts on the other movies too. I don't think I've watched any of them 😔 guess I've got a list of my own month of movies to watch! Would like to see you talk about movies more :)
+1
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Yes, thanks again for the recommendations!

Hopefully you can find one or two to watch yourself.

Who knows, maybe I will.

+2
Level 73
Sep 3, 2025
This makes me want to watch movies on my own. I really love the formatting of this blog. Surely you've watched Dune and Dune 2 right?
+2
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Yes, it truly is the seventh art!

And I have seen them both in theaters. I liked Dune 2 even more than Dune I think.

+2
Level 73
Sep 3, 2025
100%
+3
Level 71
Sep 3, 2025
Congrats on your 3605 minutes of screen time!!!

Hopefully didn't make any calculations errors.

I'm trying not to judge, so I'll hope that you enjoyed your month!

+2
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Hahaha, I didn’t want to add it up myself 😆

Thanks!

+4
Level 83
Sep 3, 2025
I really like the formatting of this blog, and thank you for checking out my recommendations! Hope you had a great time this August.
+3
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Thanks! And thank you for your recommendations!
+2
Level 81
Sep 3, 2025
Thanks for checking out one of my recommendations, I now have a list of movies to watch in my free time as well.

Are you going to make a part two? :)

+1
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Thank you!

I might! I want to be able to revisit some of the films I missed (particularly yours, as you had the most suggestions). I'm much too busy to be able to do a month straight of movies now, but maybe closer to the end of the year I'll have the time to! I also usually get Prime at Christmas time to get free shipping on Christmas presents, so that makes a good chance to do it.

+2
Level 81
Sep 4, 2025
Yeah, the movies are an added bonus of overnight shipping in Prime.

I watched an excellent movie the other day that I would recommend. It was called Red Sparrow and starred Jennifer Lawrence. I thought her performance was excellent. It's a spy movie.

+1
Level 78
Sep 4, 2025
Thanks for the additional recommendation!
+2
Level 57
Sep 3, 2025
Congratulations! It's really amazing to look at the diversity of the movies you watched during this challenge, both in terms of genres and origins.

I'm glad you liked the OSS 117 movies! The comparison with with Johnny English makes a lot of sense to me. Two spy parodies: one very Brit, the other very Frenchy.

Also, thank you for sharing all these screenings. It makes me wanting to watch some of these movies (especially the ones recommended by AntiMatter, based on what you wrote about them.

+2
Level 78
Sep 3, 2025
Yes, I particularly liked both AntiMatter's and Insaniot's picks. Thanks for your recommendations! I will keep seeing if I can find Amanda!

And I actually wanted to list origin, but ultimately I had almost finished and thought it would be too much to go back and add it in.