June 2024 First Watches and Read

This month will be light on writing because I need more time to pack up my hastily purchased physical media collection. So, here’s a ranking of things I saw this month:

11. Furiosa’s box office earnings

10. King George’s (from HBO’s Ren Faire) taste in art

9. Austin Butler’s performance in The Bikeriders

8. The average quality of contemporary horror films

7. The cat in A Quite Place: Day One

6. Glen Powell’s teeth

5. Jodie Comer’s accent in The Bikeriders

4. Young Clint Eastwood’s glassy blue eyes

3. Tom Hardy’s performance in The Bikeriders

2. Denzel Washington

1. My desire for Kelly Fremon Craig to direct more movies

~

WATCHES

1. The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig, 2016) A-

   

2. Devil in a Blue Dress (Carl Franklin, 1995) A-

   

3. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024) A-

   

4. Ren Faire (Lance Oppenheim, 2024) A-

   

5. Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2023) B+

6. A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) B+

7. The First Omen (Arkasha Stevenson, 2024) B+

8. A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski, 2024) B

9. Set It Up (Claire Scanlon, 2018) B

10. The Bikeriders (Jeff Nichols, 2023) B-

11. Dogleg (Al Warren, 2023) B-

READS

My reading has slowed significantly; I’m still in the middle of five books. Here’s what I wrote on Goodreads about the shockingly prescient Neuromancer:

For a while, it was the best sci-fi I’ve ever read. Gibson’s writing has an electric momentum to it and his existential expressions of cyberspace approach poetry. After the settings were thoroughly established, I lost a little interest in reading so many action/heist movie scenes back-to-back. Regardless, it’s fascinating how many terms, ideas, and visual worlds can be traced back to this book; a religious text for cyberpunk fans or anyone who has used a computer.