Last month, I wrote of my reconciliation with the fact that I like certain types of action movies, including action-adventure movies. Unintentionally, leaning into that became a theme for the month of June.
In keeping with the new direction of focusing on the films that had the biggest impact on me, for better or worse, let's talk Top Gun.
To prep for Top Gun: Maverick, a film I was only interested to see because of 1) Glen Powell and 2) Miles Teller, I rewatched the original Top Gun. I have no new takes: the movie is objectively insane and extremely gay, things I assume everyone agrees about. Also, Ice Man is right about everything pretty much the whole time.
But, what about Top Gun: Maverick? Would it get too hung up on referencing the original? Would it fail to live up to the hype? Would there be a beach volleyball scene??
The answer is no to all (there's a beach football scene) because Top Gun: Maverick freaking rules.
It's a movie that absolutely must be experienced in a movie theater if possible. It references the original just enough without being too hokey, it introduces a whole new gang of characters you automatically want to root for and, perhaps most shocking of all, it kind-of makes you feel something for Tom Cruise. The "Maverick is too old to be a flashy pilot/Cruise is too old to be an action star" parallels are not so much parallels as a metaphorical beach footballs to the head, but it works. My only critique is there's not enough Hangman.
Aside from thinking about Top Gun, I also spent a lot of time thinking about two other media-related things in June, and some of my other watches speak directly to them.
The first is that children's media today thinks that children are dumb. I know I sound a little "old man yells at cloud," but the only current children's media I can even think of off the top of my head is the Minions franchise, where the characters literally speak gibberish. I can't help but feel that a lot of what's made for kids today is almost disrespecting them – and it's certainly not respecting their parents, who have to sit through it all too.
What's most frustrating is it hasn't always been this way. Sure, we had our share of strictly-dumb media as kids, but a lot of what we watched dealt with real issues in a way meant to make kids understand. Or they had complex stories that made kids think and impressive animation for the kids that didn't want to think. And our parents liked some of it too.
Two movies I watched in June really demonstrated this shift. One was The Goonies, which I'd seen the same pieces of all my life but had never sat all the way through, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which I liked but didn't love as a kid.
The Goonies is often surprisingly adult because, hey, it was the '80s and PG-13 had only existed for a year. But it's also fun. Pretty much everything that happens in it can be enjoyed by both kids and adults, even if they're experiencing it on completely different levels. It's a movie that actually feels like it was made for families to watch together. Sometimes, that can feel like a lost art.
Meanwhile, Atlantis might be a little too brainy for some kids, but it's a great example of a shockingly solid story tucked into a kids movie with equally solid animation. There were multiple times I thought to myself, "This movie has no right to be this good." But shouldn't they all be?
The second media-related thing I spent a lot of time thinking about in June is a two-parter, a combination of "movie stars aren't allowed to be normal person attractive anymore" and "what happened to on-screen passion?" My brain got stuck on these topics after I discovered this playlist via TikTok, which itself was inspired by this very good (but NSFW!) article.
All that we've lost on both fronts is summed up pretty well in Romancing the Stone, which I watched for the first time in June. Not only is it a fun action-adventure movie, it also stars two characters who 1) are very attractive, but in a "best-looking person at the dinner party" kind of way and 2) are believably attracted to each other. On-screen passion! I would like to see it.
Elswhere, another mini-theme of my life in June was talking about going to see Elvis, then not actually going to see it. To prep for eventually making it to the theater, I've been rewatching some previous Baz Luhrmann movies with Tim, who had never seen any. We watched The Great Gatsby, which I like much more than most people seem to, and Moulin Rouge!, which I like much less than most. Luhrmann is certainly not for everyone – he's not even necessarily for me – but you can't say he isn't doing his own thing.
I also watched these films for the first time: Bo Burnham: The Inside Outtakes, Jungle Cruise, Nobody, Marry Me and Stavros Halkias: Live at the Lodge Room. And I rewatched these: The 'Burbs (a forever fave), The Emperor's New Groove, The Road to El Dorado, Dirty Dancing (an example of truly sweltering on-screen passion) and John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous.
The best non-movie media I consumed was Sky Ferraira's new song. I'm also reading The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware, a book I selected from BookPeople's "Blind Date With a Book" section. So far, it's a true example of the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" because the cover is horrendous, but the book – a modern twist on "The Turn of the Screw" – is pretty good.
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