'Who do you think we are then?' | January in Review

I don't know if I'm doing these again. Maybe if I do, they'll be short like this? I don't know! Follow me on Letterboxd! 

But. Of the 13 films I watched for the first time in January, the best were Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, The Iron Claw, Past Lives and No One Will Save You. I also rewatched Bodies Bodies Bodies, and it is still immaculate.

Tim and I have also been watching Season 2 of Fargo. I think it's boring, but Season 1 was great! And we're making our way through The Sopranos for the first time because the 25th anniversary seemed as good a time as any. We've finished Season 1 and so far, it's good.

In books, I reread The Inheritance Games and journaled this ridiculous and very telling paragraph:

"It's like Jennifer Lynn Barnes said, 'I know you've got a thing for jaded rich boys from intimidating and vaguely evil families – oh, you didn't know that about yourself? Take this Draco dupe, this Sirius dupe and a good look in the mirror!" 

Then I tore through its initial sequels, The Hawthorne Legacy and The Final Gambit. Highly recommend for fans of The Hunger Games and Knives Out. YA forever, baybee.

Looking forward to: seeing Lisa Frankenstein, reading The Suite Spot by Trish Doller, which I scored at a bookswap brunch.

The end of an era?

At least for now, I'm done writing monthly media wrap-ups here on Within This Hive, a blog I started in high school.

The last post I made was a recap of September. October went by, then November and the year ended without another one.

I touched on this last summer, but this type of post just hasn't been ~sparking joy~ anymore. Changing the format helped a little – and I'm proud of the more analysis-based posts I wrote – but it also mostly felt like added work.

I don’t think I’m done writing on here forever — I love talking about movies too much. But 2023 will not feature monthly recap posts for the first time since 2018. It’s honestly kind-of liberating.

To wrap up this chapter, here are some lists that sum up my 2022 in media. 

Best Movies I Watched in 2022:

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Barbarian

The Clovehitch Killer

The Bob’s Burgers Movie 

Honorable Mention: The Strangers. I was right to be terrified of the trailer back in 2008.

Worst Movies I Watched in 2022: 

The Amityville Horror (2005)

Death on the Nile (2022)

Cabin Fever

Fractured 

The Turning

I decided "worst" and "most disappointing" needed to be separated. The movies listed above were just genuinely awful, but the movies listed below were bad and I was mad about it.

Most Disappointing Movies I Watched in 2022:

Men (this had potential, but then it was awful)

Don’t Worry Darling (Visuals? Spectacular. Plot? Not so much)

Thor: Love and Thunder (it seems my Marvel days are now fully behind me)

Smile (this was excruciating) 

My Best Friend’s Exorcism (sad the first Grady Hendrix adaptation was a drag)

HM: Old. This is an honorable mention because while it was, in fact, bad, my hopes weren’t high enough for it to be that disappointing?

I also decided "best" and "most entertaining" should be separated because some of the really enjoyable movies I watched last year still needed a moment to shine but weren't quite as spectacular as the ones already listed.

Most Entertaining Movies I Watched in 2022:

The Batman

John Wick series (the first is the strongest)

The Goonies

Top Gun: Maverick

Glass Onion (1,000 more pls)

HM: Scream 5. There was an element of this that I hated, but otherwise…it’s Scream. Of course I had fun.

Best Books I Read in 2022: 

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin

Chasing the Boogeyman - Richard Cizamar

I Kissed Shara Wheeler - Casey McQuiston

The Box in the Woods - Maureen Johnson

Little - Edward Carey

HM: The House Across the Lake - Riley Sager. Honorable because it wasn’t one of the best books I read this year, but it was the most surprising — which was especially nice because his last book was so unsatisfying.

I’m still tweeting about my first watches and keeping track of them here. And you can always find me on Letterboxd!

'This is perfectly natural' | September in Review

It was such a struggle to start writing this blog, even though I knew, more or less, what I wanted to say. It just goes to show that even if you've been "a writer" your entire life, it never actually gets any easier.

September's stand-out watches lend themselves to a couple of concepts. What it's like to have expectations for a film and have the film exceed those expectations vs. what it's like to have low expectations and then the film doesn't even meet those. Watching a film that's constantly surprising you vs. watching a film that barely surprises you at all. Earned twists vs. twists that just feel dumb.

We're talking Barbarian vs. Don't Worry Darling.

I watched Barbarian one year to the day after I watched Malignant, a coincidence that was perfect because the films are something like siblings in a lot of ways – most notably, in making you think you know what's they're going to be about.

After watching the trailer and seeing the poster, I had high expectations for Barbarian and only a loose idea of what I thought it's focus would be. I was very wrong – and that felt fantastic.

Barbarian plays on expectations the whole way through, and not just by being incredibly unpredictable. It relies heavily on messing with societal expectations and with your expectations as a viewer. From how someone is supposed to act in a given situation, tangled with how they're perceived, to what it means to be a good or a bad person – and if that even matters when a situation is much stranger than you could've anticipated.

The first third of Barbarian is wildly intense; something jarring and delightful happens, structurally, around the middle; and then you never know what's going to happen again, right up until the credits roll. If you like horror movies, you should see it immediately.

On the flip side, there is Don't Worry Darling.

Before I get into where this movie went wrong, let me knock out what it did right. The main characters' house was perfect, Florence Pugh and Chris Pine did the absolute most they could with what they were given and Harry Styles' acting wasn't as bad as everyone thought it would be.

The movie overall, however, was worse.

I can't get too far into all of the things that infuriated me about Don't Worry Darling without spoiling what there is to spoil. But I'll say this: Tim and I were writing a better movie in our heads as we watched it compared to what it ended up being.

One issue I have is that it brings absolutely nothing new to the table. We were able to predict one of the "twists" before we even left for the theater, and if you've seen The Stepford Wives (either version) and The Truman Show, you've essentially seen this film. 

But ultimately, that's fine! A lot of movies are unoriginal, and this one is aesthetically pleasing enough that you could forgive it. What's unfortunate is that it almost does a few things that are interesting, but then it falls short. It's a movie filled with almost-realized potential.

I also have to admit that there is, in fact, one twist we were unable to predict, that is at least somewhat original – it's just also very mishandled and therefore very dumb. We weren't able to predict it because it doesn't make any sense.

Moving on. In September, I also watched Prey (entertaining!), The Turning (terrible) and A Classic Horror Story (good, with a great twist). And it being spooky season, I rewatched these classics: It, Coraline, Practical Magic, It Chapter Two, Beetlejuice, The Invitation, Death Becomes Her, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Ready or Not.

I also finally finished The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware (solid) and started reading the new Riley Sager, The House on the Lake, which I have since finished as of writing this blog (it ended up being much wilder than I expected).

September was also a great month for live music. Incredibly, I attended two "double features," where I saw two artists in 48 hours. First, Panic! at the Disco on my last day of being 29, then The Killers on my first day of being 30. Then I finally saw Florence + the Machine, followed by my second time seeing Harry Styles. Great, life-affirming times all around.

'We're just having fun' | August in Review

In August, I didn't watch a single movie I hadn't seen before. And I even went to the movies twice. 

Both of those viewings were the obvious standouts of the month, but they put me in a weird position with this month's blog. How should I write about two films I've written about before? The answer: just talk about what makes them great – and how I liked them even more the second time.

The first theater experience of the month was The Thing (1982). I waited all summer for this installment of Alamo Drafthouse's John Carpenter series. I saw the film for the first time in June 2020 and adored it, and I knew the only way it could be better would be in a theater. I was right.

Last time I wrote about The Thing, I talked about how one of my favorite things is when a movie goes completely off the wall with over-the-top, weird, gross practical effects (which are, obviously, superior to CGI in almost every way). The Thing does this better than any other movie I've seen – and I say that as a diehard fan of both An American Werewolf in London and Fright Night.

For me, there's something euphoric about the way it all plays out. I'm not someone who, generally speaking, likes to be grossed out and I'm not a fan of gratuitous gore or body horror at all. But with this particular type of effect, used in this particular way, I can't look away and I don't want to. It brings me joy. As a dog melts into a monster or a man's head turns into a grotesque spider-thing, I'm grinning ear to ear.

And what's truly incredible about The Thing is that this isn't the only thing it's good at. It could be a garbage movie and get by on its effects, but instead, it's a fantastic movie elevated by them. It does everything right. I've often said Halloween is the best horror movie ever made – it's incredible that John Carpenter might have made science-fiction's best, too.

My other August theater rewatch was Bodies Bodies Bodies. I attended the premiere of this film at SXSW in March and struggled to write about it after because it's kind-of a hard movie to talk about without giving something away. I really liked it then, and I liked it even more on second viewing.

Right before I watched BBB again, I came across this excellent TikTok that describes it as a potentially "generation-defining" horror film and makes a lot of direct comparisons to the way Scream illustrated the Gen X youth experience and that generation's fears. Y'all should know I adore Scream and should have guessed by now that I'm very into critical analysis of the horror genre, so I am this TikTok's audience. It's also very accurate.

I still hesitate to say too much about BBB because 1) I don't want to give anything away but also 2) I want people to watch it and have their own takeaways. I will say I agree with the sentiments of that TikTok and would also add that like Scream, it's a classic in the making – whether people like it now or not. Like Jennifer's Body before it, I think the right people will love it some day.

Also in August, I rewatched Red Dragon, which is obviously not as good as The Silence of the Lambs, but I maintain is notably better than Hannibal. Tim also suggested we watch the Hunger Games series because he'd only seen the first one, so we watched 3/4. They mostly hold up and I can still yell for an hour about how good their marketing campaigns were.

We've also been watching a lot of TV, most notably Hannibal (the TV show) and Better Call Saul, though there are others too. Obviously, we've started Friday Night Lights, as this is Tim's first Texas football season.

I don't think I actually I read any of The Turn of the Key in August, but I'm still working my way through it. Once I finish, I have a couple of ideas for spooky season reasons but haven't committed to any of them yet.

'Bright, creative lights and nowhere to plug in' | July in Review

July's most notable watches ended up having some unexpected themes.

Both Nope and Vengeance are movies I have continued to think about since I watched them, for both good and bad reasons. I was highly anticipating both, both have vaguely western (in the cowboy sense) influences and both were very strong until...they weren't.

Nope was full of four-to-five star ideas and it had a lot of really good things going on. The direction and performances were very good, two elements that are consistent across Jordan Peele's catalog. And some of the overarching themes – people of color finding their place in the lore of the American West, the various ways domestication can play out – were compelling and laid out in a unique way. Peele has a knack for presenting an audience with a concept they've never quite seen before.

But things didn't come together quite as neatly as I expected and the ending left me unsatisfied. I was also annoyed that the film was marketed as a horror film and it absolutely wasn't one. Had I known going in that it was more of a slightly-chilling-science fiction situation, I think I might've liked the finished product more overall.

I was similarly torn leaving Vengeance. I thought about 80-85% of the film was excellent. And full disclosure: I was coming at it from a very biased perspective. I was literally born in a city that one of the characters is named after. But that bias could've also put the odds against the film before it even started.

Folks are wrong about Texas all the time, in real life and in media. That's an entire other blog post I don't have the energy for. But Vengeance got Texas right, from the complexities of the people and the landscape to the fervent loyalty to Whataburger and your chosen college football team (as someone who went to UT but is from Texas Tech country, some of the jokes were something close to traumatizing). The film didn't feel like parachute journalism – or in this case, parachute filmmaking. It felt like B.J. Novak actually spent time in West Texas, as his character does, and it got under his skin. 

Unfortunately, Vengeance also has one of the most self-sabotaging third acts I've ever seen. It truly angered me, not just because what happens is dumb, but because everything that happened before wasn't. I still think it's a film worth seeing, especially if you're from Texas and absolutely if you're from anywhere west of Dallas, but I'm still a little mad about it days later.

Nope and Vengeance weren't the only films I watched in July that I was able to draw a line between, but this next one is a little more abstract.

I watched Cabin Fever for the first time and I absolutely hated it. But I unwittingly made a mistake before I even pressed play: I decided to go into it blind. I assumed I knew the general gist of what it was about, took into account that it came out in 2002 and went in without watching a trailer. This is often a good choice! Not in this case. Horror is rarely perfect, but this was like a greatest hits of its worst tendencies – politically incorrect language, casual depiction of sexual assault – while also being of a subgenre I'm generally not a fan of (infection/sickness horror). There were a few good ideas hidden in the muck, but it wasn't enough to counter-balance. 

Watching the trailer could've spared me.

On the other hand, choosing to watch a trailer can also end up being a mistake, as was the case with Not Okay. If you have watched the trailer for this film, you have seen the film. That's not necessarily the film's fault – I'm sure filmmakers have little say in how their films are marketed – but it still kind-of feels like it is? Your film should bring more to the table than a trailer can get at. This film felt like it had a lot it was trying to say, some of it interesting, but it ultimately felt like it didn't say anything. It felt like a waste of time.

Moving on, also this month in first watches: Unfriended was awful but entertaining; Spiderhead made me yearn for Hemsworth's villain era; and I felt nothing about Dark Skies. Thor: Love and Thunder was deeply disappointing, and Girl in the Picture was sad. 

I also rewatched Independence Day (duh), The Black Cauldron (a childhood favorite that apparently no one else has seen), Romeo + Juliet and Us, plus Hot Fuzz and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which both remain perfect.

I mostly put The Turn of the Key on the back burner this month, in favor of reading The Night Shift by Alex Finlay. It was a pretty familiar plot for me, having read both Final Girls by Riley Sager and The Final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendrix, but it still brought enough of its own voice to the table to be enjoyable.

'Discovery, teamwork, adventure' | June in Review

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.