First Time Watches: September 2020

Every month, I watch a whole bunch of movies. Some of them are movies that I like to revisit as a sort of comfort to myself. I know them, I usually enjoy them, and I want to feel the experience of watching them again. Or it has been so long since I saw them that I feel the need for a refresher. Then there are the movies that I watch for the first time. These new-to-me movies get a blank slate as I go in. I hope for the best. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t.

This post is all about those first time watches. It’s about my thoughts on the movies that I never saw before and finally got around to checking out. Good or bad, I want to get my thoughts out there. I want to share them with the few people who actually take the time to read whatever I write. I also want to come to terms with some of the movies, myself. Writing out my thoughts can sometimes help to better understand why I thought that way.

September 2020 had a bunch of first time watches. Not as many as some of the months leading up to it, mind you. I ended up rewatching a couple horror franchises in there, which meant that there wasn’t as much time devoted to new watches. There were only fifteen first time watches that month. They included a Netflix original dance move, a third movie in a horror franchise that began in the 90s, an entire other horror franchise that began in the 90s, and a baseball movie that fit into that teen movie boom from the late 90s and early 00s. Plus, there were some other things sprinkled in there as well. I’m about to write about them, so you should keep reading.

The Laramie Project

The murder of Matthew Shepard was an important moment in American history. It was a hate crime committed upon a college student partially due to his sexual orientation. The attention that the murder received paved the way for hate crime legislation to be put in place. Two years after the murder, the Tectonic Theater Project presented a play based on their interviews of the people living in Laramie in the aftermath. That play was adapted into an HBO film in 2002. A large, recognizable ensemble cast was assembled for the film, with recognizable actors the whole way through. It was a well written look at how a town coped with a tragedy, how people were changed through Matthew Shepard’s life and death, and how gay people were treated on a regular basis. Well worth checking out.

Work It

This was very much an amalgamation of movies like Pitch Perfect, Booksmart, and Step Up. A teen girl went to a college interview and was told to focus less on the work and more on having fun with her life. She decided to start her own dance team and compete against her high school’s more popular dance team in a big competition. If you liked those three movies that were mentioned, you’ll surely enjoy this one. It took the best of each film/franchise and did its own thing with them. It might not be as good as any of those, but it’s still a delightful little dance flick.

Triptych

Throughout 2020, I spent a good chunk of my time checking out movies from around the world. I dipped my toes into fifty-two different countries (plus the typical Canadian and American stuff I usually watch) as I tried to travel the world through movies. Triptych was my stop in Uzbekistan. It told the story of three women in post-World War II living their lives. It was an okay movie. The most interesting part of it was seeing a culture that I’m not accustomed to. There wasn’t much to make it stand out beyond that.

Urban Legends: Bloody Mary

The first Urban Legend film is one of my favourites of the post-Scream era of teen horror. It took the urban legends that so many people heard growing up and used them as the methods by which a slasher killed their victims. The first sequel sort of continued that, with a couple kills being based on urban legends. However, most of it had to do with a film set in the same way that Scream 3 took the action to a film set. The threequel promised to go back to the urban legend well with a story about Bloody Mary. Except, it was more about a spirit attacking the children of the people who had killed her and covered it up. It didn’t much deal with the idea of saying “Bloody Mary” in front of the mirror. The effects were bad. The acting was bad. The deaths were terrible. It was one of the worst slasher movies I’ve seen come from the 2000s.

Love, Guaranteed

For some reason, 2020 became a year where I tried to watch as many teen/college movies as I could from the late 1990s and early 2000s. One actress who showed up a bunch during that time was Rachael Leigh Cook. She starred in this 2020 romantic comedy alongside Damon Wayans Jr. It felt like the Netflix version of an any-time-of-the-year Hallmark romance. She was a lawyer. He was someone who needed law assistance. They fell in love. It wasn’t great. Good enough for a background watch, but not even a great one of those.

Merantau

Before The Raid, there was Merantau. Iko Uwais starred as a man who left his village to teach Silat in Jakarta. Things didn’t go as planned and he was left destitute on the street. When he intervened to protect a woman who was being harassed, he found new enemies in the gang that controlled the city’s underground crime scene. It utilized many of the things that helped Iko Uwais become a martial arts star. His techniques were on full display in a captivating and entertaining way. He was likeable as the lead character. Watch Merantau if you liked The Raid.

The Babysitter: Killer Queen

I liked The Babysitter. I had one major issue with it, and that was that the tones never quite fit together. There was something about the humour and the horror that never found that sweet spot the movie tried to hit. The second film found it. The Babysitter: Killer Queen might be seen as a rehash of the first film. I’ll give people that. But it managed to take what the first film had, in terms of tone, and perfect it. This was a good way to bring me into the spooky season.

All About Steve

Okay. Let me just get this out there. You should never make a romantic comedy where a stalker is the main character and play her off as quirky and loveable. She’s a stalker. All About Steve enabled stalkers to follow their stalker hearts and chase after the people they loved, regardless of the people not reciprocating those feelings and, in fact, telling them to leave. The one bright spot in the entire movie was an on-location news story scene featuring Bradley Cooper, Ken Jeong, and Thomas Haden Church. Other than that, this movie should not have happened.

The Golem

This Israeli horror flick came from The Paz Brothers, the directors of JeruZalem. I enjoyed that movie and thought I’d check out another horror movie they made that would check another country off my list during my 2020 journey. It was a pretty solid choice as The Golem was a pretty solid horror movie. The performance of lead actress Hani Furstenberg was the driving force of the film, as she grieved over the loss of a child, and became protective of the new one she created. The Golem isn’t necessarily up there with the horror greats, but it’s a really good Israeli entry worth checking out if you’re into horror.

Wishmaster

Horror is a genre that prides itself on nostalgia. The long franchises utilized the nostalgia that people had for earlier entries. The versus movies brought franchises together because of the love audience had for the characters before. Then there were the meta commentaries on other movies, and the use of popular horror actors in cameo roles. Wishmaster was filled with that last type of nostalgia, featuring actors like Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Ted Raimi, and Tony Todd in smaller roles. Reggie Bannister and George “Buck” Flowers made appearances, too. Among those horror icons was a new, memorable villain who had a fun twist. It was a djinn that killed everyone through twisting their wishes in a “be careful what you wish for” sort of way. Fun movie, though not necessarily great.

Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies

With a villain as memorable as the Djinn from Wishmaster, it was only a matter of time before a sequel got made. The problem was the release. The first film was theatrical. The franchise quickly left that distribution method and went to television for the second film. The recognizable faces were still there, this time with Tommy “Tiny” Lister, Bokeem Woodbine, and Robert LaSardo among them. There was a woman who shat out coins at a casino. The movie was more of the same, while being dumbed down and having a smaller budget. Still kind of fun, though.

Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell

And then the movies went into direct-to-video territory. Canadian-produced direct-to-video territory. Wishmaster 3 brought in a new actor as the Djinn, meaning that it was possibly a new Djinn altogether. It was basically the same story as the other movies where a woman unleashed a Djinn, it killed people through wishes to get enough souls to take over the world. This time, though, the woman’s boyfriend was possessed by the archangel Michael, who was there to kill the Djinn with a powerful sword. It was okay. It didn’t have the goofy charm of the first two movies and didn’t have the weirdness of the fourth. It was a just kind of there third entry.

Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled

Things were so far down the distribution hole at this point with the second direct-to-video entry that things went completely off the rails. There was an interesting idea where one of the wishes involved love, so the Djinn spent the movie trying to get the main woman to fall in love with it. That also meant there was a weird sex scene with the Djinn and the main character. Then, when she got to her third wish (the love wish), a soldier was sent from Hell with a sword to kill her. Another woman died through a “killer” orgasm. This was a movie. I should also note that I, for some reason, saw part of this one on late night television back in the day and the image of the Djinn in a bedroom stuck with me to the point that I sought out the movies now. They’re worth checking out, though none of them are what I would consider to be great movies.

Summer Catch

The middle child of the five Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard collaborations, this one had its moments. It was about a hot-headed baseball player who got his chance to be a pitcher for a local team in a summer league where scouts were always around. It played to the strengths of the two actors by basically giving them the same relationship they had in Wing Commander, which was the highlight of that film. Toss in some baseball fun and Jessica Biel in her prime acting days and you’ve got a fun little sports flick and romantic comedy for that millennial audience of 2001.

Sambizanga

Going through a bunch of international films in 2020 gave me a broader understanding of the world. This was a movie that helped with that, highlighting some of the things that happened during the Angolan civil war. It was made by Angolans who had been exiled from the country as a result of the war, so there was insider knowledge when it came to the events. It was decently acted, with some very dramatic beats. I enjoyed it.

 

 

That brought September 2020 to a close. It was another month filled with another crop of good first time watches. And some not-so-good ones, as well. There was no denying that. Some of the movies were real doozies to get through. Overall, though, I enjoyed the month and there were a few movies that I’ll surely revisit in the future because I enjoyed them that much. That’s the same as pretty much every month.

October would bring even more first time watches, many of them horror. Spooky season was in full effect. I watched the entire Slumber Party Massacre franchise for the first time. I checked out Adam Sandler’s Halloween movie, Hubie Halloween. I even went off the standard Halloween movie path by checking out Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, and that was an experience I’ll never forget. When I get around to the October post, you better come back for my thoughts.

Before I wrap this post up, however, I’ve got a few plugs to put in here. You can find me on Twitter here and here. You can find me on Instagram here, here, and now here as well. I write about Power Rangers and I write about bad movies. If you’re sick of me, my pal Jaime Burchardt is on Twitter. Or you could head on over to Talk Film Society and see what they’ve got cooking. They have a new podcast called Dream a Little Deeper, hosted by Alex and Harrison. Here are the show notes for their first episode, the Snow White episode. Listen to their podcast. It’s good. I’ll see y’all next time!