August Summary

August Summary

04/10 - Clash of the Titans
06/10 - The Big Lebowski
02/10 - Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
05/10 - Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI
07/10 - Repulsion
06/10 - Serpico
02/10 - Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
09/10 - Moon
09/10 - The Natural
06/10 - Les diaboliques (Diabolique)
03/10 - Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
01/10 - Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday

Quick Facts:
Movies seen in August: 12
Time spent watching movies in August: 1349 minutes (22 hours, 29 minutes)

Best Movie Seen (Overall):
The Natural
I'd seen The Natural quite a few years back and I didn't remember it being this awesome. Sure, it's over-the-top and quite outlandish but it works really well for the vibe it has which is treating baseball with this mythical appeal. Everything is larger than life and this quality really made me love it. Next, Moon retains its 9/10 rating and kept me intrigued on a second viewing. I didn't really gain any new insight or anything but it still ranks second this month.
Runner-up: Moon
[The Natural and Moon were repeated viewings.]
[Note: These two films will not be included in the next two rankings.]

Best Movie Seen (First Viewing):
Repulsion
I didn't feel like I understood Repulsion all the way but it was still deep and disturbing which is what it was aiming for with its twisted and psychotic illusions of Carole. I definitely want to check it out a little later down the road after I've seen more Polanski. Serpico gets runner-up in a close finish with Diabolique as both are 6/10. Neither were really great or anything but Serpico was a bit more interesting to me.
Runner-up: Serpico

Best Movie Seen (Repeated Viewing):
The Big Lebowski
This wins by default since the only repeated viewings this month were Moon and The Big Lebowski and Moon was selected above. As I've mentioned in two different posts, The Big Lebowski isn't my favorite movie and I don't like it nearly as much as everyone else I know likes it but overall it's still okay and is actually pretty funny at times. Anyway, I have to select it due to lack of competition.
Runner-up: None

Worst Film Seen:
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
What a terrible movie for the Friday the 13th franchise. Not that the series is filled with quality films or anything but they do have a certain allure and charm to them. Sadly, the ninth installment of the series is completely lacking in everything. I mean, Jason is there for about five minutes and the overall quality of the film looked cheap which really couldn't be said for any of the previous films in the franchise. Another Friday the 13th takes "second" here in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Again not surprisingly this bad movie features a lack of Jason which makes the entire movie completely unappealing.
Runner-up: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning

Most Surprising Film Seen:
The Natural
Like I said above, I saw The Natural quite a bit ago but didn't remember it being nearly this good. I was really taken aback by how great it actually was. It also somewhat takes this by default as nothing really stunned me this month since it was mostly Friday the 13th movies which aren't really that surprising by their nature.

First runner-up: Repulsion
Second runner-up: Les diaboliques (Diabolique)
These films don't really deserve this but again because of the huge amount of Friday the 13th movies, nothing really surprised me. Not much to say here. I put Repulsion above Diabolique since Repulsion was more involving and more disturbing than Diabolique was.

Most Disappointing Film Seen:
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Even by Friday the 13th standards this movie was terrible. It looked like it should have been on SyFy instead with a cheap budget and no interesting anything. It's even somewhat the last story of the franchise (not counting the Freddy vs. Jason) as Jason X takes place way in the future. It's really a sad way to get rid of the character.

First runner-up: Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Second runner-up: Clash of the Titans
Again, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning disappoints me mainly because of lack of Jason. It's just boring without him. He's the focal point of the series and when you take him away there instantly becomes a lot more negatives than positives. Clash of the Titans isn't much and I wasn't expecting much but I was kind of hoping for more than a 4/10 and a movie that paid homage to the original just a bit more. It was sadly very reflective of modern action movies.

Best Scene Seen:
The Natural - the final at bat
No real question here. In my comments on The Natural I gave about a full paragraph on why this scene was perfect in just about every way. It embraces everything that made The Natural so great to watch.

First runner-up: Clash of the Titans - the Medusa fight
Second runner-up: Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI - Jason takes out the RV
Not much to choose from here but I guess these two will have to do. The Medusa fight is probably the highlight in a pretty lousy movie. It's really intense and the new Medusa character is menacing in her own way. The care to detail and that isn't present like it was in the original since everything is CGI here but it's still pretty cool. Jason taking out the RV in the sixth installment in the franchise is probably one of his best kills. After not being in the fifth film at all this is one of the first things Jason does back and it's a great way for him to announce his return.

Best Character:
Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) from The Natural
Not surprisingly, the best movie also has the best character since it's about one of the handful of movies that I saw this month that can actually claim some character development. But even besides that, Hobbs is great because of the whole mythical vibe that flows through The Natural. It's an odd dichotomy as Hobbs is both flawed and larger than life but it really works.

First runner-up: Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) from The Big Lebowski
Second runner-up: Draco (Mads Mikkelsen) from Clash of the Titans
Nothing really special here due to the bloated Friday the 13th films and some overall just average movies. Sobchak is my favorite character from The Big Lebowski and Draco was pretty cool and likable in Clash of the Titans. They're completely different characters as one gets riled up when stressed and one is completely calm pretty much all the time but they fill the appropriate character spots in their movies. I was tempted to pick a version of Jason Voorhees here but this category is more a blend of character history, character development, and acting performance and Jason just really lacks in these categories. He's cool, but there's not much else there.

Voting Update:
09/10 --> 08/10 - [Rec]
Yes, [Rec] is one of the best recent horror movies that I've seen (though it doesn't really have much competition here). Anyway, I had it at a 9/10 which was up there with An American Werewolf in London which was phenomenal. Sure, I was on the edge of my seat with [Rec] but it wasn't in that tier.
08/10 --> 07/10 - Zombieland
Again, Zombieland was really fun and a joy to watch but it doesn't deserve an 8/10 score. First, the film was just under 90 minutes so there wasn't much there and certainly not enough for a zombie movie. Really it just boils down to me rating Zombieland too high because I had a lot of fun seeing it at a premiere.
08/10 --> 09/10 - 2001: A Space Odyssey
I realized partway through this month that I had Moon higher than 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's just absurd as 2001: A Space Odyssey would probably go on most any list of the fifty most influential films of all time. Moon would not. 2001: A Space Odyssey is deep and complicated and also confusing but it doesn't deserve to be below many other sci-fi films.
07/10 --> 06/10 - The Hangover
I saw this twice and ranked it a 7/10 both times. But I think looking back that that was mainly due to the lack of other comedies out at the time. Pretty much the only recent comedy is I Love You, Man and that was great. The Hangover was great with little competition but it's only a bit above average when I think to compare it to the genre.

August Comments:
Not much this month either as I march onward in finishing up the Friday the 13th series. I come really close and will probably knock it off early next month. As for my other watches, most weren't monumental or anything and there were quite a few okay films that I thought would be a lot better. Overall, probably the weirdest month of movie viewing I've had in quite some time. Also, the really small number of watches is due to my watching a ton of television shows (mainly The Wire and Party Down) in taking a small break. I'll still get my 200 films for the year though.

September Outlook:
First and foremost I want to finish off the Friday the 13th franchise. Then I'm going to take a break from horror and slasher as I get ready to go back to those for October. Hopefully I can do some quality and classic films this coming month. For the first half I want to see some of the highly rated stuff that I haven't checked out yet (specifically Lawrence of Arabia and The Green Mile which I'm really just delaying watching because they're so long). Then, in the second half of the month I want to begin a transition to October horror by catching some Hitchcock thrillers such as Psycho and Vertigo. I really have no excuse for having made almost 300 posts now with only one being a Hitchcock film.