There is nothing wrong with Inside Out 2, in fact it is a really good to great movie but having it as the best movie in June is surprising. Not only was it the best movie in June by my standards, it was the best movie in June from a monetary aspect as well, and not even just June, but for the whole year. It has continued to rake in cash, and it is now in its third week of being out, and it has led the box office all three weeks, and it has made it to a billion dollars worldwide, which is great. The first movie to reach that benchmark this year. It just eeked out the win this week over the new Quiet Place movie, which I have ranked as the sixth best movie of this month.
This also caught me off guard. I absolutely loved the first two Quiet Place movies, and I remember actively holding my breath in the theater for the second one trying not to make a sound for their sake. Sadly it never reached these levels of anxiety in the new one, but it is not a big fall off from the first two, it is still a really good movie, and one of the main plot points is a character trying to get pizza, which immediately endears the story to me. There was also an incredible performance by a cat. I could be wrong, but I feel like it is harder to make a cat give a good performance than a dog. Although it takes place in New York City, they still manage to keep the story small and intimate.
The movie that surprised me the most this month was Horizon, the new Kevin Costner western. I feel like I had not heard any good reviews going into it, and I was worried that I was going to be sitting in a three-hour slog, but it was not that. It was filled to brim, arguably too filled, with action, romance, and conflict. There were multiple storylines going on, and there were many different players that felt important. A day later, I cannot say that I remember many of the characters’ names, but when the sizzle real for the next movie came on at the end of the first one, I was excited that there were more coming. I feel like the western genre has slowly died, which is sad. I love the landscape, and the performances were good as well, and there were some seriously tense moments. Costner also took the care to build fake towns for his set, which was awesome. He has a serious commitment to this, and it is hard to ask for more.
One movie that I wanted to love but did not love as much as I thought was Kinds of Kindness, the new Yorgos movie. Every Yorgos movie is going to be weird, that is a given, so that will always draw me in, and many of his movies are dark and a little nihilistic, but there is something worthwhile about seeing the weirder darker side of the world, but it is not always fun and enjoyable, and that is where this movie comes in. It is broken down into three parts, and I cannot say that I loved any of the stories, but it is Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons doing their thing, and that is amazing on its own, so it is undoubtedly a good movie, but it definitely is not for everyone nor my favorite Yorgos film, but I still think I laughed and enjoyed it more than everyone else in the theater.
Netflix continues to pump out mostly garbage including this month, where they released Under Paris and Trigger Warning, but they also released one really good one, Hit Man, and one fine one, Inheritance. Hit Man is good in large part due to Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, their chemistry is great, and it makes for a fun watch, and Inheritance is like a knock off Knives Out, and is a good enough Whodunnit.
There were also two new Dakotah Johnson films this month, which really is nothing to get excited about, but it does not happen too often when a star has two movies released in the same month. One was released straight to MAX, Am I Okay?, which is a solid pride month movie that plays its emotional notes well, and the other Daddio was released to theaters, and it all takes place in a cab. It is just a long conversation between Sean Penn and Dakotah Johnson, but it worked well enough, but it never hit the emotional note. I cannot decide if I like Dakotah Johnson as an actress, there is something about her voice and vibe that just seems weird, but I guess that is kind of why I keep watching movies with her in it, but I would take a new Emma Stone movie any day over a Dakotah Jonhson one.
The worst movie of the month goes to Garfield. It was a one-hundred-minute slog. It was so bad I fell asleep and did not care how much I missed, and I was sad when I realized I had barely missed anything. There was not nearly enough lasagna or discussions about hating Mondays. They tried to make this big, weird plot, and it was all too much. Also, they were all cyclops. Sure, they had two pupils, but there was nothing separating the middle of their eyes. They were just big white blobs with black dots. It bothered me the whole time.
Sadly there was nothing in June that I fell in love with, which is sad for blockbuster season, but there was still enough enjoyable films to get through the month. I watched a total of 50 movies over the course of June, 19 of them were new releases. I am ready for Maxxxine, Deadpool/Wolverine, Long Legs, and Twisters in July!
1. Inside Out 2:
2. Horizon: Chapter 1
3. Kinds of Kindness
4. Bad Boys: Ride or Die
5. Hit Man
6. A Quiet Place Day One
7. Inheritance
8. Am I Okay?
9. Tuesday
10. Exhuma
11. Daddio
12. The Watchers
13. Thelma
14. Mysteries of the Terracotta Warriors
15. Hannah Einbinder Everything Must Go
16. The Exorcism
17. Under Paris
18. Trigger Warning
19. The Garfield Movie
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