365 Days, 365 Movies: August

Julia Roberts: A Profile

August was quite a crazy month for me, both personally and professionally, but I managed to sneak in 31 movies in as many days. (How do I do it!?) Due to my hectic schedule, I once again ended the month without a theme. I started on August 1 with My Best Friend's Wedding, a rom-com I love more than my children, and thought that it might start a month of Romantic Comedies or Julia Roberts movies or Cameron Diaz vehicles. As you'll see from my list below, that didn't happen – I did eventually watch another Dermot Mulroney movie and another Diaz movie, so I guess that counts for something. I also ended up going to the theater a lot in August, which resulted in a higher-than-average number of New Releases.

MOVIES

31 Films in August, 252 Total in 2015

(9 MOVIES AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!!)

New Releases are Bolded:

Aloha (2015) – Blech

The Court Jester (1955)

The D Train (2015)

Demetri Martin: Live* (*At the Time) (2015)

Digging for Fire (2015)

Fantastic Four (2015) – Double Blech

For a Good Time, Call (2012)

Fort Tilden (2015)

Heaven Can Wait (1978)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Hurricane of Fun: The Making of Wet Hot (2015) – More about this below

I'm Gonna Bite Someone (2012)

Iris (2015) – Really adorable doc

Jenny's Wedding (2015) – Triple Blech

Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986)

Knight and Day (2010)

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) – Fun, breezy, dumb

Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) – Fun and action-packed. Another stellar addition to the francise

Mistress America (2015) – It's no Frances Ha, but it was good.

My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)

Octopussy (1983)

People Places Things (2015)

Slow Learners (2015)

Smoke (1995)

SMOSH: The Movie (2015)

Staten Island Summer (2015)

Straight Outta Compton (2015) – Contender for best movie of the year, for sure.

Teen Beach 2 (2015)

The Watch (2012)

The Wolverine (2013)

Working Girl (1988)

TELEVISION

Elizabeth Banks: Undercover Reporter

I'm going to be honest with you; I did not keep track of what television I watched in August. I know that I watched the rest of Season 4 of Gilmore Girls and I watched a lot of Playing House. Other than that, it's all a little fuzzy. That's because August was all about the Netflix series Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, or WHAS: FDoC, for short. The Original Wet Hot movie is one of my all-time favorites. It's so smart and dumb and hilarious at the same time. Granted, my love of the movie is built a lot on my love of Janeane Garofalo, but she's talented, dammit! I've been aching to watch the prequel television series (the aforementioned WHAS: FDoC) for as long as it's been in the works.

Was all my excitement and anticipation for naught? Well, while the series takes a while to get started (the first two episodes aren't anything to write home about), it really builds into something fantastic. The series is full The cast, which is filled with A and B-list celebrities, seems really happy to be there. Returning stars Amy Poehler and Elizabeth Banks are standouts, as well as Christopher Meloni and an always welcome Paul Rudd. New cast members like Jon Hamm, Josh Charles, John Slattery, Michaela Watkins, and Michael Cera are also delightful. It's high camp at summer camp, and I ended up loving it immensely. I'm currently going through the eight episodes for the fourth time, and I don't see myself stopping any time soon.  Electric Nights, Electric Days!

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August was a busy month full of pop culture (I'm not going to get into podcasts or events, though they were plentiful). I even made forward motion on actually reading a book. I didn't finish any, but I started several.

On to September!