All the Summer Film Releases I Saw, Ranked

Is It a summer film, or no?
I generally consider Labor Day weekend to be my personal boundary between summer and fall- it makes sense based on the meteorology around these parts, if it’s not astrologically correct.

I’m going to include it.
And then if I do a fall list (Autumn ends in early-mid November) I’ll include it in there too.

Let the countdown start (from best to not as best)!

Wartime Romance Films: All’s Fair

Coming out of Dunkirk last week (guys, it’s amazing- go watch it (except for the erasure of everyone who wasn’t a white man from WWII)!) I was inspired to write a list of great war films.
When I got on it the next day I realized belatedly that war film knowledge is really a big gap in my film expertise.  I haven’t watched most of the classics yet (Bridge on the River Kwai, All Quiet on the Western Front, Das Boot, Patton, etc.) and I couldn’t get more than a few minutes into Saving Private Ryan when I tried to watch it a few months ago. (It’s just so overblown and melodramatic).

My list would have been solely Hacksaw Ridge and Dunkirk, and we can’t have that- even if I do write movie pairing posts sometimes.

So I decided to ease into the subject with a genre I know a little (okay, a lot) more about- wartime romances.

My criteria were vaguely as follows: 1) There must be a war that actually took place in reality. 2) The plot must primarily follow some kind of romantic trajectory- the love story can’t be a secondary consideration, which rules out things like Hacksaw Ridge and Watch on the Rhine.

Be warned- it’s a bit of an eclectic list, but all are worthwhile in my book.

Friday Links 6/16

It’s Friday! Which means it’s time for another links post, and somehow June just keeps on slipping by.

What are your plans for this weekend?
I have a visit from my aunt and her new guy (new because I haven’t met him, though they’ve been together for I think over a year). I love Aunt Susan- we’re kind of a lot alike, in how we think.  Do you remember when, growing up, you stopped feeling the disconnect between yourself and adults? And how amazing it was relating to them as actual people (as opposed to caregivers or cousin-argument-arbiters)?
And Sunday is Father’s Day- we’re planning a nice family brunch at The Friendly Toast (which looks delicious- except I can’t for the life of me tell what is vegan and what isn’t).

Friday Links 6/9: Not So Many

It’s not so many links this week, so I’m going to supplement with some basic life facts; I just finished Vanity Fair, which I believe was on my list of long books I had and hadn’t read, and have moved on to The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
I watched The Testament of Youth recently and really enjoyed it- somehow I seem to be picking out a lot of WWI, so I put a hole on Gallipoli at the library. It’s time. Bracing myself.  I’m also debating watching It Comes at Night at the theater. It looks like a good suspenseful family drama, more than a horror film. Maybe Lily and I can watch it next weekend if it’s still playing.
Speaking of visiting friends, Gabriella is here for the weekend and she has four tiny tiny kittens! We’re planning fun and a potential visit to the Pride Parade at Boston tomorrow.  What else? Visiting my aunt and uncle tomorrow meaning and possibly seeing another aunt next weekend.  It’s a lovely confluence of people I care about.
Anything else? I took my first parkour lesson yesterday and it was great fun.

Onto the links!

Wonder Women (Non-Spoiler)

I saw Wonder Woman yesterday and the above is what I posted to Facebook afterward.
I have a lot of thoughts on the film, most of them positive, and I’d like to talk about them and what I feel like the film means- because despite being ‘just a film’, it’s really tempting to point to it as being something more. In part because I want to see more of these strong leading ladies- and hopefully the film’s critical success will pave the way for that.

I’m going to be careful not to spoil this film in the following post (anything that is a spoiler will be blocked out- highlight it if you want to see the text) because I do recommend that people see it.