This past month, I ended up going through a couple of franchises I hadn’t seen before in preparation for new releases, Ocean’s Eight and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. There was definitely one franchise I had more fun watching over the other, as I’ll go a little more into later on. June also saw the release of the long-awaited Pixar sequel, Incredibles 2, and for that movie, I ended up going to a double feature screening in theaters, which is definitely one of my favorite theater-going experiences of the year so far. Speaking of, I also saw The Producers and West Side Story on the big screen thanks to TCM and Fathom Events. The latter movie is one of my all-time favorite films, so it was amazing seeing it in theaters. Anyway, onto the film discoveries I made in the past 30 days…

New-to-Me: 23

Re-Watched: 6

New-to-Me Films by Decade:

• 1920s – 0
• 1930s – 2
• 1940s – 4
• 1950s – 1
• 1960s – 2
• 1970s – 0
• 1980s – 0
• 1990s – 1
• 2000s – 5
• 2010s – 8

List of New-to-Me Films:

1. Becket (1964)
2. Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
3. Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
4. Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)
5. A Mighty Wind (2003)
6. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)
7. Ocean’s Eight (2018)
8. Hereditary (2018)
9. Leslie Howard: The Man Who Gave a Damn (2016)
10. The Small Back Room (1949)
11. Incredibles 2 (2018)
12. Romeo and Juliet (1936)
13. Moon Over Miami (1941)
14. Bathing Beauty (1944)
15. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
16. Upgrade (2018)
17. Jurassic Park III (2001)
18. Jurassic World (2015)
19. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
20. Set It Up (2018)
21. Berkeley Square (1933)
22. Small Town Girl (1953)
23. Uptight (1968)

A Few Favorite Discoveries:

Ocean’s Eleven (2001), directed by Steven Soderbergh

Before venturing into Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy, I had only seen random clips from his films, plus the original Ocean’s Eleven with the Rat Pack. While I still think the 1960 movie is enjoyable, I think Soderbergh really elevated the material and made the whole heist much more engaging. Though the films that follow this don’t hold up quite as well (excluding this year’s Ocean’s Eight, which I thought was a lot of fun!), this first installment still feels fresh. And there’s no denying how great the star power is in this movie, with the likes of George Clooney and Brad Pitt headling the cast.

Incredibles 2 (2018), directed by Brad Bird

While many people complained over the years about the need for a sequel to the much-beloved The Incredibles, I’m glad Brad Bird decided not to do one unless he came up with a story worthy as a follow-up. And Incredibles 2 was well worth the 14-year wait, and it was a real treat seeing the Parr family back on the big screen, and in such stunning animation. Watching the two movies back-to-back as I ended up doing really showed how much animation technology has progressed over the years, and I couldn’t get over just how fantastic this movie looked, notably the action sequences. Though the sequel didn’t quite live up to its predecessor story-wise, I still had a blast with this movie, especially seeing Elastigirl in action and more of baby Jack-Jack!