June saw a lot of trips to the theater, for new releases and old favorites, as well as repertory screenings for movies I hadn’t seen before. Among the screenings I especially enjoyed was seeing Notorious on film inside the historic Los Angeles Theatre, featuring an introduction with film critic Leonard Maltin and Cary Grant’s daughter, Jennifer. Along with seeing movies on the big screen, I also watched many movies at home as usual, including several Judy Garland movies, as she was TCM’s Star of the Month in celebration of her centennial. Anyway, before getting deeper into the summer movie season, a look back at what I watched over the past month.

New-to-Me: 27

Re-Watched: 15

New-to-Me Films by Decade:

• 1910s – 0
• 1920s – 0
• 1930s – 5
• 1940s – 4
• 1950s – 2
• 1960s – 2
• 1970s – 9
• 1980s – 0
• 1990s – 3
• 2000s – 0
• 2010s – 0
• 2020s – 2

List of New-to-Me Films:

1. Mississippi Masala (1991)
2. Between the Lines (1977)
3. The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
4. The Landlord (1970)
5. Bad Company (1972)
6. Everybody Sing (1938)
7. Listen, Darling (1938)
8. Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
9. Riptide (1934)
10. The Guilty (1947)
11. Pigskin Parade (1936)
12. Little Nellie Kelly (1940)
13. 3 Women (1977)
14. Late Spring (1949)
15. Early Summer (1951)
16. Comes a Horseman (1978)
17. The Missouri Breaks (1976)
18. Elvis (2022)
19. I Could Go on Singing (1963)
20. Gay Purr-ee (1962)
21. Down Three Dark Streets (1954)
22. The Newton Boys (1998)
23. Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson (1976)
24. Babes in Arms (1939)
25. Babes on Broadway (1941)
26. The Wiz (1978)
27. Mahogany (1975)

A Few Favorite Discoveries:

Mississippi Masala was a movie that had been on my radar for some time, and it was great to finally see the new restoration of the film at the Academy Museum as part of its “Summer of Love: 1990s Romances” series. I loved seeing the growing romance between the characters played by Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury, as well as their respective relationships with their families.

3 Women was another film that I’d been wanting to check out for a while, and I took the chance to see it for the first time at the New Beverly. The movie’s surrealism felt even more heightened on the big screen and with an audience. Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek both give among the most fascinating performances I’ve seen from them, and they work especially well off of one another.

I didn’t quite expect to enjoy Elvis as much as I did, as Baz Luhrmann’s over-the-top style doesn’t always click with me (though I love Moulin Rouge!). While this film still falls into some cliched biopic trappings, the central performance from Austin Butler as Elvis Presley is really what elevates the movie. Of course, no one can reach the same level as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, but he fully embodies the famous singer through all the different stages of his career and gives probably my favorite performance that I’ve seen in the music biopics that have come out over the past few years.