August's Best & Worst

 August’s Best & Worst

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. I am your host, David, and is the summer already over?!

It is?!

Boy, I’d be pissed if I was still teaching, but these days, it’s just another month to tear off the calendar.

I wonder how I’ll feel about the months when I really retire.

They’ll all be the same, right?

In any event, we only screened 30 movies in August, and even though we don’t have a full-blown Top 10/Bottom 5 this month, we do have a couple of interesting movies to tell you about.

Thirty films is a low monthly total here at Cinema Wellman, but I spent a lot of time in August with my daughters and had two different visits by friends, so that obviously cut into my screening time.

I promise to return to my usual hermit-like existence and watch more movies in September. 

And since we only have two films to tell you about, I wanted to follow up on our “Disaster Movies of the 70s” episode and talk a little bit more about the movie posters for those movies.

As I mentioned in that episode, those big budget all-star disaster movies loved to put the cast on the poster.

As much of the cast as possible, or so it seems!

I mentioned that some had as many as 8 cast squares, but that was a low estimate as it turns out.

Since I was curious, I went back and made a database.

Shocking! Says no one who has ever met me.

Here’s that data, from low to high.

*Rollercoaster 5 The German poster had SIX!

*Juggernaut 7

*Meteor 7

*The Hindenburg 8

*Two-Minute Warning 10

*Earthquake 10

*Airport 1975 11 I found a second poster with 15!

*The Towering Inferno 11

Steve McQueen & Paul Newman were separated from the rest, Newman a tad higher

*The Poseidon Adventure 12

*Airport 12

Some quick math tells us that those 10 films had a total of 93 “cast squares” on their posters, or 9.3 per movie poster!

Which is .3 larger in size than your typical game of “Hollywood Squares.”

Now that our old disaster business is concluded, and we don’t have ANY bombs again, let’s talk about what stood out in August.

Project Hail Mary (2026)

PG-13/156 m/IMDb: 8.2/directed by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

IMDb: “A science teacher wakes up alone on a spaceship. As his memory returns, he uncovers a mission to stop a mysterious substance killing Earth’s sun and realizes that an unexpected friendship may be the key.”

When this movie came out, there was a lot of buzz surrounding it. 

Ryan Gosling is a major star, and this was a big production based on a popular novel.

Because of the buzz I started reading about it, and the more I read the more I wondered if anyone had seen Spaceman two years ago.

That Czech film, starring Adam Sandler, did quite well in our recent Cinematic World Cup, so I was obviously a fan.

In that film Sandler plays an astronaut who is on a mission to save the world and gets help from an alien creature.

In Project Hail Mary, Ryan Gosling plays a teacher (pressed into being an astronaut) who is on a mission to save the world and gets help from an alien creature.

There were so many similarities between these two unconnected films that I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I’m not suggesting Spaceman was better, I was just surprised that nobody else even mentioned how similar the films were, and both have delightful alien creatures.

The creature in Project Hail Mary is named Rocky.

Rocky is a puppet operated by puppeteers. He is a practical effect, but there are a couple (only a couple) of shots where Rocky is fully CGI.

Here at Cinema Wellman, we applaud those practical effects, as you know.

The lead puppeteer, James Ortiz, originally recorded Rocky’s dialogue with the understanding that it would be dubbed over later by another actor. While watching the early cuts, the filmmakers thought Ortiz did such a great job, and no other actors were needed to voice Rocky.

Sandra Huller is in this, and we love Sandra Huller! This is her first American film, and her first film where she speaks English. She spoke French in Anatomy of a Fall (and got an Oscar nomination), she spoke German in The Zone of Interest, and she continues to impress me with every film she makes.

This was a very entertaining movie with a poignant ending.

As a former teacher, the end of this film made me cry. 

Actually, I probably would have cried at the end even if I wasn’t a former teacher.

Only one other movie on our short list today, and it’s…

The Last House (2026: UK)

PG-13/112 m/IMDb: 5.5/directed by Louis Leterrier

IMDb: “A family of four is suddenly sealed inside their house with no way out and must work together to survive against both their dwindling resources and the mysterious, looming threat that is keeping them trapped.”

If you’re a regular here at Cinema Wellman, you’ve heard me mention that sometimes a “Whim Watch” pays off in a big way.

A “Whim Watch” is when you screen a movie you have never heard of and know nothing about, but you watch based solely on the poster and/or the synopsis.

The cinematic equivalent of “judging a book by its cover.”

The Last House is a perfect example of a “Whim Watch” paying off.

I had a free night on my recent vacation as the girls were at a concert, so I was looking for a movie to watch.

I figured I’d watch one movie I had already seen and one new movie.

The “old” movie turned out to be screening number who knows how many of Assault on Precinct 13.

“I wanted vanilla twist!”

The “new” was The Last House, and it was a treat.

The Netflix synopsis reads as follows, “An ordinary family. A typical morning. An end to life as they know it. Survival is only the beginning when an unseen force seals them inside their home.”

Wagner Moura, Best Actor Oscar nominee for last year’s The Secret Agent, plays the dad, but I was unfamiliar with the director and the rest of the cast.

The poster features a child’s hand reaching out of the top of a chimney.

Good enough for me!

The thing that’s trapped this family in their home is the rain.

But it’s not normal rain, and there are things lurking in the rain.

The Last House employs the “timecard” bit and puts a bug on the screen reading “1 Week,” “2 Weeks,” etc., and one of those timecard bugs made my eyes very wide and caused my jaw to drop.

This family is intelligent and resourceful, and they work together to make the best of the situation in which they find themselves.

At first, they’re trying to communicate with neighbors via chalkboards and white boards as they attempt to find answers to questions that cannot be answered, especially via chalkboards and white boards.

I never want to give away too much when talking about a movie, but I will say that I was impressed by the “unseen force” keeping everyone in their homes once we set eyes on it. 

Looking good, sounding creepy.

There are a couple of plot issues I had, but nothing that took away from my enjoyment of the film.

This is definitely one of those, “What would I do in this situation?” movies, and my answer to that question is simple.

I would die.

Early.

Well, that is a wrap from here at Cinema Wellman as we took a very quick peek at two movies of interest while surviving another month without bombs!

Not sure how much longer that can last.

We hope you’re with us next time when we will be serving up back-to-back episodes featuring characters pushed over the edge and hell bent on revenge!

The first revenge episode will detail 11 of the best revenge films ever, and the second revenge episode will totally spoil everything I didn’t give away in the first episode.

Until then, take care.