What I've Caught Up With, June 2025 Part 1

I didn’t knock a lot of movies off the giant list in June (although I did finally get the number down to three digits, at least temporarily). For whatever reason, the movies I did watch, almost to a film, had long names, forcing me to break this up into two posts. On the personal front, I’ve gotten through all of the scanning of my mother’s photographs and slides. Now I have all of the scrapbooks. It never ends.

What I’ve Caught Up With, June 2025 Part 1
Film: The Bottom of the Bottle (1956)

Attorney and rancher Pat Martin (Joseph Cotten), who goes by P.M. lives on a huge ranch outside Nogales. At the start of the seasonal rainy season, he returns home to find his brother Donald (Van Johnson). This is a shock, because Donald is supposed to be in prison in Joliet, IL. Donald has escaped and is desperate to get to Mexico to meet up with his wife Mildred (Nancy Gates) and their three kids. But the rains have flooded the river, and Donald needs to avoid the drink while P.M. deals with the fact that aiding his brother is a felony as well as the fact that his wife Nora (Ruth Roman) isn’t even aware he has a brother. It’s a fun idea, but very melodramatic, and a bit stagy at the end.

Film: Molli and Max in the Future (2023)

There doesn’t seem like there would be a lot of crossover in audience between science fiction and romantic comedies, but that’s where we are with Molli and Max in the Future. A billion years in the future, humanity is still dealing with the existential problems of life, finding a way to ruin the universe, and find love. Molli (Zosia Mamet) and Max (Aristotle Athari) meet in an accident in space and then spend the next dozen years or so running into each other, connecting and disconnecting and dealing with their own personal tragedies and ups and downs. It's darkly comic, a clear commentary on the political reality of the day, and very funny. I don’t honestly know if I like either Molli or Max, but the movie works despite this.

Film: Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling (1986)

If you were alive and old enough to remember things in the ‘80s, you remember the news that Richard Pryor lit himself on fire while freebasing cocaine. Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling is Pryor’s response to that moment in his life, albeit half a dozen years after the fact. The film is at least semi-autobiographical, starting with our title character (Pryor, naturally) lighting himself on fire and ending up in the hospital in a coma. His astral projection (more or less) sees his body on the table and walks back through the high and low points of his life, leading to how he got to where he is. This is Pryor’s only real directorial credit. It’s surprisingly warts-and-all, which is the real reason to watch it.

Film: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Raiders of the Lost Ark is a favorite movie of mine, so I’m always at least a little interested in any new film that explores the Indiana Jones character. Up to this point, there had been a reverse Star Trek thing going on—the odd Indy movies are good and the even ones less so. It was only a matter of time before Indy dealt with time travel. The cast of this one is fun, but like most of the movies in this series, it’s disappointing because it’s not the first or third movie, but also a bit better than its reputation. Sadly, it’s probably not really worth watching a second time. At least they had the sense not to make Phoebe Waller-Bridge his love interest.