August was a big month for media consumption, whether brand-new or not, like Firewatch (video game) and Weapons (movie). All of this was new to me, and there are plenty of things that should’ve been gotten around to much earlier. From new releases in theater to books and video games from ages ago, here’s everything that I consumed this month, and whether or not it should be on your radar.
War of the Worlds
It really is as bad as they say. The only positive thing I can even remotely say about Ice Cube’s War of the Worlds is that it’s laughably bad, so it’s not the worst time watching a movie. It’s not even the worst time watching a movie from this month, but it is a really horrible movie from a filmmaking perspective. It’s effectively just an Amazon ad at 90 minutes, which is highly disrespectful to the source material and the original Steven Spielberg adaptation.
Score: 0.5/5
Honey Don’t!
Honey Don’t! had all the makings of a good movie. It’s a detective “thriller” about religous corruption from a Coen brother and starring Margaret Qualley, Chris Evans, Charlie Day, and Aubrey Plaza. Unfortunately, Ethan Coen is not so great without his brother, and this movie was painful. It was a threadbare plot that switched mysteries halfway through and had a jarring, rushed ending. The full, painstaking review can be read here.
Score: 1.5/5
Freakier Friday
Freaky Friday was a fine movie, but it wasn’t one that necessarily demanded a sequel. In perhaps unsurprising fashion, Freakier Friday is bringing nothing new to the table, instead mostly rehashing the first movie with two new characters (and four total that have switched bodies). It’s light, funny, and pretty fun most of the time, it’s just not very interesting. You can read the review here.
Score: 2.75/5
Artemis
Artemis is an Andy Weir book, so it comes with his classic scientific expertise. I fully believe that if there were to be a city on the moon, it would function a lot like this. The science is great and very digestible, making Artemis far from a challenging read. Unfortunately, the plot is fairly predictable, and the stakes never feel high. Jazz Bashara, our main character, isn’t very likeable, either. Still, the writing is good enough and the book is pretty fast-paced and not too long.
Score: 3.5/5
The Bad Guys 2
It should come as no surprise that Dreamworks continues to win in the animation world. The Bad Guys 2 isn’t revolutionary. It’s not doing anything you haven’t seen in another movie, and it’s honestly borrowing from a lot of different tropes, plot points, and narrative arcs. But it comes together really nicely in The Bad Guys 2, and the animation is at times jaw-dropping. Check out the full review here.
Score: 3.75/5
Firewatch
Firewatch is a video game, but it’s mainly just to serve as a storytelling device, allowing you to be immersed and make the choices for the character. Those choices don’t have any bearing on the game’s outcome, they just allow you to feel like the main character and that you have some control. It’s incredibly simple gameplay, consisting mostly of walking around a beatiful and surprisingly large world. The story in Firewatch is pretty great, too, ending ambigiously enough to allow you to make your own conclusions.
Score: 4/5
Steel Magnolias
There should be some sort of trigger warning on Steel Magnolias, because it is genuinely one of the saddest movies ever. It masquerades as a slice of life movie with all these delightful ladies in a very small town before a genuinely gut-wrenching tragedy strikes. It is a great movie with a titanic performance from Sally Field that I’ll not be watching again.
Score 4/5
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is not at all what you’d expect based on the back of the book. It’s a sci-fi of sorts, but it’s much more philosophical than anything. It starts really, really slow, but once you get almost to the halfway point, it picks up speed and never looks back, finishing exceptionally well. The chapters are incredibly short (over 80 chapters in a book barely over 400 pages) and that makes for a difficult pacing, but the narrative is fantastic.
Score: 4/5
Caught Stealing
Caught Stealing is the latest movie from Darren Arronofsky and starring Austin Butler, with the latter using it as a playground to flex his acting chops. Butler is slowly becoming a genuine movie star, carrying everything the movie asks of him. It’s a different type of movie than Arronofsky typically makes, and perhaps he ought to consider branching out a little more often. Full review can be found here.
Score: 4/5
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
2D Zelda games owe basically everything to A Link to the Past. Pretty much every consistent aspect of subsequent entries, especially Link’s Awakening, have aspects ripped straight from A Link to the Past. There are so many iconic pieces of the franchise that get established here. The only real complaint is that the Dark World isn’t a little more mysterious, dark, and eerie.
Score: 4/5
Weapons
Weapons is going to be the surprise hit of 2025 when it’s all said and done. Plenty of people say it’s the best movie of the year (Sinners still has that crown), which was wholly unexpected. It takes horror in some interesting new directions. Instead of being a metaphor for grief and trauma, it’s used to explore human relationships and how we can be weaponized against one another. It’s also about grief and trauma, though. Full review here.
Flashpoint
Flashpoint is such a good comic storyline that it makes me retroactively dislike 2023’s The Flash more. I liked that movie when it came out, admitting that it had major faults but a narrative that really shined. Now, seeing that narrative in its original form, Flashpoint makes The Flash look cheaper. It’s emotional, poignant, and really well-written.
Score: 4.5/5
Death Stranding
I went into Death Stranding mostly blind, knowing vaguely that it was some sort of post-apocalyptic game that’s been criticized as a walking simulator. It did feel like that at first, but once the story kicks in, you have no choice but to be hooked, and the gameplay varies after that and becomes a lot more fun and engaging. By the end, you can’t believe the story that’s just unfolded. It doesn’t reach the heights of some other video game stories because it does fall prey to storytelling gaps and leaps in development without the actual work to develop it, but it really shines otherwise.
Score: 4.5/5
Spider-Man: Life Story
It is pretty rare for a comic book to feel narratively complete. There are just often a few gaps in the storytelling that are made up for with the incredible art or the fact that it’s about some of the most iconic characters ever. Spider-Man: Life Story does not have that issue. It’s maybe a little cheap to essentially run a greatest hits for the greatest hero ever, but it compiles some of Spider-Man’s most iconic tales into one life story, and it all flows together so perfectly. Comics should do that with legendary heroes more often.
Score: 5/5
Conclusion
August was a pretty solid month for media consumption. Not only were the new things on the slate, namely the movies, pretty fun for the most part, the old media I finally worked my way around to was highly enjoyable as well. What might September hold? Stay tuned to find out!
