Rambling Film

Official Synopsis:  Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple, Gracie and Joe (Julianne Moore and Charles Melton) buckles under pressure when an actress, Elizabeth(Natalie Portman) arrives to do research for a film about their past. I've wanted to write about this film so badly. If you grew up in the U.S in the 90's, you're probably familiar with Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Faulauu. Letourneau was Vili's teacher and began preying on him when he was 12. She went to jail for rape, but they married as soon as she got out before finally divorcing in 2019. May December takes inspiration from this case. Gracie isn't Joe's teacher, but rather his manager at a pet store, and he's 13 when Gracie starts preying upon him, not 12.  So much of this film hangs on Charles Melton's amazing performance as Joe. He's 36 years old and seeing his last 2 children off to college. Many of his peers have much younger children o

Official Synopsis: The interlocking stories of two young Oglala Lakota men, Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting) and Matho (LaDanian Crazy Thunder)  growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Director Riley Keough met Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy, two extras on the set of American Honey who shared their Rez stories, and in the years since came on as co-writers. Gina Gammell joins Keough in the director's chair and you can tell the women put a lot of work into working with the Lakota tribes and making sure Native voices shined through, despite having two white directors. You have to appreciate the effort The film itself is bound to draw comparisons to the popular and wonderful show Reservation Dogs. I thought of them too, especially during Matho's scenes. But aside from just being about day to day life on the Rez, that's where their similarities end. War Pony is bleak and slow moving. For a cast of nearly all first time actors, everyone was excellent. White and Crazy Thunder r

Official Synopsis:  Anna (Jessie Buckley) and Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) have found true love, and it's proven by a controversial new technology. There's just one problem, as Anna still isn't sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute and meets Amir. (Riz Ahmed) This is a dream cast. A woman falling in love with both Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White? I get it! Unfortunately the script doesn't live up to the actors' greatness. I immediately thought of another film I saw this year about how technology affects relationships, and that's The Pod Generation. That focused on having children rather than true love, but even with its faults I found it to be a more compelling watch than Fingernails.  This goes nowhere and feels underwritten, especially the back half of the film. I'm also puzzled by Anna's unwavering belief in this technology. She asks some questions, but never once wonders if the guy touting it is a fraud. I felt like we spent too

  What I knew going in: This film inspired Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Immediately into starting this, I was embarassed at how little I knew of this film and just how much Tarantino pulled from it for my favorite movie of his. The scenes on the snow, the music, it's all from here. I'm sure in the back of my mind I knew some of this before. But it's the first time I thought of it. I was a little afraid to start watching this because I knew there was going to be a sexual assault scene in it and I'm not mentally in a space for that right now, but thankfully it's not shown. It's still very disturbing and I could've done without it, but everything else that came after was worth it. I will always love a film about a woman getting revenge on terrible people. (I'd say just men, but we've got a shitty woman thrown in there too) The violence was very stylized. The blood is candy red and the spurts are dramatic.  Meiko Kaji is beautiful and was perfectly

Official Synopsis: Oliver, a student at Oxford University (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of a charming and aristocratic classmate, Felix (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to his eccentric family's sprawling estate for a summer never to be forgotten. Emerald Fennell's follow up to Promising Young Woman is probably one of the most anticipated in the online film community. I had issues with how that film ended, but it was clear Fennell has a great eye for directing. It's no different in Saltburn , I felt like a spectator in the fucked up Olympics. You just can't shake the creep off of Barry Keoghan or Jacob Elordi and that's what makes both characters so compelling. The film starts off very by the books then takes a sharp right turn into the macabre. I cringed, I gasped, I laughed. It's just a lot. It doesn't say as much about the class divide as it thinks it does, and there is some very questionable dialogue, but Saltburn is so batshit cra

Official synopsis:  Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) during the 10th Hunger Games. When it first came out that Suzanne Collins was writing a prequel to her hit Hunger Games series from President Snow's point of view, I balked at reading it. Why should I care what that guy has to say? Then the first trailer for this came out and it looked good, so I gently applied my clown makeup and got the book from the library. Much to my surprise, I loved the book. I thought it was fascinating and it didn't try to sympathize Snow like I thought. Sure, you do feel for him at times, but he's always self serving. Much of the book translates well to screen. Blythe perfectly captures Snow well. He is arrogant and power hungry and very caught off guard by the feelings he starts to develop for Lucy Gray. Rachel Zegler, our favorite theater kid feels like she was born to play this role. Like Lucy Gray, s