Rambling Film

As always, my 2 cents are in green . Great variety of films, many of them are on my list to see. BEST FEATURE 50/50 Beginners Drive Take Shelter The Artist Producer: The Descendants Glad to see 50/50 and Drive in there. Both two of my favorite movies of the year so far. Take Shelter is playing here, hopefully I can catch that soon. BEST DIRECTOR Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist Mike Mills - Beginners Jeff Nichols - Take Shelter Alexander Payne - The Descendants Nicolas Winding - Refn Drive BEST SCREENPLAY Joseph Cedar - Footnote Michel Hazanavicius - The Artist Tom McCarthy - Win Win Mike Mills - Beginners Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash - The Descendants For some reason I thought Win Win would've qualified last year, It feels like that movie came out a long time ago. Haven't seen any of these films, but would like to. BEST FIRST FEATURE Another Earth  In The Family Margin Call Martha Marcy Ma...

To cheat or not to cheat. That is the question pondered in Last Night. A posh, NYC married couple Joanna (Keira Knightley) and Michael (Sam Worthington) are apart for one night. The night before, Joanna accuses Michael of having an affair with a beautiful co-worker, Laura. (Eva Mendes) Now they are away together at a conference. Meanwhile, Joanna encounters a past fling, Alex (Gulliaume Canet) and has dinner with him while her husband is away. I liked how the film was shot from a character's point of view, drinking in the others. Other than the nifty camera work and upscale New York settings, not much else happens in Last Night. We know what our character's are about to do, yet we don't get to see the results of their actions. I will say that it was nice to see Knightley in something other than a period piece, and Canet was was completely charming. I'll be looking for more films staring this Frenchman. Recommended: No Grade: C Memorable Quote: "You can be happ...

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends, happy Thursday to my international ones! Due to the fact that I'm out of town for work, I didn't get the time to post a new Indie Gem this week. (Or much else for that matter) so instead, I am re-posting my favorite Thanksgiving themed Indie. I reviewed The Vicious Kind back in March of 2010, Loved it. Hope you do it. http://ramblingfilm.blogspot.com/2010/03/dvd-review-vicious-kind.html

Pretend like nothing is wrong. I had to watch this movie for my Addiction Studies class in college, I never got to see the ending. So when it randomly came on TV the other day, I had to see where the story went. This made for TV movie was loosely based off of the huge heroin bust in Plato, TX. Sam, (Summer Phoenix) Owen, (Aaron Paul) and Chris (Nick Stahl) are inseparable best friends who get caught up in the drug scene. Owen's a full blown addict, Sam has low self esteem, and Chris is the track star that no one suspects to be addicted. The production value is incredibly low, but in a way it works for the tone of the film. The movie is a great example of people who are battling addiction. The subject matter (i.e swearing, sex) is kept light, unless it's talking about the drugs. Then they go all out. That's why I think it's a good film for younger teens to watch. It's a great learning tool. A film lover's opinion? Besides the lesson it teaches I found Summer ...

The final straw for me.  The final straw for what, you may ask? For Lars Von Trier films. Kirsten Dunst has been one of my favorite actresses since I was a kid. She always had all the cool roles in my eyes. Even though a lot of her films were geared towards teens, she still had acting chops to go with them. See: Interview with a Vampire, The Devil's Arithmetic. So When She won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, I decided to put my dislike for Von Trier aside and check out her performance. Justine (Kirsten Dunst) has just gotten married to passive Michael (Alexander Skarsgard, a far cry from the brooding Eric Northman on True Blood that I'm used to.) Her sister Claire (Charolette Gainsbourgh) and her husband John (Keifer Sutherland) have thrown them a massive reception at their home. Justin and Claire's relationship is strained to say the least. Justine is battling severe depression, and Claire is trying to help her through it. Meanwhile, a planet named Melancholia has bee...

"Stop being so middle class." The usually comedic Kevin Smith brings us Red State, his indie thriller that got a lot of attention at this year's Sundance film festival. Both good, (the film itself) bad, (Some people thought he was selling out/full of himself.) and hilarious. (the westboro baptist church tried to picket it) Oh, I didn't capitalize the name of that church cult because it doesn't deserve it...moving on... Travis, (Michael Angarano) Jared, (Kyle Gallner )and Billy Ray (Nicholas Braun) are high school boys that answer an online ad for group sex. The woman behind that ad: Sarah Cooper. (Melissa Leo) Sarah drugs them and brings them to her religious cult led by Abin Cooper. (Michael Parks) When the police follow up with an unrelated weapons charge, all hell breaks loose. It's pretty obvious that the Five Points church is a direct jab at the westboro church, they even name drop them at one point.  The film is brutally honest when making it's p...

Can someone explain the hype around Woody Allen films? I mostly stick to my own tastes in movies, but at the same time, I like to have a film recommended to me by a good friend or a blogger I read. This is where Woody Allen comes in. I've never liked a single Woody Allen film, there are a few that I would label "ok" at best. Yet, everyone I know is in love with the guy. So I've been trying to give his films a go, and I seem to come up disappointed every time. Maybe next year's film starring two of my favorites: Ellen Page and Jesse Eisenberg will do the trick? This film is a study of couples, betrayal, (is there always cheating in an Allen film?) and life in general. Helena (Gemma Jones) is recently separated from her husband of 40 years, Alfie. (Anthony Hopkins) Alife now has a new squeeze, Charmaine, who he hopes to have a son with. (Lucy Punch) This doesn't really set well for his only child, Sally (Naomi Watts) who finds herself attracted to ...

Lady Hangover. When Bridesmaids first came out, I avoided it. It didn't look like my type of film at all. Then to my surprise, tons of positive reviews came in. So when it became available on Netflix, I figured I'd give it a shot. Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting married. Her best friend, Annie (Kristen Wiig) is her maid of honor, and this causes some friction between her and Lillian's new friend/bridesmaid Helen. (Rose Byrne) As they plan a bachelorette party, Annie and Helen must learn to play nice. I should've stuck with my initial instinct, because I didn't think Bridesmaids was funny at all. There were some great one-liners, but it mostly wasted the talent of Wiig, Rudoph, Byrne, and Melissa McCarthy. I enjoyed the raunchiness of the movie, but the rest of it fell flat on it's face. Recommended: No Grade: C Memorable Quote: I'm sure she welcomes him home, beaver first. - Annie's Mom (Jill Clayburgh) 

How would it feel to be trapped in your own body? This is just one of the questions you ask yourself after viewing the French film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Jean-Dominique Bauby ( Mathieu Amalric) is the editor of Elle magazine. He suffers a stroke and ends up with "Locked-in Syndrome." The only part of his body that he has control over is his left eye. He developes a code with his therapist as a way to communicate, and while he struggles with being completely aware and trapped in his own body, he eventually accepts it. I know when you read the summary of this movie, you're probably thinking: "No way, that's too depressing." I'd be lying if I said it wasn't. The film is sad, it will make you cry, and it will make you feel so sorry for people that this sort of thing actually happens to. But it's the way this story is told that makes it special. Director Julian Schnbal chose to shoot a good portion of the fim from Jean-Do's point of...

When you know you'll be running, it's best to wear a dress and five inch heels. In Time doesn't have the time to tell you how people ended up engineered with green clocks on their arms, how they stop aging at 25, or how time is now the currency. But it does have the time to tell you about Will Salas, (Justin Timberlake) a man from the ghetto who's given extra time by the mysterious Henry Hamilton. Will dares to cross time zones and fraternize with "rich" people like Sylvia. (Amanda Seyfriend, in a bad wig) Soon time keeper Leon (Cillian Murphy) is accusing Will of theft, and he and Sylvia are now on the run, and only have minutes to live. In Time has an interesting concept, but it's littered with horrible dialogue, bad special effects, obvious stunt doubles, and bland acting. Timberlake and Seyfried have zero chemistry and their performances were completely emotionless. You can't put all the blame on the actors, the screen play doesn't give them ...

It all started with a germ. Shot almost documentary style, What We Do Is Secret is a biopic about The Germ's front man, Darby Crash. (Shane West) We start off with Darby and band mates Pat Smear, (Rick Gonzalez) Lorna Doom (Bijou Phillips) and their countless drummers in high school. They don't know how to play their instruments, they just decide to form a band and play a show first. The film follows them through their underground success in the Punk scene, and ends with Crash's overdose. The first thing I noticed about this film was the horrible back drops. Parts of this film were obviously shot on a stage and the backgrounds looked horribly fake at times. The acting was hard to watch, when you read or watch interviews and footage of the Germs, you see that the characters in this film act nothing like them. You can tell a lot of effort was put into this film, some of the lines in the film were deep, then were muddled by the rest of the crappy screenplay. Shane West eve...

He was going to change everything. I know I'm probably in the minority over this film. When it first came out many critics hated it because it didn't focus enough on Robert F. Kennedy. After reading all those reviews, by the time I actually got around to seeing it I knew what not to expect.     Bobby is an ensemble drama about roughly 20 people who's lives are somewhat connected to the Ambassador Hotel. Some are staying there, others work there, we meet a slew of people and see what their lives are like on that fateful day in June.     The cast ranges from William H. Macy, Shia LaBeouf, Elijah Wood, Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Anthony Hopkins, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ashton Kutcher, Freddy Rodriguiz and Christian Slater. Not all are great actors, nor are all the story lines interesting, but they come together nicely. You could really feel the faith some of them at put into Kennedy, and how devastated everything was when he was murdered.     Recommended: Yes ...