Rambling Film

What do you think? Can dubbing a film from a foreign language into your native language hurt the quality of the picture? Recently I watched the original Oldboy on Netflix. It's an English dub, not the subtitled version I was hoping for. As a personal preference, I like to watch foreign films in their respective languages. I just think it feels a little more natural, but I've never experienced anything quite like the Oldboy dub. It was fucking horrible. Needless to say, it was so horrible that I think it hurt the quality of the film for me. This film is very interesting and very violent, yet I found myself distracted by the fact that the lead character's speaking voice and his narrating voice sounded totally different. None of the other voices seemed to fit their characters, and it was an overall disappointment on a film I was really looking forward to. Not all dubs are bad. Life is Beautiful is a film that I've watched the dub more times than the Italian version...

Christopher Mintz-Plasse keeping it real in This Is The End, and Michael Cera making it go wrong. I caught an episode of the cancelled too soon Chapelle's Show the other day, and it inspired this list. SPOILER ALERT 1) Detective David Mills in Se7en: Mills and Somerset have a murderer out in the middle of the open, and suddenly a mystery box gets delivered to him. Somerset opens it, looks towards David, and says that John Doe has the upper hand. David is trying to keep it real, but when he starts yelling "What's in the fucking box?!" and proceeds to lose his shit and John Doe in the head. This is a perfect example of when keeping it real goes wrong. 2) Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest: In the middle of the night, Joan decides to go for a little stroll in her sleeping kids' closet. She finds one of her daughter's nice dresses on a wire hanger. We know that wire hangers aren't that great for fabric. Joan tries to keep it real, but the she t...

Plus a few things we learned from The Newsroom episode 2.3: Willie Pete   there is no reason for this gif other than the fact that Stannis is the man.      True Blood started off with Eric escaping the vamp camp with Nora, and telling Willa to warn Pam about the Hep-V tainted Tru Blood. Pam tells Willa to only tell Tara and Jessica, if all of the vampires refuse the Tru Blood, they'll know something is up.   Eric brings Nora to Bill's house, and sincerely asks Bill to heal her since he's "God" now. I felt really bad for Eric here, Alexander Skarsgard was killing it. Bill confides in Eric that he's been using Warlow's blood to walk in the sun. He tells him about his vision of the white room, and that they need Warlow's blood to help stop it.   Cut to Warlow and Sookie lying naked in Faery graveyard land. Warlow thinks that because Sookie slept with him that she accepted his marriage proposal. Sookie's like "LOL This is 2...

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime   I love French movies. This is one I've been meaning to watch for awhile. I've read reviews by many of my fellow bloggers. I also remember Roger Ebert making a big deal out of Kristin Scott Thomas not getting an Oscar nomination for this. This is a peculiar film. I loved it, up until the very end. The last 5 minutes of the film made me go "wait a minute.." but they didn't ruin the movie for me. I'm going to explain why at the end of my review. I'll use a spoiler warning.   Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) has just gotten out of prison. She served 15 years for killing her 6 year old son. She's moved in with her younger sister Lea (Elsa Zlyberstein) who was only a child herself when Juliette was sent away. She has a hard time adjusting, but Lea's family is kind for the most part. We see her navigate her way through her new found freedom and eventually learn the truth about why she killed her precious chil...

When 3D suddenly makes your film worse.   I'm not really sure how they talked Sean Bean and Radha Mitchell into reprising their roles. Or how they managed to get someone like Carrie-Anne Moss. This film was littered with problems and you probably already know how this review is going to go.   Harry (Sean Bean) and his daughter Heather (Adelaide Clemens) have just moved to another town. They've done this quite often, trying to escape their past. She makes one new friend at her high school, Vincent (Kit Harington) who seems to somewhat understand her. She's been plagued by visions of a place called Silent Hill since her childhood. When her father is suddenly taken, she's forced to go there to save him.   Let's be real here. There is no fucking way Clemens or Harington are in high school. They're both in their mid twenties and they look it. Putting them in a high school setting was just embarrassing. The thing that made the original Silent Hill so da...

Is Nicolas Winding Refn the next M. Night Shyamalan?   Julian (Ryan Gosling) is a drug dealer hiding behind the guise of a boxing club. His older brother is murdered. Julian knows why, and lets the man who did it go. Well Julian's peach of a mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) shows up, creeps on her son and demands she give him her older son's murderer's head.   This film is littered with long takes and stunning lighting. As a film fan, I can appreciate that..to a point. Cinematography one of the most important parts of film. It helps enhance the story and makes us feel like we're really there. But here's the thing, when you are being to obvious about it, you're not enhancing it, you're being pretentious. I know some will interpret that differently, but here's my stance on it: When you wade into some Lars Von Trier douche territory and start filming certain things "just because they look arty." It's overkill. Gus Van Sant perfected th...

Plus things we learned from The Newsroom ep 2.1 The Genoa Tip "Sookie! The only man you should be with is Eric. Then maybe Sam! What are you thinking?"     Well, I've got to hand it to the writers of True Blood. They sure know how to stir up the pot. I'll get to that in a minute.   We pick up right where we left off with possessed Lafayette drowning Sookie. Bill sensed it, and sent Warlow off to rescue her. He blasts Lala with his faery light to get Sookie's father's spirit out of him. Sookie essentially tells her dad to fuck off. He cries and leaves. That actually made me feel really bad! Bill is trying to summon Warlow, so Sookie takes him to the safe faery version of Bom Temps' graveyard. Because apparently she can go there willingly, and not just by accident now. (I'm a little slow on the fact checking, but she never did that on her own before, right?)   Bill makes that professor he kidnapped drain his blood so he goes comatose t...

Admit it. You would probably do the same thing.   A poor young couple Alice (Juno Temple) and John (Michael Angarano) are "two steps away from white trash" as they put it. One day, while browsing through a roadside antique store, Alice sees a brass teapot and is immediately mesmerized with it. She steals it, and her and John high tail it out of there. Soon, they discover that this teapot dispenses cash whenever they feel pain. They must find that fine line between controlling themselves, or letting it go too far.   I can't judge these characters. If this teapot landed in my lap, and shot out $100 bills for every scratch, cut, or burn, I'd probably take advantage. The lengths these two go are quite comical. It starts out with a simple burn from a curling iron, and escalates to Brazilian waxes, dentistry work without Novocain, and bar fights with people twice their size. The film is quite predictable when you think about it, but even though you can see the en...

Here's a short list of some of the 2013 Emmy nominees. Oh Emmys, you and your weird rules never cease to amaze me. My thoughts, as always will follow in green . OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES The Big Bang Theory Girls Louie Modern Family 30 Rock Veep I still don't see how Girls gets so much praise. Not my cup of tea I guess. No Office for their final season. I expect 30 Rock will win for it's final. I just started watching Veep, and I'm glad to see it here. That show is hilarious. OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES Breaking Bad Downton Abbey Game Of Thrones Homeland House Of Cards Mad Men Breaking Bad! Game of Thrones! That's really all I care about in this category. I guess this answered the question I had about House of Cards being eligible since it belongs to Netflix. OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad Hugh Bonneville - Downton Abbey Damian Lewis - Homeland Kevin Spacey - House of Cards Jon Hamm - Mad Men Jeff Daniels - T...

Secret Heroes   Remember when the studio forced the film makers of Gangster Squad to re-shoot their ending because it featured a shoot up in a movie theater not too long after some asshole actually shot innocent people in one? Yeah, that didn't do this film any favors.   Sergeant John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) is told to put together a band of cops (Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena, etc.) to bring down notorious gangster Mickey Cohen. (Sean Penn) They will remain anonymous and not reveal themselves as police officers. Eventually, Mickey catches on to them.   I'm not really sure what to think of this movie. At times, the editing is really distracting. It's like they tried to do those stylish slow motion shots that directors like Zack Snyder are famous for, but failed miserably. I'm not sure if this was just my dvd, but the sound was really inconsistent as well. I found myself constantly having to turn up the volume when the characters were tal...

I truly believe that God wants me to fuck you. gif via biohazardkitty   We pick up right where we left off last week with Sookie aiming her vampire killing light right at Warlow. He says he means her no harm, he loves her, and he's wondered through life for years thinking only of her. So she drop the bomb: "Why did you kill my parents."   Of course after the opening credits we cut to a totally different scene, Jessica still freaking out about killing Andy's fairy children. There's also a little problem with her being high/horny as fuck.   Back to Sookie and Warlow, he tells her that the night her parent's died, they were trying to kill her. Immediately I'm a little confused by this revelation as I'm fairly sure Sookie mentioned being at home with her Grandma and Jason when her parents died. Maybe they'll elaborate. She zaps him, Bill feels it, and shows up to Sookie's house to take Warlow. He drops an "as your maker, I com...

We're all trying to find our place in life.   I get that feeling every now and then. Wondering what I should be doing in life. Wondering if I took the right career path and made the right choices. I'm happy, and I like to think everything worked out the way I wanted. (Except for me being rich. Yeah, that would be nice.) All kidding aside, I felt like I could really relate with the characters in this film, despite being in a "different place" so to speak in my life.   Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an actor who's star is fading. He's in Tokyo doing a whiskey commercial when he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) a young woman who follows her photographer husband on his assignment. She's not exactly sure what to do with herself at this point. Her husband doesn't pay a lot of attention to her, but by chance she meets Bob, and they help each other.   The thing I liked about this, was that it wasn't necessarily an affair that Bob and Charlo...

Just another day at the office.   You know, busting up human trafficking rings, getting shot at, running into drug dealers. Being an inner city Los Angeles police officer looks tough.   End of Watch follows two police officers, Brian Taylor (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike Zavala (Michael Pena) as they go about their days. Taylor is initially taping his every day life on the job for a class, but the entire film is shot documentary style. It's always done with a hand held camera, and our characters speak to the camera plenty of times. Eventually, the men bust the wrong cartel and will have to endure some serious consequences.   What sets End of Watch apart from other cop movies was the way it was shot.  It felt deeper and more realistic as we continue to see what Taylor and Zavala's every day lives are like. We meet their wives, their co-workers, we get to know them so well that when the film ends, I was actually left disappointed .   Granted, I...

gif via hellyesiwould We start the episode with Sookie and Ben trying to help Jason, who passed out at the end of the last episode. As she runs into another room to call 911, Ben whips out his fangs and gives him his blood. That's right, Ben is a fae/vampire hybrid, and it's very obvious at this point that he is Warlow. I always kind of wondered what would happen if a vampire turned someone with fae blood. Well, apparently we now have our answer. Sam, Girl I Don't Give A Fuck About, and Emma (who really should be in wolf form from now on so I don't have to hear that kid try to deliver lines) have escaped the wolves and made it to a waiting car driven by Lafayette. Lala thinks they should ditch the girl, but Sam needs a new girlfriend this season , but of course, Sam keeps her around and sends Lafayette off. There was not enough Lafayette in this episode at all. Later on, they kiss in a motel room. Sam gets his heart broken too much. Give this guy a break. Ther...

Worst. Dad. Ever. Shotgun Stories starts with a set of brother; Son Hayes, (Michael Shannon) Boy Hayes (Douglas Ligon) and Kid Hayes. (Barlow Jacobs) Yes, those are seriously their names. Obviously a lot of love going on from their parents. Anyways, their father ran out on them when they were kids, got remarried, became a born again Christian and led a seemingly pretty normal life with his replacement wife and kids. Then he dies, Son makes an impromptu speech at his funeral saying what a shitty man their father was. This pisses off their half brothers, and suddenly a "war" is started between these two families that share the same name. With a title like "Shotgun Stories" one would expect a big shoot out between these brothers, right? Wrong. That's one of the things I love about this film. In the hands of anyone else, this would just be another southern revenge movie. Jeff Nichols makes it a little more intimate. We can see the pain across Son Hayes'...

There's plenty of actors on plenty of shows that deserve to be nominated for an Emmy award. These are just a few standouts I've noticed on my favorite shows. I also tried to pick the episode I thought they were the best in. You may wonder why I'm leaving certain people out (Say Charles Dance or Jack Gleeson for Game of Thrones for example) that's because they were not submitted for consideration. Though they should've been. Emmy nominees are announced on July 15th Supporting Actor in a Drama Series - Bobby Canavale - Boardwalk Empire episode 3.5: You'd Be Surprised Bobby Canavale's baddie Gyp Rosetti was the best part of Boardwalk Empire's 3rd season. We've already seen Rosetti do some messed up things at this point. But when he's in the middle a little erotic asphyxiation, someone shoots up his house, and kills plenty of his men. He takes a long walk down the hallway, naked, and covered in blood. His face in this scene is terrifying. ...