Rambling Film

True Blood released their season 7 teaser trailer this week. S7 is True Blood's last. While I never thought I'd want one of my one time favorite shows to end, it is definitely the right time. The last two seasons have been lackluster at best. In honor of season 7, here's 7 things I'd love. (as always, click those gifs to be redirected to their makers) 7) Kill off all the new characters introduced after season 5. Literally, there is not a single interesting one. 6) Get rid of Alcide. He doesn't necessarily have to die. Sookie can break up with him early on and he can leave for all I care. No character has overstayed their welcome quite like Alcide. Seriously, the only thing good about him is his torso. 5) At least be consistent with this "Vampire illness" that's going to be the main point of the season. Hep V, is they are calling it is apparently turned some vamps into savage beasts, yet it killed Nora within 24 hours last season. Expla...

Game of Thrones proved to us last night that even book readers can be surprised. Over half of Oathkeeper wasn't even in the books. As surprised as I was at first, overall, I think I'm happy with it. As some stories drift into A Feast for Crows/A Dance with Dragons territory, they are in some serious need of filler. (Sorry, GRRM..actually no, get back to writing your fucking book.) It's kind of fun to not know what's going on again. As always, click those gifs to be redirected to their makers. Outside of Meereen, Missandei is giving Grey Worm an English lesson, but this sweet scene is interrupted by Dany and Ser Barriston, who have looks on their faces that suggest they caught them scissoring or something. (What, Grey Worm doesn't have his man parts anymore) It's time. Grey Worm and some of his Unsullied disguise themselves as slaves and sneak through Meereen's sewers. They have a hell of an easier time than Jorah and Barriston did, they had to walk ...

Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz The Coen Brothers can be hit and miss for me at times, but this easily has to be the worst film of there's I've ever seen. It's not bad by any means, it's just plain boring. So boring in fact, that this review isn't really coherent.  Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is a folk singer/songwriter trying to make his way through life. He's a total asshole, so I had a hard time trying to like him. Carey Mulligan is in this for awhile, usually cursing at Davis for being a total prick. Garrett Hedlund and John Goodman show up later as well as a fellow writer and musician respectively. Literally the only thing going for this film is it's music. Isaac has a great voice, and I enjoyed hearing him sing. But the songs weren't enough. The movie felt like it dragged and the plot just wasn't that interesting. I'm glad I didn't catch this one in theaters, I think I would've been even more disappointed then. Recommend...

This week's episode Breaker of Chains felt like it was going to be a Dany-centric episode. Turns out she was just in the last 7 minutes. As always, click those gifs to be directed to their makers.  We start the episode with Ser Dontos whisking Sansa away to a ship in the night. Turns out Littlefinger and his crazy accent is aboard the ship, ready to perv on Sansa. When Ser Dontos mentions that he should get back, Littlefinger offers to pay him...and ends up having men shoot him in the face with crossbows. "Money will buy a man's silence for a time, but a bolt to the heart will buy it forever" he tells Sansa. Charming. He explains that he was behind Ser Dontos helping her, and smashes the family necklace. No mention of the poison in it, they must get to that next week. Olenna tells Margaery that she may not have liked watching Joffrey die, but she would've liked it better than being married to him. Since they didn't consummate their marriage, she isn...

The dark part of the Beat movement. Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enrolls at Columbia University in 1944 and meets Lucian Carr,(Dane DeHaan) a fellow student with a big vision. Allen is instantly infatuated with him, and is introduced to other writers, William Burroughs, (Ben Foster) Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston) and most importantly, David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) David and Lucian have a special relationship that seems very predatory. It results in Kammerer's death, and Ginsberg finds himself in the middle of an impossible situation. I think out of all the movies I've seen on the Beat Gen, this is my favorite. It was a lot darker than Howl , for example, but it still had a bit of a pep in it's step. Despite not knowing a whole lot about these writers in real life (though now I'm even more intrigued after watching this) I didn't feel like it made me enjoy the film any less. The film doesn't exactly paint them in the best light, but that's appro...

Andrew (Or Fisti) over at A Fistful of Films is hosting a very interesting blogathon . Here's what he has to say: The basic idea behind this blogathon came from the recent swell of biblical inspired films.  I mean, at first we heard of Noah, and then Exodus…but then out of nowhere came Man of God and it became clear that 2014 was the year to bring back the biblical epic.  Biblical films were at one time pretty popular, but they’ve all but faded from mainstream cinema, and while faith based films come and go, unless you’re an avid fan of Kirk Cameron’s style of  BEAT ME OVER THE HEAD WITH YOUR BELIEFS  cinema, you probably don’t watch many of those kinds of films anymore. So my question is this; how do you like God in your movies? The concept is simple.  I want you to rack your brains for the film that, to you, defines how the bible (and all of its facets) should be presented in film.  Do you like your scripture present...

What I knew going in: I recognized the man falling into the spiral image. Seriously.  What's kind of nice about most of the films on my Blind Spot list is that I haven't bothered to read the plot lines of some of them. I chose them all out of hear say. So when I got Vertigo in the mail and saw it's PG rating, that was a surprise. I didn't know what I was getting into. When we first meet Scottie, (James Stewart) a detective, he's running across the roof tops chasing a criminal with his partner. He slips and nearly falls off a building, he looks down, and vertigo hits. Turns out Scottie is petrified of heights. it doesn't help that the other police officer trying to save him falls to his death while doing it. When we see Scottie again, it's been some time since this highly publicized incident. He's retired now, and approached by an old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) who wants him to tail his wife. (Kim Novak) Vertigo is quite fascina...

I think The Lion and the Rose might be the funniest episode of Game of Thrones so far. So many great facial expressions here. A bad head cold ruined my master plan of getting drunk while watching this, but of course this show is solid and I still managed to enjoy myself, mountain of tissues and all. Also if you click the gifs used in this post, they should redirect you to the lovely Tumblr artists they are from. We start off with the PG-13 version of Ramsay's hunting activities. (Thank God) I still think it's kind of stupid that Ramsay has a crazy chick helping him. I don't imagine her living quite long to be honest.  Tyrion and Jaime have a little heart to heart. Tyrion drops an awesome line: "Cersei can't get enough boar since one killed Robert." Jaime confesses to Tyrion he can't fight left handed, so Tyrion lends him someone to practice with... Bronn. In the books, Jaime sparred with Ser Illyn because he had no tongue, therefore he couldn't...

The always wonderful Josh over at The Cinematic Spectacle was kind enough to pass me this baton. This relay originates from the also wonderful Nostra from My FilmViews .  The Rules: "A list of 10 iconic movie characters has been made. That list will be assigned to another blogger who can then change it by removing one character (describing why they think it should not be on the list) and replace it with another one (also with motivation) and hand over the baton to another blogger. Once assigned that blogger will have to put his/her post up within a week. If this is not the case the blogger who assigned it has to reassign it to another blogger. After you have posted your update leave the link in the comments here and I will make sure it gets added to the overview post." This was harder than I thought it would be. I thought about characters like Harry Potter or Gollum, but they were iconic from books before they were on film. I toyed with the idea of reinstating Samue...

Do you remember? It's the year 2092. Nemo Nobody (Jared Leto) is the last living mortal. At 118, he's become somewhat of a celebrity - Truman show style. He tries to answer questions about his life to a reporter, but instead, we're given several different outcomes of how Nemo's life was/could've been. Now that Dallas Buyers Club reminded us that Jared Leto could act again, it's nice to look back on something he did awhile ago. Leto gives a great performance, as does Juno Temple, another favorite of mine.  Movies with a dreamy narrative like this can get risky. They might not make sense to some, come off as pretentious to others, but this one is neither of those things. It's beautifully crafted and easy to follow. Then there's the score/music selection. It's wonderful. I'm actually letting the DVD menu roll as I write this because I just love listening to it that much. Grade: B Memorable Quote: "We are NOT brother and s...

I hear Nebraska's nice.. Woody (Bruce Dern) is an elderly man from Billings, MT who received a letter in the mail saying he won $1,000,000. It's an obvious scam, as his son David (Will Forte) points out. But Woody is determined to go to Nebraska to claim his price. After several attempts of walking there himself, David finally agrees to drive him, much to the disdain of his mother, Kate. (June Squibb) Despite enjoying Alexander Payne's work, Nebraska wasn't something that caught my interest early on, but I'm happy to say that it was a very enjoyable film. I normally don't care for modern black and white movies. Yes, there are a few gems here and there, but when budget allows you to shoot in color and you shoot in black and white, you risk coming off as a hipster for lack of a better word. I think the reason it worked so well for me was because I'm from the Mid West. I'm used to seeing the rolling flat plains, they're boring as hell, but Pa...

Who can we trust? Nobody? Got it. The Cap is back. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans and his impressive torso) is still trying to fit in the modern world. He makes friends with a fellow vet, Sam (gorgeous Anthony Mackie) he dodges relationship questions from his co worker, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson, with a distracting wig) oh, and S.H.I.E.L.D has become compromised from the inside. Now on top of not knowing who to trust, he has to deal with a new threat in the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) who is actually Rogers' old pal Bucky Barnes. There's a lot of great things in CA2. First, we finally get a scene with Rogers and Peggy together again, and it's just as sweet as I always imagined. We get to see Nick Fury REALLY kick some ass. We get to see PG-13 violence stretched to it's limit. (Seriously, I was kind of surprised) and of course we get some pretty damn cool action scenes. Sure, this film ends up suffering from "where the fuck are the other avengers...

Oh Game of Thrones, I'm so glad you're back. You did not disappoint. As always, there's too many characters to fit into one episode, but we did catch up with most of them in the premiere, Two Swords . This is what happened. Tywin has a blacksmith melt down Ned Stark's great sword, Ice into two separate swords. All while The Rains of Castamere played. You're such an A-hole, Tywin. This was our cold open (which I wish they'd do in every episode) Dreadfort and Mereen have been added to our opening map. I'm glad they're still showing Winterfell too. Tywin and Jaime argue about Jaime being a 40 year old hand less knight of the King's Guard. Tywin presented Jaime with one of the swords he had made earlier. This scene was a lot angrier in the book, but I thought it played out nicely here. This is also the first of two times they put emphasis on Jaime's age, which I thought was a little weird. Tyrion, Bronn, and Podrick wait to greet the Princ...

That's what friends are for. A man with Dwarfism, Fin, (Peter Dinklage) inherits some property in the form of an old train station in New Jersey when his only friend passes away. He moves there with the intent to essentially become a hermit. That plan is thrown when he meets a talkative hot dog vender, Joe (Bobby Canavale) and a troubled woman, Olivia (Patricia Clarkson) who nearly runs him over. Twice. They force him to come out of his shell and make friends. Besides Game of Thrones, this really is some of Dinklage's best work. 2003 was such a weird year, Oscar wise. I think Dinklage really should've gotten a nomination for this. He's so guarded playing Fin. I just wanted to give him a giant hug during the entire film. Canavale was hilarious too. I'm used to seeing him in more antagonistic roles. (Hello, Gyp Rosetti) But here he's so adorable. You want to tell him to shut up, but you would be heartless if you did. The always reliable Clarkson gave a ...

Formula One isn't the over seas version of Nascar. In all seriousness, that's what I assumed Formula One was before I saw this film. I've never seen it on TV, I do not know a single person that has ever mentioned it. With all of that in mind, I was wondering if I could truly enjoy a movie about a sport that I was so in the dark about. Well, I can, given Ron Howard is directing it. Rush is based on a true story about the lives of James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda, (Daniel Bruhl) two Formula One racers who had a much publicized rivalry.  How this film didn't get editing or sound nominations at the Oscars is beyond me. Both of those things really stood out to me. Especially the editing. The way this film is shot is quite extraordinary. The quick cuts during the races, when the pit crew is changing tires on the car, simple things like that were really magnified. The standout in this film is easily Daniel Bruhl. He gives a hell of a performance. It...