Rambling Film

When being a helicopter parent would've been helpful. Felix (Francisco Barrerio) and Sol (Laura Caro) are vacationing with their two children, Adolfo (Alan Martinez) and Sara. (Michele Garcia) When the kids ask to go exploring some mountains in Tijuana, the parents take the opportunity for some alone time/car sex, only for their kids to disappear. Thankfully, they return the following day, but they are acting strange and show signs of experiencing a traumatic event.  Demonic films tend to all look the same, but this one attempts to do things differently. There's no exorcism, no crosses flipping upside down, the film relies heavily on its slow burn and it really nails that aspect of building dread. You know where the film is probably going to go, but it doesn't make it any less unsettling.  Here Comes The Devil succeeds in being very creepy and mysterious, however a few directorial choices stunt it from achieving greatness. There's an overt sexual...

This week's Halloween edition from Wandering Through the Shelves is movies with Ghosts. Like last week, some of my picks aren't horror movies, but they have ghosts so here we are. Here are some of my favorites: 1) Ghost Ship This film has one of the best openers I've ever seen. Cruise ship, people dancing, seemingly innocent...then a giant wire gets pulled across the floor and kills everyone. 2) Casper I have a soft spot for this film. I love Christina Ricci, and I loved her growing up. And Casper was Devon Sawa. 8 year old me thought he was SO cute. (lol) 3) Gothika This is a guilty pleasure of mine. I pop this DVD in frequently enough. It's a creepy and interesting story. Plus, I accidentally dumped popcorn all over my best friend when we saw this in theaters because of one of the jump scares, so it's very dear to me. It's not often that I toss food at people. Bonus: All My Friends are Funeral Singers Besides the awesome title, th...

Woz forever. Steve Jobs (Michael Fassbender), innovator extraordinaire was kind of an asshole.  Maybe more so than "kind of." This film follows him at three points in his life. 1984, 1988, and 1998, all while at launches of his currents products. We see his various relationships with colleague, Jonanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) former Apple colleagues, Steve Wozniak, (Seth Rogan) Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) and John Sculley. (Jeff Daniels) and his estranged relationship with hsi ex, Chrisann (Katherine Waterston) and the daughter that Steve likes to pretend isn't his when it clearly is.  This film hit plenty of bumps on the way. While it was always written by Aaron Sorkin, David Fincher was supposed to direct with Christian Bale starring, then it changed to Danny Boyle directing and Michael Fassbender starring. All good choices. The film is exceptionally well made. I liked how it was split into three timelines with news footage bridging one scene to th...

And you thought the people in Up in the Air had tough jobs. Dennis Nash (Andrew Garfield) is a single father living with his mother (Laura Dern) in their family home. After some bad advice from a banker, and the construction crew he works with going under, Nash finds himself evicted from their home by a seedy real estate broker, Rick Carver. (Michael Shannon) After he's forced to move his family into a dingy motel, he returns to Carver to confront one of the men that that moved his stuff, only for Carver to offer him a job, first on maintenance, then it quickly escalates to kicking other people out of their homes. But he's so hard up for money, he has no choice. I appreciate the caliber of asshole Michael Shannon is capable of playing. Rick Carver's temper and flat out douche baggery is practically a work of art. So much so that I didn't even hate the guy. I was too impressed. Garfield, who I think is a very strong actor was actually kind of bad compared to S...

Rambling TV is a series where I ramble incoherently about the things I watched on TV for the week. The Walking Dead Let's get this out of the way: Glenn's not dead. That's massive trolling from the powers that be. The walkers were clearly ripping Nicholas' body apart on top of Glenn. Intestines don't come out of chests. I think he'll crawl under the dumpster (ala Rick in S1, when they first met. Glenn even called Rick "dumbass" again in this episode like he did in 101) Not to mention *SPOILER - HIGHLIGHT FOR IT* Glenn has been spotted filming consistently. There's pictures of him in September, even one released by Entertainment Tonight when Jesus' actor was cast. He was spotted filming again this week. They're on episode 14. Rest easy, Glenn fans. *END SPOILER* I want to talk about Michonne, who was the stand out for me. I love her character and I'm so happy they gave her some depth. She was so caring with David, yet she had ...

What I knew going in: Apparently this is Woody Allen's least favorite Bergman film, despite the fact that he's seemingly tried to capture its feel it over and over. It's funny, when I went through a list of Bergman movies and started adding them to my Blind Spots, this was one where I don't even think I looked at the plot. When I watched Wild Strawberries last year, I wondered if that was the closest thing Bergman would ever get to a comedy. Nope, that is this film. Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) is a lawyer married to a 19 year old, Anne. (Ulla Jacobsson) They haven't consummated their relationship. Fredrik gives her time, but eventually her eyes start to wonder to his son, on a break from seminary school, Henrick. (Björn Bjelfvenstam) Only he's too busy lusting after their hot maid, Petra. (Harriet Andersson) Then you have Fredrik trying to rekindle and old flame in Desiree, (Eva Dahlbeck)  a stage actress. Only she's having an affair with t...

Cabin in the woods? Totally safe. Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadway) are newlyweds who decide to spend their honeymoon in Bea's family secluded lake cabin. It starts off great. They're in love, they joke, they make out everywhere. But then things get weird. Paul finds Bea wandering around in the woods, disoriented. Then she starts acting strange, forgetting things. And it only gets worse. I applaud this little film for not going in the direction that I thought it would. Sure cabin in the woods films are done time and time again, but this one at least attempts to be different. Leslie and Treadway have amazing chemistry and they really feel like the perfect couple. It makes it all the harder to handle when things start to go south. The tension builds well and the leads are strong. It's a very creepy film, and while it's not overly gory, it gets pretty damn unsettling.  Grade: B Memorable Quote: "You knew the water was cold." - Pau...

This week's Halloween theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is movies about Werewolves. I have to admit, werewolves are not my favorite supernatural beings in films, but that doesn't mean there isn't some great films out there involving them. So I'll give you one I love, one I didn't expect to like, and one that was a good part in a bad film. 1) Trick R Treat First, the one I love: This film has a lot of great things going for it and the werewolf subplot leads to one of the most memorable shots in the entire film for me. 2) Underworld This franchise sort of went to shit, but when the original Underworld came out I really liked it. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it at all, but I liked how it was this supernatural take on a forbidden romance. At the time, it was a nice change. 3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I'm a massive Harry Potter fan, but Prisoner of Azkaban is probably my least favorite movie. I know everyone has an Alfon...

The power of education Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani girl who spoke up against the Taliban. She wanted equal education for girls, something that is being frowned upon in her home nation. They retaliated by shooting her in the head. She made a miraculous recovery and still continues on inspiring people, though she's unable to return to her home in the Swat Valley as she is being threatened with murder. I've been moved to tears by hearing Malala speak before. She comes off so well adjusted, but this documentary shows that she really is just a normal girl, who fights with her brothers, crushes on hot cricket players, and occasionally does poorly on biology tests. She's very adamant that this life is not one her father chose for her, but rather one she chose herself. The bulk of the story is how she was named Malala and how her father encourages her. Her childhood is total through shadowy animation that works perfectly...

If your new home has a giant hole in the roof, you should probably walk away. Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is an aspiring author who has been seeing ghosts since her mother died when she was eleven. She's beloved by her father, Carter (Jim Beaver) and sought after by a handsome doctor, Alan (Charlie Hunnam) but who really catches her attention is a mysterious English inventor, Thomas Sharpe. (Tom Hiddleston) He's looking for funds to help run a red coal mine his family's home is on, but Carter sees right through him. Edith is smitten. He's the first man to actually compliment her manuscript. And even though he's clearly a step away from going full Lannister with his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) Edith marries him and moves with him to his family home, only to discover that it's full of ghosts who have apparently died very violent deaths. Like every other Guillermo del Toro movie, the production is astonishingly beautiful. The red clay that is seen frequ...

The Walking Dead I didn't talk about last week's season premiere. It was a solid episode with good character moments, but I was ultimately very underwhelmed for a season premiere. I thought director Greg Nicotero tried way too hard to be Ingmar Bergman and failed pretty spectacularly. The use of black and white to distinguish past and present ended up washing everything out and the gimmick certainly overstayed it's welcome. Now episode two ...holy. shit. I knew going in that Rick wasn't in it, and usually that takes the episode down a notch for me, but it was expertly shot and I loved the action. Carol is FINALLY out of the Suzy Homemaker get up! She kicked ass. I also loved Maggie's scenes with Deanna and seeing Tara and Rosita get to do a few things as well. Merritt Weaver is going to be a great addition as Denise. Morgan's philosophy is a bit annoying, and letting those wolves go is going to come back and bite everyone in the ass. But I just...

Riding the Subway in the middle of the night is totally safe. Until Dell talked about this in one of his Thursday Movie Picks. I only remembered it from the Easter egg in Silver Linings Playbook where it was on a marquee at the movie theater in that film. But after hearing him talk about it, I figured this would be good, gory fun. Leon (Bradley Cooper) is a photographer who is itching to get approval from a big art dealer, Susan. (Brooke Shields) When she tells him not to turn away before he gets the best shot, he breaks up an attempted assault in the subway station one night. But the women he photographs goes missing, and he catches only a glimpse of the last man scene with her, mute Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) who happens to be a murderous butcher. He becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to not only this woman, but others who have gone missing on the Philadelphia subway.  This movie had an interesting time i...

This week's Halloween theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is Asian Horror! I don't think I've ever seen an Asian horror movie that I didn't like, there's so many great ones to choose from. Here are my favorites. I wish I had some obscure little indie to talk about here, but these three are very widely seen. I really need to see more. 1) Audition Whenever I tell people to watch this, I warn them that it gets off to a very slow start. You need to keep with it, because once you realize that something is very off, it doesn't slow down from there.  2) Ringu I saw the American remake The Ring first, and I loved it. I had to see the original, and it doesn't disappoint. The scariest thing for me here was the fact that Sadako (this version's Samara) looked so tall coming out of that TV. She was very menacing.  3) A Tale of Two Sisters This was another one where I saw the American remake first (The Uninvited) and had to check it out the o...

What was everyone else doing? Much like Bobby , a film about John F Kennedy's younger brother's assassination, Parkland follows a similar formula where it follows the lives of random citizens on that day. Only unlike Bobby , these citizens are a lot less random in relevance to the story. We see the nurses and doctors at Parkland Hospital that fought to save him, (Marcia Gay Harden, Colin Hanks, Zac Efron) CIA employees in Washington trying to make sense of what's happening (Ron Livingston, David Harbour) Abraham Zapruder, (Paul Giamatti) a photographer who caught the shooting on film. Local government employees in Dallas (Billy Bob Thorton, Paul Sparks) and the shooter's brother, Robert Oswald. (James Badge Dale) Tom Welling, Jacki Weaver, Mark Duplass and Jackie Earl Haley also have small parts. They have a great, extensive cast, but this film doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, so it can't really devote a lot of meaty material to its acto...

So what's why we're here.  Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is an FBI agent selected by Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) to be part of a government task force aimed at taking down the Mexican cartel. They work along side a DOD agent, Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) who Kate is instantly wary of. It turns out this assignment is nothing she expected it to be, and she and her partner Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) are constantly questioning everything. The highlight of Sicario is Roger Deakins beautiful cinematography, which is among the best he's ever done. I know we're all predicting Emmanuel Lubezki to take home his 3rd Oscar in a row for The Revenant , but he's got some serious competition here. The way Deakins frames the quieter moments of the film are masterful, but it's the way he helps the film build tension in something as simple as traffic are something else. (Johan Johannsson's menacing score helps too) Plus, he films a a portion of the film through the le...

Keep the camera rolling Aaron(Patrick Brice) is a videographer who responds to an ad on Craig's List to film a man named Josef (Mark Duplass) for a day. Josef tells Aaron that he's dying of cancer, he has a son on the way, and wants to film something for his child to watch when he's older. Soon, Aaron realizes that there's something extremely off about this situation. The film is shot entirely on Aaron's hand held camera, which can be annoying because of the shakiness, but there really wasn't any other way they could've told this story. They at least set the camera down during for most of the film, so it can focus.  We don't see a whole lot of Brice since he's operating the camera, so Duplass is the main standout, and he's wonderfully creepy. He still has that goofy charm Duplass usually does in his films but when he needs to get serious, he does it well. The film is short, running at just 75 minutes, but this makes for a good ...

This week's Halloween theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is villainous children. There's so many great horror films to choose from with bad kids. I'm just bummed I already used The Ring. 1) Village of the Damned What would you do if you lived in a town where 9 women mysterious got knocked up and gave birth to creepy peroxide blonde babies? Fucking move, that's what.  2) Wicked Little Things This little indie had some very unsettling imagery. It might not be the strongest horror film out there, but it nails the creep factor for sure.  3) Pet Sematary Funny story, I know two people personally that named their sons "Gage" because of this movie. Because nothing says "story of your birth name" better than "Oh, I named you after this dead kid in this horror movie." Hopefully one of them has another son they can name Malachai to even it out. Kidding aside, I love this movie. Always have. 

Fear the Walking Dead * So the final episode of the season, while strong and well acted ended up being extremely predictable. I knew as soon as I saw the casting for Liza that she would eventually die. The actress is already a regular on Orange is the New Black, so that part I was expecting to be obvious. But Travis letting the soldier go, then for said soldier to come back and screw everything up? Come on. Everyone saw that coming. Travis will hopefully toughen up next season, because he's still being the Lori of this show. (Only even more unlikable. Though not as much as Chris though, fuck that kid) I'm not sure how excited I am for season 2. The interesting part for me was how the military handled everything, and what the first few weeks were like. If they're swiftly moving past that, it's only going to be The Walking Dead part 2. Agents of SHIELD. * For the season opener , Sky is now going by her real name, "Daisy" and the characters each say h...

Hope you don't mind heights. I don't consider myself a person that's officially afraid of heights. Do I enjoy them? Not really. But being in tall buildings doesn't freak me out. That being said, watching this movie made me squirm just about as much as I would during a gory horror movie. They manage to make you feel like you're really that high up. Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a street performer who love to walk the high wire. One day he sees a picture of the under construction twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York City and decides that's where he wants to hang his wire. He trains with Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley) and soon, along with his girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) and two friends Jean-Louis (Clemont Sibony) and Jeff (Caesar Domboy) they are off to New York to attempt to pull off this heist and gain a few more accomplices on the way. I think one of the fears many had going in was that this was going to be unnecessary...

How can Aquaman control whales? They're mammals! Makes no sense. Since one of my favorite Mark Watney ponderings got left out of the movie I figured I'd include it here.  Mark (Matt Damon) is part of a 6 man Ares mission on Mars. When a storm causes them to evacuate early, he's struck by debris which sends him flying in the opposite direction and kills his monitor. His crew members, Leader Lewis, (Jessica Chastain) Martinez, (Michael Pena) Johanssen, (Kate Mara) Vogel, (Aksel Hennie) and Beck (Sebastian Stan) assume he's dead. But he isn't, and when SATCON employee Mindy (Mackenzie Davis) discovers he's alive when looking at satellite images, Ares director Vincent (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and director of NASA, Teddy (Jeff Daniels) among others need to figure out how to bring him home. The book by Andy Weir is one of the best I've read in recent memory. I would probably say it's now in my top 10 of all time. This film had big shoes to fill in tha...

Tis the season I figured I'd kick off October with a fall themed Indie Gem. The Harvest follows a sick boy named Andy. ( Love is Strange's Charlie Tahan) He's never gone to school, his controlling mother Katherine (Samantha Morton) never lets him out of the house while his timid father Richard (Michael Shannon) stays with him during the day. Maryann (Natasha Calis) who has been recently orphaned moves nearby with her grandparents (Peter Fonda and Leslie Lyles) and strikes up a friendship with Andy after curiously peering through his window. But Katherine doesn't like Andy having friends.. I kind of love this cast. Morton is scary as Katherine.  She micromanages  everything and you're afraid of what will happen if she snaps. Shannon is very subdued. I'm so used to him playing "quietly psycho" that I almost wish he would've completed freaked out on Katherine. This is the same guy who killed people on Boardwalk Empire when he was angry...

This month at Wandering Through The Shelves is all about Halloween! Hitchcock is obviously one of the most known names in horror, but it's a little embarrassing the amount of Hitchcock I've actually watched the whole way through. And I can't pick Psycho three times.   So instead of picking three favorites, I'm picking three films of his that I really need to see.  1) Rear Window I always seem to catch the ending of this film on TV, but I've never sat down and watched it the whole way through. Though Drew hates it, so maybe I shouldn't bother? 2) Marnie Another film of his that always gets great reviews that I have yet to visit. I have it on my preliminary Blind Spot list next year.  3) Rope I do love some James Stewart. I've noticed this film has some pretty passionate haters. This, I have to see.  What do you think I should see?