Rambling Film

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is about those people that are up all night, trying to get that rich working hard. I'm really excited about this theme because three of my favorite shows qualify for it. Here are three TV shows I love about work places. 1) The Newsroom I hate that Aaron Sorkin let his ego go out of control and this only went three seasons. (The rumor is he walked away because it was not getting the same ratings/recognition his previous shows got on HBO) It's an excellent fast paced show about life in the newsroom at a major TV station. The characters were right, the dialogue smart, I loved all of it.  2) Rescue Me Denis Leary and his crew made me fall in love with these fire fighters we followed in post 9/11 New York City. Sure, this show had its issues. Most of the female characters were awful and they were under huge scrutiny for the way they handled serious topics at times, but overall, I really liked this series. It was...

The Midwest of California Christine aka Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) wants to leave her home town of Sacramento to go to college on the East Coast, but her practical mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) doesn't think it's reasonable. They clash frequently as Lady Bird comes into her own.  Saoirse Ronan is one of my favorite working actresses right now, but despite that I wasn't initially sold on Lady Bird . Director/Writer Greta Gerwig has a type and I was worried I'd just see Ronan trying to play, well....Greta Gerwig. Luckily that's not the case at all and what I ended up with has been my favorite movie of the year so far.  Lady Bird is all of us at one point or another during our teens. She's moody, insecure, confident, angry, awkward, in love, a dreamer, a downer, and has two very different relationships with her parents. Her passive father (Tracy Letts) encourages her as best he can but its the relationship with her mother that takes center stage. I f...

All in. In the wake of Superman's (Henry Cavill) death, Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) has to form a team of gifted individuals alongside Diana (Gal Gadot) when a creature from another planet, Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) returns to Earth looking for "mother boxes" and plans to destroy everything. They call in The Flash,(Ezra Miller) Aquaman (Jason Momoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) for help, but of course it's not simple. It's a shame this film is currently getting Tomb Raider'd at the box office, but maybe this is what Warner Bros needs to push the DCEU in the right direction. Yes, Justice League is a far better film than its official predecessor; Batman v Superman .  But knowing all this box office drama in advance did change the way I looked at this film. I'll get to that in a second. I went in expecting to have a bit of fun, and I did. When Justice League is good, it's very good. Its strength of course is our core heroes. I loved their chem...

Praise she. I can't think of a better indie gem to wrap up my posts for  Dell's Girls Week    In Saudi Arabi, a young girl named Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) wants to buy a bicycle so she can race her neighbor boy, Abdullah. (Abdullrahman Al Gohani) But she's continuously told that girls cannot have bikes. After she's caught in various schemes at school to earn money, she enters a Quran reading competition in order to raise her remaining funds. Sometimes you just need to watch a PG movie where you know how the end is going to go, and Wadjda is that. It's predictable, but that's okay. You're immediately drawn to her and you want her to have that bike. I wanted to reach through the screen and buy it for her. It's hard watching a child being told they cannot have something that seems to trivial to you if you grew up in a different culture.  The film handles the religious aspect of this well. It could easily only show you the ugly side that doesn...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves wants us to go back to the beginning. I wanted to alter this post to go along with Girls Week but I kind of screwed myself over by already using Wonder Woman, Alien, and Star Wars. Aside from the Hunger Games I couldn't think of any other female led origin movies I really loved. So in rebellion, I'm going to vent in a completely mature and appropriate fashion...by talking some shit on my blog.  So here are three origin movies that completely failed.  1) Halloween (2007) You know who should never be allowed to write a screenplay? Rob Zombie. As a horror director, I have no problem with him. He has a eye for gore, but did we really need Michael Myer's trailer trash origin story? No. We didn't. The only good thing to come out of this was Scout Taylor Compton. She's great. 2) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning This one is so bad it's offensive. I have to admit I was somewhat curious about Le...

What daycare? It's summer in Florida, and six year old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) runs around the shady motel that she and her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite) currently reside. Halley loves her, but she doesn't have a steady job nor does she put much of an effort in looking after her. Moonee spends her days playing with her friends, destroying things and occasionally bothering the hotel manager Bobby (Willem DaFoe) It's almost impossible to watch this movie and not get judgy if you're a parent. My child is also six, and the thought of letting him run around the way Moonee and her friends do with zero supervision is baffling to me. Watching Halley not putting in a huge effort to have a steady job is hard to watch too. That aside, seeing everything through Moonee's eyes is a perspective we don't get very often in film. When you first see her, she looks like a precious child. Then she goes off to spit on someone's car window and call the owner a "r...

The Spirit Award nominations were released today! A lot of these movies haven't been released near me yet but I have been fortunate enough to see a few. Here's a list of the nominations, followed by my thoughts.  Best Feature “Call Me By Your Name” “The Florida Project” “Get Out” “Lady Bird” “The Rider” I've only see Get Out and The Florida Project, and both are worthy noms. The Rider is the only film I'm unfamiliar with. I was hoping to see Ingrid Goes West here. I figured that, Three Billboards, or I,Tonya would be here. Best Director Jonas Carpignano, “A Ciambra”  Luca Gudagnino, “Call Me By Your Name” Jordan Peele, “Get Out” Benny and Josh Safdie, “Good Time" Chloé Zhao, “The Rider” No Greta Gerwig is surprising with how popular Lady Bird is. I was hoping to see Dee Rees for Mudbound (assuming it qualified?) Best First Feature: “Columbus” “Ingrid Goes West” Manahse” “Oh Lucy” “Patti Cake$” There's Ingrid Goes West! Best Female L...

How's your paradise?  What a perfect time for Dell to star his annual Girls Week . While a woman does not take center stage in front of the camera, director Dee Rees is the true powerhouse behind this film.  We follow two families working on farms in rural Mississippi during WWII. The first family, Henry McAllen (Jason Clarke) his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan) their two young daughters and Henry's father (Jonathan Banks) move out and really don't have the best grasp on things. Another family that has their own farm nearby an occasionally helps them are the Jacksons. Hap (Rob Morgan) his wife Florence (Mary J. Blige) and their children. Each family has a member coming home from WWII. Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) is Hap and Florence's oldest son whereas Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) is Henry's brother. Despite all the racism of that time, those two are able to form a true friendship while they both battle the effects of the war.  Director Dee Rees made a film a few ye...

It's trying to make contact. Maureen (Kristen Stewart) is a personal shopper to a celebrity named Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten) in Paris. She's also a medium, like her twin brother. After he dies of a heart defect they both share, she vows not to leave Paris until she can make contact with him. All of this is complicated when she starts receiving mysterious text messages.  Personal Shopper is a hard movie to define. It has elements that are very horror-like, but it's not a scary movie. It's very beautiful to look at with the shots of Paris and the high fashion involved. Director Olivier Assayas really has a lovely way of working with Kristen Stewart, this being his second outing with her after her wonderful performance in The Clouds of Sils Maria . Stewart is great and this part is perfect for her. Maureen is in a bad place but often puts up a huge front and she conveys that with ease. She's in nearly every second of this film with the supporting chara...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is something I always crave, a strong female character. I tried to think of a theme here. I wanted to simply pick indie films but there's one character in particular I just can't help but talk about. 1) Gone Girl Amy Dunne: The cool girl. I love Amy. I love to hate Amy. I thought she was despicable but I can't help but be blown away at all the shit she pulled off. Never call Amy Dunne weak. (No seriously, she might kill you) 2) Middle of Nowhere I love this little film. Ruby sacrifices a lot in the name of her jailed boyfriend Her career, money, but she keeps her head up. She works hard. This was Emayatzy Corinealdi's first big role, and she owns it.  3) In A World... Carol is a vocal coach and voice actor who finds herself competing against her own father for a part in narrating a big movie. It's perfect for this week as so many people tell her she can't do this because she's a wo...

What I knew going in: That it's the only Best Picture winner with an X rating. And apparently John Wayne bitched about it. Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is so cowboy even his suitcase is cow print. He naively thinks he can just move from Texas to New York City and automatically make it as a hustler based on his good looks alone. When that falls through, he forms an unlikely friendship with a different kind of hustler, Ratso. (Dustin Hoffman) They become partners in crime.  Hoffman and Voight are excellent in this. I don't often associate Voight with stellar performances, but this one is worthy of that praise. I really liked the story and the reality checks served, but I wasn't wowed by this. While most of this film is really well done, there's one aspect of it that I found almost egregious; and that would be Joe's flashbacks to a traumatic event with a former love. I don't know if they were going for an exploitation vibe but it was just very poorly done and didn...

Wander wants to know what you WANT to see. Not what you have. She asks us what adaptations of comics, video games or novels we'd like to see. Part of me wanted a campy action packed Duke Nukem but I think we have enough of those already. 1) Black Widow GIVE ME MY FUCKING BLACK WIDOW SOLO MOVIE MARVEL!!!!!! 2) Girl Boy Girl There's a lot of films and documentaries about the J.T Leroy scandal but I'd love to see one based off Savannah Knoop's memoir Girl Boy Girl. She was the one who "played" J.T during public appearances and her voice is often lost when talking about him. 3) When A Fan Hits The Shit If you've ever been a part of a fandom or message board, you know how juicy that drama can get. Jeanine Renne was a huge Lord of the Rings fan who ended up in a scandal that not only duped a lot of people out of a lot of money, but even pulled one over on a few of the films' stars. It's a batshit crazy read. I'd watch this as a fe...

We know each other! Two years after the events of Sokovia, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has been traveling the cosmos trying to understand a reoccurring dream he has been having. After he finds out his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been impersonating their father, he doesn't have time to deal with that because the Goddess of Death, Hela (Cate Blanchett) has been released from her banishment and promises to take over Asgard. Director Taika Waititi has a very specific style that's quite the contrast to the brooding Thor the MCU has been presenting in the last few films. (And unlike the majority, I actually preferred  The Dark World to the first one) But Waititi lets Thor be that goofy fuck we all knew was inside there. I've been looking forward to this for some time, but I still had my reservations. I was afraid there would be too much comedy, that they wouldn't feel like the same characters and that there would be no stakes, and I'm happy to say that al...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is about strangers.  I've mentioned how Netflix makes lists of suggestions for me with names like "Dysfunctional family dramas" or "dark independent films." Two of these films would probably be on those lists. The last one though is a lovely LIGHT independent film, Netflix! 1) An Education Jenny's life is forever changed when she meets a man twice her age and becomes his girlfriend. This is a fantastic movie with great performances by Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard.  2) Lawn Dogs This is a film that I first saw on Lifetime (ha!) I was about the same age as the girl in it at the time. I found it strangely fascinating and if anything, it helped me identify shady behavior a little more easily. This is a story of a 10 year old girl (Misha Barton) who strikes up a friendship with a 20 something lawn boy (Sam Rockwell) in her jaded gated community. Don't worry, he's not the creep in...