Rambling Film

Official synopsis:  A woman (Sandra Hüller ) is suspected of her husband's murder, and their blind son, Daniel ( Milo Machado Graner)  faces a moral dilemma as the main witness. If you're a film fan on the internet, it's been impossible not to be at least somewhat hyped for this film. It made a huge splash at Cannes, has plenty of critics nominations and everyone speaks highly of it. It easily became one of my most anticipated of the year. My local theater never got it, but now it's available to rent on VOD for all. I'm a sucker for courtroom dramas and this one doesn't disappoint. We probably spend 2 hours of the 2 1/2 run time in that court room and I ate up every second. This is the type of film where you barely notice the run time. I only realized how long it truly was after I had finished. It's paced very well and the dialogue is always engaging. As someone not familiar with the French judicial system, it was interesting to watch this all play out.  Hül...

Official synopsis:  The unspoken system that has shaped America and chronicles how lives today are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. This is an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's (played here by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) novel Caste: The Origins of our Discontents. I haven't read it, though this film made me immediately place a hold at my local library. We see some of Isabel's personal life, how she struggles to define her thoughts in the wake of Trayvon Martin's murder. We also see flashbacks to various eras while she forms her thesis.  Ava DuVernay's latest is very ambitious. So much so that I'm not sure this medium wholly works to grasp the scope of what Isabel Wilkinson wrote. It's part movie, anchored by a brilliant performance from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. And part video essay, summing up the pillars of Caste in an easily digestible way towards the end. This makes for a somewhat uneven watch. That is something I believe DuVernay recognizes. Other cha...

Official synopsis:  This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. (Carey Mulligan) Bradley Cooper poured his heart and soul into his remake of A Star is Born and now he's back with an even bigger showing for himself with Maestro . Unfortunately, despite doing the absolute most in every single scene, I'm left empty and bored. This feels like The Darkest Hour all over again for me. An Oscar bait biopic that is being showered with love, particularly for the lead performance, yet I felt nothing. I couldn't even tell you what made Bernstein a great composer. It weirdly did not get into his musical journey at all. Cooper and Mulligan give great performances and the cinematography is lovely but that's not enough to save the film for me. Netflix is exactly where this belongs. Had I paid theater money for this, we'd be entering into rant territory.  Grade: C-

Official synopsis:  The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, Kevin, (Zac Efron) Kerry, (Jeremy Allen White) David (Harris Dickinson) and Mike (Stanley Simmons) who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. I grew up watching professional wrestling, but the Von Erichs were men I didn't learn about until later in life. Still, whether you're familiar with their talents and tragedies, this movie isn't just for wrestling fans. Director Sean Durkin (who also made the wonderful Martha Marcy May Marlene ) crafts a wonderful story of brotherhood, toxic masculinity and how one family dealt with a "curse" and tried to overcome it. This is easily Zac Efron's best performance. Not only did he physically transform to play Kevin, the only surviving Von Erich son, but he gets plenty of opportunity to stretch his acting chops. Something I don't think we've often seen of him. Jeremy Allen White's talen...

  Official synopsis:  A successful song-and-dance team become romantically involved with a sister act and team up to save the failing Vermont inn of their former commanding general. Well, the end of my 2024 Blind Spot Series didn't go the way I expected, but I'm ending it on Christmas with a Christmas film! Can't argue that. This is one of my mom's favorite movies. It was rare we did family movie nights so I have no memories of her watching this growing up. But when our local indie theater played it, I thought it would be fun to experience it with her. And watching my mom's favorite movie with her definitely gave this one a lot more good will than it deserved. I just can't hate something my mother holds so dear. (except for her favorite hot dish)  The dancing for me was the standout. The numbers were so fun to watch and Bing Crosby is such an enigma on screen. As soon as the film turns to miscommunication to move the plot forward, it lost me. I hate tropes like ...

Official Synopsis: A hapless family man (Nicolas Cage) finds his life turned upside down when millions of strangers suddenly start seeing him in their dreams. When his nighttime appearances take a nightmarish turn, Paul is forced to navigate his newfound stardom. It's rare as a chronically online movie blogger to go to a film in theaters without having viewed the trailer, but that's what happened to me with Dream Scenario . I'm sure I had heard of it at some point, but I went on my husband's suggestion and Nic Cage's name. I was not expecting to find one of the most interesting films of the year. The film as a whole is about cancel culture and how it affects one person's life. I think the way Paul chooses to handle his situation, which is entirely not his fault will spark debate among viewers. At least it did with me and my husband. He was perplexed by Paul's wife Janet's (Julianne Nicholson) reactions. I had excuses because I had a different view on wh...

Official synopsis:  What is the price some pay for the world's pork? North Carolina residents take on one of the world's most powerful companies in a fight for their rights to clean air, pure water, and a life free from the stench of pig feces. I joke that I'm one of those people that likes to remain blissfully ignorant about the factories some of the food I eat comes from. I don't want to think about animal slaughter. But holy shit, I never considered what they do after. This documentary follows a woman named Elsie Herring and the various people of her North Carolina community. Her family has deep roots in this area, and it has become one of the nations top producers of pork thanks to the plants by Smithfield Foods. But what are these plants doing that are negatively affecting these residents? Dumping blood and pig shit into ponds all over the area, and when there's no more room for that, they spray it into the air. The film follows neighbors turned environmental a...

Official synopsis:  1930s-set story centered on the University of Washington's rowing team, from their Depression-era beginnings to winning gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. I don't dislike George Clooney as a director. In fact, he's quite competent behind the lens. I'm just wholly uninterested in the majority of the stories he brings to the screen. His newest offering, a feel-good story about underdogs is just about as generic and formulaic as you think it is. Since the film is set during the depression, it's filtered with warm tones and makes the cinematography dull. None of the actors are particularly memorable, (Joel Edgerton is innocent) though Luke Slattery comes close, but he's not the focus. And because this was about rowing, I couldn't help but think of a much better film I saw about rowing earlier this year in The Novice. Whenever I watch an underdog sports movie, I think of 2004's Miracle. A film that had no business being as entertaining as ...

Official synopsis:  A young boy named Mahito yearning for his mother ventures into a world shared by the living and the dead. There, death comes to an end, and life finds a new beginning. A semi-autobiographical fantasy from the mind of Hayao Miyazaki. If you've been around here for a while, you know of my love for Studio Ghibli films. My family and I watched all of them together and I have a running ranking list on letterboxd . Spirited Away is one of my all time favorite films. My anticipation for The Boy and the Heron was off the charts.  And I was so disappointed. Despite the glowing reviews and love from Film Twitter. This just did not work for me. My hope is if I sit with it for a while, I might find change my mind. It wouldn't be the first time a Ghibli movie did that for me. But it's a new release and I have to go off my feelings now. The Boy and the Heron is kind of a mess. The pacing is very uneven. It starts off slow, almost taking too long to get going, then ...

  It's been a while! I love title themed picks over at Wandering Through the Shelves. This time we're picking movies with "day" or "night" in the title. I leaned towards the latter. Here's what I came up with.  1) Smiles of a Summer Night - One of the funnier Bergman movies I've seen. I've been wanting to rewatch this one lately. 2) Night Moves - Steven has a great post on director Kelly Reichardt and while I try to like her work, Night Moves remains the only one I really enjoyed. 3) Boogie Nights - Sometimes I remember Philip Seymour Hoffman is no longer with us and I get so sad. I've been thinking of this film lately. I'm also probably due for a rewatch here. 

Official synopsis:  A family's getaway to a luxurious rental home takes an ominous turn when a cyberattack knocks out their devices, and two strangers appear at their door. Director Sam Esmail brought us one of the most interesting shows in the past decade or so in Mr. Robot and plenty of his style is evident here. And just like Mr. Robot , this film starts out very engaging then ends in the most underwhelming fashion. I liked this film for the most part. Sure, some of Esmail's camera angles are annoying but I was legitimately engaged with the story and where it would go. So much so, that I started to get frustrated when a thread would be seemingly left without any resolution. Maybe the ending will work more for fans of a certain non-Esmail show that is mentioned several times throughout the film.  The acting is a bit all over the place. Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke and Myha'la were very good. Julia Roberts and Charlie Evans less so. Farrah Mackenzie, who plays the daughter...

Official Synopsis:  A novelist, Monk (Jeffrey Wright) who's fed up with the establishment profiting from "Black" entertainment uses a pen name to write a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to disdain. Satire can be tricky, but thankfully writer/director Cord Jefferson has no issues bringing this perfectly biting commentary to screen. This is the most I've laughed in a film all year. Monk's right, even if no else seems to want to engage with this type of entertainment in the same way he does. Plenty of excellent writers have written about how tired they are of stories only centering around "black pain" and that's exactly what Monk is getting it. It also makes you consider your complacency in making certain media popular. At least it did for me. The film splits its time between Monk's work and family life. His siblings, played by Sterling K. Brown and Tracey Ellis Ross are hilarious and I loved their scenes to...

The Golden Globe nominations are here and I'm begging them to get presenters that don't mess up the pronunciation of everything because Cedric the Entertainer and Wilmur Valderama were not it this morning. Below is a list of nominees, followed by my thoughts.  BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA Anatomy Of A Fall Killers Of The Flower Moon Maestro Oppenheimer Past Lives The Zone Of Interest Both Anatomy and Zone getting in here feels pretty huge. I'm very happy for Past Lives and Oppenheimer, two of my favorites. BEST MOTION PICTURE, MUSICAL OR COMEDY Air American Fiction Barbie The Holdovers May December Poor Things I have no idea how May December is considered a comedy. That hotdog scene was only ONE scene! It bums me out something like Flora and Son misses because of that. The only one I haven't seen here is Poor Things, but I love all the other movies included (including May December, I just don't think it's a comedy) BEST DIRECTOR, MOTION PICTURE Bradley Cooper – Ma...

We're kicking off 2024 awards season with the Spirit nominations! These ones are are a bit tough for me because I normally have not gotten to see the majority of these yet. If anything, I use the Spirit Awards to add films to my watchlist that I may have missed. Thankfully, I've seen a decent amount so here are my thoughts below.  BEST FEATURE  All of Us Strangers American Fiction  May December  Passages Past Lives  We Grown Now Of these I've only seen Past Lives and May December. American Fiction I'm seeing sometime this weekend. Right now, Past Lives is one of my favorite films of the year.  BEST FIRST FEATURE   All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt  Chronicles of a Wandering Saint Earth Mama   A Thousand and One  Upon Entry  The only one I've seen here is A Thousand and One, and while I didn't love it, I'm floored it was the director's first feature. It's very well made.  JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD   The Artifice Girl  Fremont Rottin...

Official Synopsis:  Twenty years after their notorious tabloid romance gripped the nation, a married couple, Gracie and Joe (Julianne Moore and Charles Melton) buckles under pressure when an actress, Elizabeth(Natalie Portman) arrives to do research for a film about their past. I've wanted to write about this film so badly. If you grew up in the U.S in the 90's, you're probably familiar with Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Faulauu. Letourneau was Vili's teacher and began preying on him when he was 12. She went to jail for rape, but they married as soon as she got out before finally divorcing in 2019. May December takes inspiration from this case. Gracie isn't Joe's teacher, but rather his manager at a pet store, and he's 13 when Gracie starts preying upon him, not 12.  So much of this film hangs on Charles Melton's amazing performance as Joe. He's 36 years old and seeing his last 2 children off to college. Many of his peers have much younger children o...

Official Synopsis: The interlocking stories of two young Oglala Lakota men, Bill (Jojo Bapteise Whiting) and Matho (LaDanian Crazy Thunder)  growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Director Riley Keough met Franklin Sioux Bob and Bill Reddy, two extras on the set of American Honey who shared their Rez stories, and in the years since came on as co-writers. Gina Gammell joins Keough in the director's chair and you can tell the women put a lot of work into working with the Lakota tribes and making sure Native voices shined through, despite having two white directors. You have to appreciate the effort The film itself is bound to draw comparisons to the popular and wonderful show Reservation Dogs. I thought of them too, especially during Matho's scenes. But aside from just being about day to day life on the Rez, that's where their similarities end. War Pony is bleak and slow moving. For a cast of nearly all first time actors, everyone was excellent. White and Crazy Thunder r...

Official synopsis: An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (Joaquin Phoenix) and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine. (Vanessa Kirby) I hadn't been paying too much attention to Napoleon , both the trailer or the reviews. It wasn't until a friend told me that some of the reviews were calling it "funny" did it pique my interest. I had to get to the bottom of that. I get it. Phoenix is playing Bonaparte like a weirdo simp. And he's the only one acting in that way. He doesn't even attempt an accent from the same continent his character lives on. He's just bizarre to watch, and that makes the film fun. Instead of being a straight up Wikipedia entry, Ridley Scott attempts to frame it through his volatile relationship with Josephine. I'm guessing a lot of Kirby's scenes ended up on the cutting room floor because their relationship ...

Official Synopsis:  Anna (Jessie Buckley) and Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) have found true love, and it's proven by a controversial new technology. There's just one problem, as Anna still isn't sure. Then she takes a position at a love testing institute and meets Amir. (Riz Ahmed) This is a dream cast. A woman falling in love with both Riz Ahmed and Jeremy Allen White? I get it! Unfortunately the script doesn't live up to the actors' greatness. I immediately thought of another film I saw this year about how technology affects relationships, and that's The Pod Generation. That focused on having children rather than true love, but even with its faults I found it to be a more compelling watch than Fingernails.  This goes nowhere and feels underwritten, especially the back half of the film. I'm also puzzled by Anna's unwavering belief in this technology. She asks some questions, but never once wonders if the guy touting it is a fraud. I felt like we spent too ...

  What I knew going in: This film inspired Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Immediately into starting this, I was embarassed at how little I knew of this film and just how much Tarantino pulled from it for my favorite movie of his. The scenes on the snow, the music, it's all from here. I'm sure in the back of my mind I knew some of this before. But it's the first time I thought of it. I was a little afraid to start watching this because I knew there was going to be a sexual assault scene in it and I'm not mentally in a space for that right now, but thankfully it's not shown. It's still very disturbing and I could've done without it, but everything else that came after was worth it. I will always love a film about a woman getting revenge on terrible people. (I'd say just men, but we've got a shitty woman thrown in there too) The violence was very stylized. The blood is candy red and the spurts are dramatic.  Meiko Kaji is beautiful and was perfectly...

Official Synopsis: Oliver, a student at Oxford University (Barry Keoghan) finds himself drawn into the world of a charming and aristocratic classmate, Felix (Jacob Elordi), who invites him to his eccentric family's sprawling estate for a summer never to be forgotten. Emerald Fennell's follow up to Promising Young Woman is probably one of the most anticipated in the online film community. I had issues with how that film ended, but it was clear Fennell has a great eye for directing. It's no different in Saltburn , I felt like a spectator in the fucked up Olympics. You just can't shake the creep off of Barry Keoghan or Jacob Elordi and that's what makes both characters so compelling. The film starts off very by the books then takes a sharp right turn into the macabre. I cringed, I gasped, I laughed. It's just a lot. It doesn't say as much about the class divide as it thinks it does, and there is some very questionable dialogue, but Saltburn is so batshit cra...

Official synopsis:  Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blythe) mentors and develops feelings for the female District 12 tribute Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) during the 10th Hunger Games. When it first came out that Suzanne Collins was writing a prequel to her hit Hunger Games series from President Snow's point of view, I balked at reading it. Why should I care what that guy has to say? Then the first trailer for this came out and it looked good, so I gently applied my clown makeup and got the book from the library. Much to my surprise, I loved the book. I thought it was fascinating and it didn't try to sympathize Snow like I thought. Sure, you do feel for him at times, but he's always self serving. Much of the book translates well to screen. Blythe perfectly captures Snow well. He is arrogant and power hungry and very caught off guard by the feelings he starts to develop for Lucy Gray. Rachel Zegler, our favorite theater kid feels like she was born to play this role. Like Lucy Gray, s...

Official synopsis:  A cranky history teacher (Paul Giamatti) at a remote prep school is forced to remain on campus over the holidays with a troubled student (Dominic Sessa) who has no place to go. Alexander Payne is a filmmaker that I enjoy even if I don't always love his films. The one that spoke to me the most was The Descendants , but The Holdovers might just take that crown.  Without diving too deep into my personal life, the month of November has been full of stress and disappointment. I'm still struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but The Holdovers was the perfect escape I needed. A group of sad people coming together on Christmas and finding some unexpected happiness? This really came to me at the right time. Paul Giamatti has been stuck playing asshole managers for what feels like forever but here he's very complex. It might be my favorite performance ever from him. Mr. Hunham is a grouch, but he's clearly capable of getting past that. Angus m...

Official Synopsis:  Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. Filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses Nour Karoui and Ichrak Matar to fill in their absence. Reenactments in documentaries are tricky. More often then not they're stilted and unnatural. Sometimes I wonder if they're even necessary to tell certain stories. This one included, but what Hania does here is very unique. Olfa's oldest daughters are not here to speak for themselves. Blending actresses with their very real younger sisters (Eya and Tassir), reliving happier times and sad ones is a bold choice. Even Olfa herself has an actress portraying her (Hind Sabri) for scenes she finds too traumatic to relive. And even though they are reenacting moments, it's not in the traditional sense we see them. The real Olfa often lingers far off in the shot. Sometimes the crew or Eya or Tassir are giving direct...

Official synopsis:  After a fateful near-miss, an assassin (Michael Fassbender) battles his employers, and himself, on an international manhunt he insists isn't personal. Thankfully David Fincher left behind all the boring nonsense with Mank and brought us another tight thriller instead. Everything about this film is precise. Neat, tidy, even if our main character starts off the film with a pretty jarring error. I've always enjoyed narration as a plot device and it works very well here. Michael Fassbender takes us on a very mundane ride through his character's day to day and yet it's never boring. The Killer (yes, that's what he's credited as) is a man of repetition and you can tell this narration isn't just for us. It's how he justifies his unique position. The film is shot beautifully and contains some excellent fight choreography. I appreciate just how easy it was to see everything. Nearly everything I've watched on streaming recently has had to ...