Rambling Film

  What I knew going in: The basic plot Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) is a famed Italian director fresh off his last hit, but struggling to find purpose in this next film. He has "director's block." He attempts to go to a spa to think things out, but is met with pressure from studio execs and personal drama. I never did see all of the Daniel Day Lewis starring remake of this, 9 . What little I did see made me not want to bother with it and check out 8 1/2 instead. And here I am many years later. Why do we never talk about this film when it comes to editing? (Or maybe "we" do and I'm just not included) I thought it seamlessly transitioned from Guido's reality into his day dreams. It's gorgeous to look at. What DP Gianni di Venanzo pulled off was striking.  Mastroianni was good as the lead, but for me the women made this film. His wife, Luisa (Anouk Aimee) his mistress, Carla (Sanda Marlo) and even his dream girl Claudia (Claudia Cardinale) I t...

It's another TV theme at Wandering Through The Shelves and this week we're talking about con artists. I'm not gonna lie, aside from my first pick, NOTHING came to mind. I had to dig for these ones, but here's what I came up with. 1) Better Call Saul - When this show was first announced, I was convinced it wouldn't work, despite Saul being a very good character on Breaking Bad. Oh, how wrong I was. It was fantastic.  2) McMillion$ - Going the docuseries route with this pick. As someone who was quite young when the McDonalds Monopoly scam was going on, I didn't know the in's and out's of it so this series was fascinating to me. 3) Inventing Anna - I was familiar with this story before watching the series and Julia Garner was perfectly cast as this fake German heiress. I loved it. 

Barbie's (Margot Robbie) perfect life comes crashing down when she starts suffering an existential crisis and has to visit the real world only to find out that all the good things they thought they did for women in society were a lie. Capping off my Barbenheimer double feature with this fun, smart and extremely goofy film was a must. Greta Gerwig has a lot riding on her shoulders. She's one of the few female directors that almost always gets her name into awards conversations and I think that's a lot of pressure. The way she handles Barbie proves once again that she deserves to be in those conversations. Barbie tackles a wild range of topics that you've probably already heard others talk about. Mattel thankfully allowed the filmmakers to take the piss out of them quite a bit. So many of the jokes landed. Fragile men are bound to be butthurt by a few of them. Margot Robbie was born to play Barbie. She is just so effortlessly perfect in this role. Ryan Gosling as Ken gets...

J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) was a scientist and "father of the atomic bomb." This film follows his involvement with the Trinity Project during WWII, and afterwards in two separate hearings. To say this was a highly anticipated movie for me is an understatement. I love director Christopher Nolan's work (most of the time) and Cillian Murphy is one of my favorite working actors. Like many others, I caught both this and Barbie over the weekend, and I'm glad I started here. Oppenheimer is a biopic that absolutely gets it right. Told in 3 separate timelines in an easy to follow fashion, we get a riveting courtroom drama, an intense race against the clock story, and an engaging interrogation all in one. Even though you know the Trinity Project was successful, you still felt the pressure these characters felt going into their final test. You also feel the moral discomfort with what they accomplished. They're cheering for a job well done, but you never forget t...

The Očeti Šakówin are also known as Lakota, Nakota and Dakota. This documentary follows their fight to reclaim their sacred land, The Black Hills. Taken from them by unfair treaties and colonization.  When HBO's The Watchmen aired in 2019, that was the first time many American citizens had heard about the Tulsa massacre of 1921. An ugly, but true story in our history. How was such an act not being taught in every history class before? I imagine after watching Lakota Nation vs United States, the same will be for the Lakota 38. The largest "legal" mass execution in U.S history, ordered by Abraham Lincoln in the same week he signed the Emancipation Proclamation. These unspeakable acts still need to be included when learning our nation's history. Everyone deserves to have all the context.  There are many stories told in this film that are hard to listen to, and that's the point. The indigenous people suffered greatly at the hands of colonization, and they still do b...

June meant watching a lot of these shows on my iPad on airplanes. The small screen was very literal for me this month. Here's what I managed to watch during my travels.  Black Mirror - *sigh* Black Mirror is one of my all time favorite shows but these new seasons just have not felt like Black Mirror. To break it down: Joan is Awful - This very much felt like Black Mirror but they tend to lose me when they go full meta like this. I had the same gripe about Black Museum in season 4. It had a few funny parts, but I didn't care for it over all. Loch Henry - Someone on letterboxd mentioned that some of these episodes felt like they belonged in the VHS movies and this is definitely one of those. It's one of the better ones of the season because Black Mirror is always at its best when it's being very British, but it still doesn't stand up to anything in seasons 1-4. Beyond the Sea - Easily the best of the season. I really enjoyed this episode and it got a lot darker than ...

It's Emmy season, baby! Voters did that thing again where they only see two shows and nominate everyone in them. There are some welcomed nominations, and some egregious snubs. Here are a list of the main acting/show nominations + my thoughts. BEST COMEDY SERIES Abbott Elementary  Barry  The Bear  Jury Duty  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel  Only Murders in the Building Ted Lasso  Wednesday  I have never heard about Jury Duty. It's on something called Freevee, which I think is related to Amazon? No clue. I'm just happy for Abbott, The Bear, and Ted Lasso.  BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES Bill Hader (Barry) Martin Short (Only Murders in the Building) Jason Segel (Shrinking) Jason Sudeikis (Ted Lasso) Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) Bill Hader is being nominated for a good dramatic performance in a comedy series and that's why Barry will never win anything. This is White's year anyways.  BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES Christina Applegate (Dead to Me) Rach...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is another reoccurring one - book adaptations! I thought about going with a theme within a theme, but I decided to instead chose movies that have just been on my mind lately. Here's what I came up with.  1) Misery - My 11 year old caught part of the ending of this on TV a while back and has been begging me to watch it ever since. I keep telling him no. He even tried to discreetly choose it on the seat back entertainment on our last flight. Poor kid, I'll give in eventually. I actually haven't read the book to go along with this, but I would like to. I hope to knock that out this winter. 2) The Lovely Bones - This was on TV the other day and it just reminded me how much Peter Jackson fumbled the bag with this. He had such a great cast, but I'll say it over and over - this needed a female director. 3) American Psycho - This gets the third spot because it remains my #1 "Movie was better than the book" f...

Sarah (Sarah Snook) is a single mother who is going through the grief of losing her father, and having to deal with her estranged mother entering a nursing home. Her daughter Mia (Lily LaTorre) stars exhibiting strange behaviors that are bringing up some dark memories from Sarah's past. I was looking forward to this when it was at Sundance, then it came out with mostly awful reviews. Still, when Netflix picked it up and dropped it this week, I still wanted to see it. After all, Snook has been killing it on Succession. I wanted to see her in her native Aussie accent. If there's one thing Run Rabbit Run gets right, it's the unsettling atmosphere. Sarah is going through a lot and there's always something creepy doing on. You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Unfortunately all that goodwill is squandered by it's muddled ending. I really wanted to support director Daina Reid. Though seeing as she also directed an episode of The Outsider , can I really be surprise...

Na Young (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) grew up together in Seoul. They had a cute crush, which didn't get time to blossom before Na Young's family immigrated to Canada. Now going by Nora, on a whim she looks up Hae Sung online only to discover he's been searching for her too. They finally meet in person again, 20 years later. This is a deeply personal story for writer/director Celine Song and it shows. Past Lives in an intimate story about immigration, starting over and long lost love. A lot of feelings are packed into this 90 minute run time and every moment is handled with care by Song. I know "childhood crushes reunited" is not an uncommon trope. From my understanding, it's much more prevalent in Asian cinema but for me personally, this was a welcomed change of pace. Nora is married to a perfectly nice American guy named Arthur.(Joe Magaro) In another movie, one might be rooting for Nora to leave him and run away with Hae Sung. But Arthur's not a b...

We watch as a fictional play rolls out about a widower, Augie (Jason Schwartzman) and his children as they go to a small town called Asteroid City for his son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) is receiving an award for his scientific achievements.  That is a very bare bones description because you know how stacked Wes Anderson's casts are. I could write 1000 words just naming everyone. His latest brings his bright, quirky aesthetic to a small desert town. As usual, his films are gorgeous. I can't help but feel happy when I look at them. The standout actors for me where Schwartzman and Scarlett Johansson, who plays a famous actress with a daughter who is also being honored for her science projects. The two of them spend the majority of the film conversing back and forth through the windows of their rented cottages, and those are easily the best parts of the film.  I'm not sure if this movie needed to be based on a play. Even though Bryan Cranston makes a great narrator, the play scenes ...

  What I knew going in: I had seen parts of it prior from IFC's Indie Sex documentary Erika (Isabelle Huppert) is a sexually repressed piano teacher still living with her domineering mother. (Annie Girardot) When she's not teaching music at a prestigious college, she's sneaking into sex shops, watching porn, and fantasizing about being beaten. She equates pain with sex. Then she meets Walter (Benoit Magimel) a student who pursues her. Let's just pretend it's still June for a minute. I was at home a whopping 10 days last month and my poor blog just didn't get the attention it deserved. So to beat myself up about it, I decided June would be dedicated to this weird ass movie.  Everything about this is SO uncomfortable. Would it be a Michael Hanke film without that feeling? I couldn't help but be reminded of the mother/daughter relationship in Black Swan when watching this. I wonder if they took inspiration from it? Everything about this is cold and unlikable bu...