Rambling Film

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 ...

Official synopsis: Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) gets her powers entangled with those of Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris), forcing them to work together to save the universe. Sometimes I dread when anything Captain Marvel related comes out because there are so many incels on the internet with hate boners for Brie Larson. Especially now, with this film's divisive rating and near zero promotion due to the SAG-AFTRA strike. Tiny dicks are hard at the prospect of this being a huge bomb that is somehow all Brie's fault. The Marvels is a good time. Sure, it's not as tight as most Infinity Saga offerings, but it sits solidly behind Wakanda Forever in terms of Phase 4. It's goofy in a way I'd expect a Guardian's movie to be, and that works for a film that takes place almost entirely in space.  I wasn't a fan of the Ms Marvel TV show, but they brought its best elements to the big screen, and that's Kamala's report with her family....

Official Synopsis:  Taken in by a wealthy couple, (Charlie Farrell and Milly Sanders) after her sudden divorce, an isolated woman (AnnaClare Hicks) spirals into a surreal nightmare of manipulation, paranoia, and betrayal. The first image I saw of this film is quite striking. Emily (Hicks) has her back to a wall, screwdriver in hand, her makeup smeared. How can I not wonder how she got there? "Intention" is the word that sticks with me after watching this. None of the dialogue nor the movements on screen felt natural. It was all very intentional. Every conversation was for the viewer, not the two or three people actually having it. Everything felt staged.  This appears to be director Cairo Smith's first full length feature so I won't harp on it too much. We have to start somewhere. The production design shines. Robert and Melissa's home is immaculate. Smith has some great shots here. The actors all do very well even with the weak script. The characters are more lik...

Official synopsis:  When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) meets Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi), the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend. It's easy to be blinded by Elvis' undisputable star power and not look into his and his eventual wife Priscilla's relationship a little deeper. Until recent years, I had just known they had married when she was a teenager, but never cared to unpack that. Director Sofia Coppola will unpack that for you. She never shies away from the fact that Elvis groomed Priscilla. That all the adults around her failed her miserably. And boy does she frame that well with the over foot height difference between Spaeny and Elordi.  Priscilla is essentially in a rose colored prison. While everything is exciting to her at first, we quickly see how trapped she is. Most of the scenes are set at Graceland, in their ...

Boy, was I slacking on the small screen this month. It didn't feel like it, but I barely watched anything. I didn't even crank out a true crime documentary to listen to while I work. Thankfully I binged one really good mini series to make up for it.  Loki - Poor Sylvie has such a tragic hair cut this season. I'm not really sure how I feel about season 2. It's not boring, though it's not exactly moving at a brisk pace either. Kang is a major focus and considering Johnathan Majors is out there blowing up his own career, I just feel a little weird watching him. The device the TBA uses to torture and kill people though? Horrifying.  The Fall of the House of Usher - Mike Flanagan's newest offering in horror anthologies on Netflix. I never did watch The Midnight Club and I still probably won't, but I did enjoy his other three. This one is easily my favorite. It was so gripping and twisted. Bruce Greenwood and Carla Gugino absolutely killed it. I could've fi...

Official synopsis:  While investigating the suicide of Las Vegas teenager Levi Presley, a filmmaker (Lily Frances Henderson) uncovers the story of a city with the highest suicide rate in the country, and a nation scrambling to bury decades of nuclear excess in a nearby mountain. I've been fortunate to get my hands on another documentary from a female filmmaker. Suicide is something that unfortunately everyone is dealing with more and more each year. You can tell right from the beginning that Lily cares deeply about this and like all of us, just wants answers. Unfortunately This Much We Know ends up being the equivalent of falling down a rabbit hole. What starts as simply wanting to know why her friend died by suicide leads to some troubling statistics about Las Vegas having the highest suicide rate in the country, to the disturbing suicide of a teenager named Levi Presley to...nuclear waste? It doesn't come together well. Lily is very passionate about her stance and that lead...

Official Synopsis:  In Doolin, an isolated village teetering on the western edge of Ireland, a community of musicians seek joy and connection through music as they face a modernizing world. A documentary about Irish folk music? Count me in. Especially when it's about real every day people in a small town in County Clare. When I visited Ireland in 2017, The Cliffs of Moher was one thing I really wanted to see that I didn't get to. County Clare has been top of my list when I return ever since.  I've always loved Irish music. While I'm not much of a bar girl, if I had to pick my favorite "type" of one, it will always be an Irish pub. The music and the camaraderie just fits my personality type. Yet, aside from recognizing that some of these songs are quiet sad. I never thought of why that was.  This doc ponders on that. It doesn't shy away from the fact that alcoholism is high because of this setting the music finds itself in, and how easily accepted that is. ...