Rambling Film

  This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is the one I dread every year because I do not watch enough TV shows that aren't in the English language. Since I don't re-use the same choices I have in past years (ie: all the anime I watch), please join me once again in reaching for the stars. And while we're here, let's make it GIRL WEEK too! All of my picks star women. 1) Unorthodox HEAR ME OUT, the majority of this show was in Yiddish so I'm counting it. It's a wonderful four part mini series on Netflix that I highly recommend. Shira Haas is fantastic in it.  2) Yashahime  This is in Japanese and is the sequel to the first anime I ever got into, Inuyasha. It's funny, I tend to write my TMP posts in advance, usually in a rough draft that I clean up the night or so before, and I had written "Maybe I'll like this better by the time this is ready to post." Spoiler alert, I don't. The more I watch, the more annoyed I get. The new...

  It's that time of year again over at Dell on Movies - Girl Week! All week long, ladies have the focus. I always love making lists, as I've done a few times for this blogathon in the past, but this time I wanted to show some love for the animated girls. Here are a few underrated female characters from animated movies.  Saoirse from Song of the Sea - I adore this movie and while Saoirse is silent for 98% of her time on screen, I really just enjoyed her presence She's a Selkie, so she can turn into a seal. While the film is mostly from her brother's point of view, we never lose sight of Saoirse's place in all of this. And her Selkie scenes are visually stunning. Penny from The Rescuers - I feel like everyone prefers Rescuers: Down Under but I always had a soft spot for the original. Penny has it so rough and I think as a mostly sad child I felt like I could relate to her a lot. Even though she's in such an awful situation, she still finds the bright side of th...

Learn to be deaf. Ruben (Riz Ahmed) is in a metal band with his girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) when he starts experiencing intermittent hearing loss. When he goes to a doctor, he finds his hearing at the 20% mark and a cochlear implant is 40k and not covered by insurance. Through his sponsor, he goes to see Joe (Paul Raci) a man who runs a program for deaf individuals. There, he teaches Ruben "how to be deaf" as he puts it, while Ruben comes to terms with his life completely changing. I was lucky enough to see this early, it hits Amazon Prime in December and it's one I've been looking forward to since seeing the trailer. I've been a fan of Ahmed since he blew me away in The Night Of, and I knew he'd be wonderful here. It's fitting that a film like this would be so quiet. It's somewhat of a slow burn, but I appreciated how the pacing did not lag when it came to Ruben working through his new way of life. They could've easily dragged out his acclimati...

  This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is all about the times where our protagonist is actually an antagonist. It's not easy to tell your story from the villain's POV, but here are three films that do it well. 1) American Psycho I'm sure this one will be popular today, but how can you not go with Patrick Bateman? Sociopath extraordinaire and frequent fan of video tapes. 2) Pretty Persuasion This one might be a bit obscure, but Evan Rachel Wood's Kimberly puts the Plastics to shame. What she does in this film is some high stakes teenage fuckery.  3) Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street I love that Tim Burton went full gore with this musical. While it's easy to feel sympathy for Sweeney, the guy does murder a lot of people.

  What's your share? Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood) and her parents, Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Theresa (Debra Winger) have been scammers as long as she can remember. Stealing, haggling, trying to get by on the cheapest thing possible. That's their life. While doing an elaborate scam to get some insurance money, they happen across Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) who happily joins them on what she thinks will be a light hearted way to earn extra cash. But when Robert and Theresa start treating her very differently, Old Dolio starts to realize just how much love she's missed out on over the years. Director Miranda July is a very interesting filmmaker. I loved her first feature, Me And You And Everyone We Know , but was far less impressed with her las t, The Future . I'm happy to say that Kajillionair e is more in line with her first. I'm not even sure I'd call this "quirky" July's filmmaking is a bit beyond that. It's meticulously weird, but in a way th...

  What I knew going in: That this was a popular French New Wave film Jim (Henri Serre) a Frenchman is friends with Jules, (Oskar Werner) an Austrian living in Paris in the 1910's. They both fall in love with a woman named Catherine. (Jeanne Moreau) Catherine eventually marries Jules, and after WWI, the three meet again in Germany and Catherine starts falling in love with Jim. The film follows these three as they attempt to make a relationship work. I picked this film as I wanted to see more work from director François Truffaut and this seemed like a fairly popular choice, but I have to admit I'm a bit perplexed after watching it. Jim and Jules together make a great pair of friends. Catherine is to put it blunty - kind of a flake, but I wouldn't say I disliked her character. I just found nearly every decision this trio makes to be kind of illogical and I never understood how these two guys would go to such lengths to keep Catherine. I also don't understand why Catherine...

  This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves was a suggestion by me! I wanted to talk about female DP's because we never hear enough about them. We didn't even have the first Oscar nominated female DP until Rachel Morrison was honored for Mudbound in 2018. So here are three very beautiful films shot by women 1) The Neon Demon Shot by Natasha Braier, say what you want about this movie's plot but there's no denying that this neon drenched film is beyond gorgeous. Braier shots this like the candy colored nightmare its mean to be.  2) Black Panther Shot by Rachel Morrison, while Mudbound earned her that first Oscar nomination, Black Panther should've been her second. It's the most beautifully shot of all the Marvel films.  3) Water Lilies Shot by Crystel Fournier, She was director Céline Sciamma's DP on her first three features and as I've mentioned before, Water Liles holds a special place in my heart. It's such a wonderful coming of age ...