Rambling Film

Official Synopsis:  When Minnie's ( Katherine Mallen Kupferer)  closest friendship is suddenly disrupted the summer before senior year, she struggles to find her footing and develops an unexpected, complicated bond with her best friend’s mother, Helen. (Sophie Okodeno) Between this and Tangles , I've been single handedly keeping Kleenex in business. Your girl has cried a LOT lately. But don't let that deter you, Mouse has a lot to say about grief and you'll certainly be able to relate to it. Maybe a lot, or maybe just a little, but it'll be there.  I wasn't familiar with co-directors Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan (who is also the writer) previous work, but after seeing how expertly they handled the various levels of grief in this, I know I need to check it out. I'm going to single out Kelly a bit more here because she's the sole writing credit, but there is such a tenderness in this film. I think a lot of millennials will see themselves in Minn...

Official Synopsis:  Sarah (Abbi Jacobson) is forced to return to the conservative small town where her bizarre family lives to take care of her mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss); she must deal with the cruel reality of her mother's Alzheimer disease, and become the daughter they need. Tangles is based on writer Sarah Leavitt's graphic novel of the same name. It follows her mother's diagnosis of Alzheimer's and I think she describes this work best: "my goal was to create an unsparing documentation of our family’s journey, including not only the grief, anger and fear, but also the moments of love and joy and even some dark humor." All of that is perfectly captured in this film. I couldn't help but think of the other dementia centered films from recent memory - Amour, Away From Her, Still Alice, The Father - This one I liked so much better because of the dark humor. There's an ongoing bit with the flight attendants' announcements on an airplane that I j...

Official synopsis: A struggling primary school teacher, Maria (Saoirse Ronan) begins to make some questionable decisions after one of her students, Danny (Eddie Waller) is injured. When I first saw the trailer for Bad Apples earlier this year I was pretty excited about it. Saoirse is one of my favorite actresses, so of course this was going to be a watch for me. Then it fell off the face of the planet, at least in the United States. I saw no more promotion, IMDb tells me it's U.S release was September 16th, but I'm guessing that was very limited. The only reason I got to see this movie at all, is because it's available to watch on Delta Airlines' seatback screens. That bums be out because Bad Apples could've been a crowd pleaser. It's a very well acted dark comedy that I feel like a lot of people would've went to go see it had they been given the options.  Ronan is great in the role of a very stressed out teacher. She wants to love her job, but Danny in pa...

Official Synopsis:  An ostracized Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) commissions the local Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage) to weave her a husband (Alexander Skarsgard), but when her wicker creation proves unexpectedly extraordinary, his presence ignites jealousy and upheaval that threatens their quiet village. This has been one of my most anticipated films since Sundance. Not only because the cast is fantastic but because the movie seems so outrageous. The marketing focused heavily on the sex aspect of the Fisherwoman (yes, that's her actual name. Everyone is named after their profession, or they're the wife of said profession) and her Wicker Husband, so I expected a film mostly about sexual liberation. But it really isn't about that. There's significantly less wicker dick then the trailers would have you believe. Instead, the story is more about balance in a relationship and how marriage should be about partnership. Sure, they have great sex, but they also dance sweetly and the ...

Official Synopsis: The adventures of Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) as she sets off to the forests outside Portland to find her kidnapped brother. Ever since the first trailer for Wildwood premiered with "The hands that created Coraline" my family and I have been sold. I didn't realize until after I saw this film that it's based on a book (written by Colin Meloy of The Decemberists) so I can't speak for how the story goes adaptation wise. Count me in with everyone else saying Wildwood is a visual masterpiece because it is stunning. It brought me back to when I saw WALL-E in theaters for the first time and how blown away with how far animation has come then. That feeling stays here. There were several times throughout the film where I just kept thinking "wow" or "how did they pull that off" or "God, that must have taken forever." And these thoughts didn't distract me from the story in any way, it just made the ride so much ...

  Official Synopsis: Dismissed as underdogs before they even step onto the pitch, the Emei Women’s Football Team enters the prestigious Supreme Invincible Cup determined to prove everyone wrong. Back in 2005 I went on a date with a guy who took me to see a movie called Kung Fu Hustle.  He’d loved the director’s previous film, Shaolin Soccer and insisted that it was okay that I hadn’t seen that one before we dove into Hustle. I was pretty flabbergasted with that movie at the time, but I did grow to appreciate how ridiculous it was. So when I saw Shaolin Soccer  was getting a spiritual successor following a woman’s soccer team, I of course wanted to check it out. Unfortunately the majority of the goofy kung fu one would expect from a Stephen Crow film takes a back to seat to complete AI slop. According to Chow, about 50% of the film’s budget went towards generative AI for the visual effects and if I had known that before pressing play, I would’ve skipped it all together on...