Rambling Film

Just because you can have a child, doesn't mean you know how to be a parent.   There's a time in our lives when it's okay to be a little self-centered. We need to care about our performances at our jobs, and be wrapped up in our own love lives. We have to find a time to love ourselves and live our lives. That being said, when you choose to bring a child into this world, you need to put their needs before yours. This is a little person that depends on you, and you need to be there for them. Poor  6 year old Maisie (Onata Aprile) doesn't have that.   Her mother, Susanna (Julianne Moore) and her father, Beale (Steve Coogan) are separating. Her father has booked up with Maisie's long time nanny, Margo. (Joanna Vanderham) They are in a bitter custody battle with the courts, they openly fight in front of her. Susanna talks to her like she's a friend rather than her young child and encourages her to lie about things in court. Beale seems to lo...

I literally cannot wait to feel myself inside of you!   John and Dean Solomon (Will Arnett and Will Forte) are two stupid men with hearts of gold that want to fulfill their dying father's wish - He wants a grand child. The brothers find cash strapped Janine (Kristen Wiig) online, who's willing to be a surrogate.   The Brothers Solomon is easily one of the dumbest films I've ever seen. At times it comes off as a raunchier Dumb and Dumber, but it's not short on the laughs or the one liners. You can tell everyone making this film was having a blast. Both Wills never disappoint when it comes to comedy. Especially Forte who somehow rattles off his lines with a straight face.  While the film feels like an overblown SNL sketch, it's never boring.   Bottom Line: You might lose a few brain cells while watching this, but at least you'll laugh while you're doing it.   Memorable Quote: "We have dick!" - Dean (Will Forte) 

Walter White: Master Manipulator.   Breaking Bad started off with Todd leaving a message with Mr. White telling him the lab is under new management. He then proceeds to tell his uncle and another man about the great heist they pulled off on the train last season. He's using their real names, which I found pretty stupid. He leaves out the part about him shooting a kid. Then they take off to new Mexico. Denise Warner over at Entertainment Weekly pointed something interesting out in her recap : That Todd is wearing a shirt that we've seen a few times before. That's not the only thing in her recap that caught my eye. More on that later.   Hank finally gets his alone time with Jesse. He tells him he knows Heisenberg is Walt, but Jesse's not budging. Saul eventually comes in throwing around lawsuit ideas and Hank just leaves.   We get a scene with Walter Jr. telling his father he's going to go to aunt Marie's to fix her computer. Walt's not an idio...

She needs a doctor.   Alicia (Juno Temple) is a naïve young woman that is leaving the U.S for the first time to visit her cousin, Sara (Emily Browning) in Chile. Suddenly, Sara is told she has to finish an exam, and she leaves Alicia with her three friends, Brink,(Michael Cera) Agustin (Agustin Silva) and Barbara. (Catalina Sandino Moreno) They drive/boat for 12 hours to a remote island off of Chile, and Alicia is feeling very alone. There's barely anyone else on this island except them, she has no cell reception, and Sara isn't there for her. On top of that, she's suffering a bout of insomnia that's going to drive her over the edge.   Ignore the cheap looking 80's horror movie poster that this film got, because it's actually quite interesting. Juno Temple gives one of her best performances. (it's up there with Killer Joe) Alicia's isolation is handled very well, and her downfall keeps you interested. In fact, it's because of that downward...

What could happen when bullies drive their victims to a certain point.   Zero Day came to my attention when Alex Withrow of And So It Begins.. did a list of his top 10 favorite found footage movies. While I don't care much for the genre itself, there were a few on that list that sounded intriguing. This is one of them.   Calvin (Cal Robertson) and Andre (Andre Keuck) are two angry teenagers that call themselves 'The Army of Two.' they've declared war on their school and plan on shooting it up on 'Zero Day.' We're watching this movie via Andre's video camera, as they've made a diary of sorts, kept the tapes in a safety deposit box and bequeathed it to 'The Media.'   This movie felt really authentic to me. No one in it looked like an actor, this could've easily been real. It's sad to hear how angry these boys are. How sick they are of their classmates tormenting them. There's scenes of the boys hanging out with their...

This isn't anything new, but it's something we're starting to see more frequently. I remember a few years ago when the idea of movies appearing on Video On Demand (VOD) the same day they debuted in theaters frustrated some movie fans. We love the movies. We love the atmosphere, the popcorn, everything about the cinema. I initially brushed the whole thing off. It's great for movies getting a limited release to be seen by a broader audience, much like Only God Forgives and Lovelace got this year, but for everything else, I'd rather go to the theater. Then I had a kid. That changes everything. Sometimes it's hard to get a babysitter. VOD is much more appealing to me now that I have a little person that demands so much of my love and attention. If new wide release films started debuting on VOD, I think I'd watch them at home. Sure, I would still prefer to go to the theater, but on those nights that I really don't feel like paying for a babysitter, VOD soun...

Cameo Heaven.   Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) grew up on a cotton farm. When he finally leaves that horrible place, he gets a job as a butler at a hotel and eventually works his way up to becoming a butler at the White House. Cecil served eight presidencies. He does his job well, but he's conflicted when his oldest son, Louis (played mostly by David Oyelowo) joins a group that is fighting for their civil rights in the south. Obviously he's concerned about all the danger there, but Louis wants to do what's right.   This film was very moving. I'm finding it quite hard to put it into words. Like all of Lee Daniels' movies, this felt raw and at times a little to real. Civil rights movies are always hard to watch. It's disgusting to see our fellow humans act that way. Daniels isn't shy with showing us the ugly side of all of this, but he does sneak in some really sweet and affectionate scenes every now and then. The score at the end of the ...

True Blood is the king of blue balling it's audience. gif via mister-brett                  "Alexander Skarsgard is so good looking, it's an actual crime he puts on clothes." - A Tweet via Lady Sati This is the truth.    I don't like to rant about True Blood, because honestly it's one of my favorite shows. I hate that I pick shows that do this to me. Hell, even Rescue Me at it's worst has not been as absurd as True Blood, but Lord...here we go....     Sookie and Alcide see all of the vampires being all high and happy in the sun. She sees Jason, meets Violet, hugs Pam and Tara, and Bill apparently re-gains all of his Sookie feelings from a far despite him essentially telling her to go fuck herself 24 hours ago. Sookie goes back to Warlow to tell him she wants to take it slow, and shocker! He backhands her and tells her ain't nobody got time for that! That he did not wait ...

When innocence can be a dangerous thing.   Watching The Way Way Back put me in a bit of a Sam Rockwell kick, and it got me thinking about a film I'd seen so many years ago with him in it. Lawn Dogs.   Devon (Mischa Barton) is a lonely 10 year old that moves with her parents into an upscale housing development. She doesn't quite fit in, so she takes up an unlikely friendship with a 21 year old named Trent. (Sam Rockwell) he mows the yards in her neighborhood, and lives in a trailer in the woods. Her family would call him trashy, so of course she's intrigued. Though their relationship is completely innocent, it's obvious that others will not see it that way.   I remember being quite fascinated by this movie as a kid. It was always on TV, but I was too afraid to tape it because I thought my parents would find it inappropriate. Which is kind of funny, since that's the theme of the entire movie. Trent is obviously uncomfortable with Devon showing up at his...

Like WALL-E, only people got left behind.   It's 2154, Earth is nothing but over-crowded slums. The rich can afford to live on a space station called Elysium, where any illness can be healed. Max (Matt Damon) always dreamed of living there with his friend Frey (Alice Barga) ever since they were children. Time has passed, and Frey and Max meet again by chance after he breaks his arms and winds up in her hospital. We learn she has a daughter dying of leukemia. Max gets into an accident at work where he is exposed to intense radiation. He's informed he will die in 5 days. He and his friend (Diego Luna) strike up a deal with a man named Spider (Wagner Maura) to steal some important data from an Elysium citizen visiting Earth. Only Secretary Delacourt (a robotic Jodie Foster) is hell bent on keeping citizens of Earth from illegally entering Elysium. And she puts the dangerous Kruger (Sharlto Copley, bumping Peter Sarsgaard off the creepiest fucker in films this year) on their...

Can Jesse Pinkman show up at my house and throw a stack of Benjamins in my driveway?   Fair warning, this week and next are going to be kind of a cluster fuck for my Rambling TV, True Blood, Breaking Bad, AND The Newsroom are all on, but it's True Blood's season finale next week, so after that I'll be back to recapping two shows.     True Blood gif via canadianbeaversloveaskars   True Blood did something kind of extraordinary last night, they only had TWO storylines going on in the episode. Shocker, I know, so recapping it will be quite short.   Story number one was Terry's funeral, we got many of our favorite characters from Merlotte's sharing stories about Terry, plus a few flashbacks. I thought these scenes were great in showing how Terry affected everyone. One bombshell Sookie dropped was that she was a telepath. This is the first time she's said that to anyone that wasn't her close friend, but even with that, she still managed to ...

17 days in the pornography business changed her life.   We first meet Linda (Amanda Seyfried in a bad wig) when she's a naïve 21 year old hanging out with her friend, Patsy. (Juno Temple) Linda catches the eye of Chuck (Peter Sarsgaard) and soon, she's moving in with him. We then see how Chuck takes control over Linda's life, and forces her into the pornography business for money. Only she becomes an overnight sensation when she stars in "Deep Throat." Chris Noth, Bobby Canavale, Hank Azaria, and Adam Brody play they producers, director, and co-star of "Deep Throat" respectively, and Chuck is not happy with Linda getting all of the attention and not listening to every single word he says.   Bad wig aside, this is Seyfried's best performance. I wouldn't count her as a very strong actress, she's best in musicals because she has a wonderful voice. You can tell she worked really hard to play Linda. She nails the accent and vulnerabili...

I guess Dakota Fanning still wanted to play the sick girl after dropping out of My Sister's Keeper.   All kidding aside, this movie surprised me. Tessa (Dakota Fanning) is a British teenager that is dying from leukemia. Like many, she has a list of things she wants to accomplish before she goes. Though her list includes things like taking drugs, shop lifting and having sex. Tessa struggles with her relationship with her father (Paddy Constantine) who can't stand the thought of losing her and with her mother (Olivia Williams) who is never there. Tessa meets Adam (Jeremy Irvine) and falls in love. That certainly wasn't on her list.   The outline of this movie is very generic. The sick girl that falls in love right before she dies, but Dakota's Tessa just feels different. There were times I was angry with her about how disrespectful she is towards her father, and then there were times I understood where she was coming from. I think that's what set this film ...

We've all been there.   Duncan (Liam James) is a shy teenage boy who is spending the summer with his mother, Pam (Toni Collette) at her boyfriend, Trent's (Steve Carell) beach house. Trent and Duncan don't see eye to eye. Trent is condescending and rude and Pam does nothing to stand up for Duncan. One day he bikes to a nearby water park and meets an employee, Owen (Sam Rockwell) who can see through Duncan's awkwardness and offers him a job. The rest is about Duncan trying to find his place in life, and ultimately finding happiness.   I was worried I was going to constantly compare this film with Adventureland when I saw the trailer, they seemed so similar. Lucky for me, they are totally different, though I would say Adventureland is far superior. James turns in a painfully awkward performance which fits his character, but it's Rockwell who steals the show. Owen is irresponsible and funny, but we can tell he has a heart of gold, and he's willing to sta...

+ Things we learned from The Newsroom ep 2.4 gif via marvelandwhimsy     We start things off with Bill telling Eric they still have work to do. Eric has zero time for this shit and starts taunting Bill for being too weak to tell Sookie to give him Warlow. He brings up the fact that she staked him. Bill dares to call Eric's maker Godric, weak.   Alcide's Shreveport back story is hopefully wrapped up. Nothing to see here.     We find out the old vampire that claimed Jason is named Violet and she's a medieval Catholic who "believes in the sanctity of their union." She's going to feed off his as she sees fit, and not share him with anyone else. Eventually, he's going to beg her to fuck him. Poor Jason.   Sookie goes back to Warlow to tell him Bill's plan, he says he'll do it if Sookie agrees to be his. He's wanted to her 6,000 years despite her only being around for what, 25? He wants to turn her. She says she'll need s...

...Well that escalated quickly. I never tire of using that line from Anchorman, but it does apply to several parts of Stoker in my opinion. India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) is a quiet, introverted teenager who finds out her beloved father has died on her 18th birthday. Suddenly, her uncle Ozymandais Charlie (Matthew Goode), whom she never even knew existed shows up at her and her mother's (Nicole Kidman) door. He's charming, but there's something dark and disturbing about him. There's something dark about India as well, and she can't help but be drawn to him. This is one of those films that I wanted to see because of the cast and from good reviews from my fellow bloggers. That being said, I didn't actually know very much about the film in the first place. It's nice to go into a film like this blind, because I never knew what to expect, and I sure as hell didn't expect the ending I got. I saw it going in a totally different direction. Mia...