Rambling Film

It's been awhile since I've done one of these, but I wasn't watching many shows simultaneously and I only really write in depth about The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. But, I manged to finish a few series and start a new one, so I have some rambling to do. True Detective It's been a few weeks since season 2 wrapped up. I still think this season got way more shit than it deserved. It wasn't as good as season 1, but it was still solid, and I hope they do a third season. I never thought I was going to be sad about Taylor Kitsch's character dying at the beginning of the season, but man I was. That was so sad. I'm also sad about Ray. Literally nothing good happened to him. Though his super sperm worked on Ani so at least there's another little Ray to live on. (Seriously, the UST between those two. I'm glad they hooked up.) Daredevil This was another show I finally finished up. The last few episodes were the strongest of the entire season...

Scottish accents make everything better. Jane (Karen Gillan) is an author who is trying to get her first book published. She's turned down by so many people, but Tom (Stanley Webber) sees something in her and after helping edit her book down, he publishes it and it's an instant success. But when she goes to write her second novel, she ends up getting a bad case of writer's block. Why did I say Scottish accents make everything better? Because this is a rom com and I'm shocked that I actually enjoyed it so much. I kind of feel like I would've hated it had it taken place anywhere else, but this place and this cast just make this film shine. Initially, I threw this film in my Netflix queue because of Iain De Caestecker. His part is small, but he's charming as always. Gillan is an absolute joy to watch. I know she has a rather large fanbase from Doctor Who, but I'm not as familiar with her. I can see why she has so many fans, she's lovely. ...

It's another all in the family edition and Wandering Through The Shelves and this week's topic is step families. Or as I liked to call it: "That week where I tried really hard to pick something other than Stepmom" and also "The week I kicked myself for already using What Maisie Knew and Pan's Labyrinth" So let me give you the good, the weird, and the ugly side of step parents. 1) Juno I think one of the most important parts about Juno to me was how supportive the step mother was. A lot of films paint step parents in a negative light, but this one we had the step mom being as supportive as she could with the situation.  2) Step Brothers It's the fucking Catalina Wine Mixer and also one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I about died when Farrell called Richard Jenkins a "geriatric fuck." 3) Bastard out of Carolina This film is so hard to watch. When I first saw it on TV (on Lifetime because of course) it was heav...

I don't hate you because you're a bad husband. You're a bad husband because I hate you. The scene is France in the 1800's, though you would never guess because everyone speaks in an American accent. Seriously, they didn't even use the go to English accent that's at least, you know...European. Herve (Michael Pitt) has recently gotten out of the army and begins working for a silk merchant. His job is to go to Japan and get more silkworms after a nasty storm kills all of theirs. He leaves behind his dutiful wife, Helene (Keira Knightley) but becomes enchanted with a girl (Sei Ashina) who is the mistress of a Baron in Japan. This film is somewhat like watching a live action poem. It's beautiful to look at. The music, the cinematography, the costumes are lovely. However sometimes poems aren't meant to be feature length films. I think I would've much preferred to read this one. (And I haven't read the book it was based on) Herve's pu...

It's about loneliness.  David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) writes for the Rolling Stone. He sees an article praising an author, David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel) and begs his boss to let him cover a writer for once. He interviews David on the last stop of his book tour in Minnesota, and at his home in Illinois.  This film is very quiet, very still, it flows easily from once scene to the next. It starts with the news of Wallace's suicide, a brilliant choice by the filmmakers to put it there, because everything Wallace says holds more weight now that you ultimately know where it ends. It's very tragic. The film is essentially like an extended interview between Wallace and Lipsky. It's mostly them conversing, and with the wrong actors, the film could've been a bore. Luckily it didn't have that problem. Segel and Eisenberg are wonderful. Beyond wonderful, this is the best I've ever seen Segel. (Aside from him flapping his dick around in Forgetting S...

What I knew going in: That this movie, as many put it is "pretty fucking weird." A woman (Laura Harring) is being driven in the back of a limo. They pull over on Mulholland Dr. and a man in the passenger seat is about to kill her. Suddenly, another car hits them head on, and the woman is the only survivor. She stumbles into an apartment complex where Betty (Naomi Watts) a fresh faced aspiring actress has just arrived from Canada to pursue her dreams. The woman can't remember anything. She says her name is "Rita" but she got it off a movie poster. Betty decides to help Rita find out what happened to her. At the same time, the police investigating the accident know someone is missing. Meanwhile a director, Adam (Justin Theroux) is broke and being bullied into casting a certain woman in his next production. And his wife cheats on him with Billy Ray Cyrus so you know he's having a bad day. I found all the scenes of Rita and Betty's story to be comple...

Priorities. Mark (Mark Webber) is a struggling actor and single dad trying to take care of his two year old son, Isaac. (Webber's actual child, Isaac Love) He's not getting any parts, a failed audition with Amanda Seyfried is shown early in the film, and he can't pay his roommates rent. Since Isaac's mother died, he's struggled with relationships. He meets woman named Lydia (Shannyn Sossamon) who runs a children's play center who is slightly awkward and shows her interest in him, but he jumps into things too quickly. Mark and Isaac's interactions feel so natural. Obviously, because they really are father and son and Webber centered filming around Isaac, but it's refreshing to see that play out on screen. Sometimes it's easy to pick out overly coached moments with child actors and everything flows so organically in this film. It's fun to watch. The opening scene of Isaac simply waking up is presented so brilliantly. The film does lose i...

This week's theme at the ever wonderful Wandering Through The Shelves is Asian Langauge movies set in East Asia. The catch is they cannot be horror movies. This made me realize I have not seen enough Asia non-horror. So while my picks are probably going to be very obvious, what I'm really looking forward to is everyone else's for the recommendations. So here it goes! 1) Departures The Oscar winner is about a man who thinks he's applying for a job at a travel agency when he ends up getting one preparing the dead for the afterlife. It's beautifully shot and acted. (Even though the 4 Ways a Best Picture gents didn't love it as much as I did) 2) Battle Royale The idea of this film IS horrifying, but I wouldn't call it a horror movie. It's about as much of one as the Hunger Games is, only this is gorier. Middle schoolers getting dropped on an island to fight to the death, it's so twisted.*  3) Oldboy Oldboy is the example I always ...

Dell over at Dell on Movies is bringing his popular blogathon from last year back! I had fun with this last year. I got my hate on with Rebel Without a Cause and told you all how much I love Gothika. Of course I'm back for more! Here are the rules: 1. Pick one movie that "everyone" loves (the more iconic, the better). That movie must have a score of at least 75% on rottentomatoes.com. Tell us why you hate it. 2. Pick one movie that "everyone" hates (the more notorious, the better). That movie must have a score of less than 35% on rottentomatoes.com. Tell us why you love it. 3. Include the tomato meter scores of both movies. 4. Use one of the banners in this post, or feel free to create your own. Let's get the ugly out of the way. Boyhood Oh Boyhood, the darling of last years award season, and a film I wanted so badly to like. But the more I think about Boyhood, the more I hate it. It was slow, aimless, poorly acted (Patricia Arquett...

If you save the world, we can do it in the asshole. When Eggsy (Taron Egerton) was a boy, a mysterious man came to his house to tell his mother of his father's death. He gave him a medal of valor with a phone number on it to call if he ever needs help. Fast forward about 17 years, Eggsy's life has been rough. His mother's boyfriend is an abusive douche, and after he gets thrown in jail for stealing a car, he decides to call the number on the back of his medal. He's then reunited with Harry, (Colin Firth) though he doesn't recognize him as the man that gave him his medal. Harry is part of the Kingsman. A secret spy organization with a very long history, and an advanced training boot camp. Harry believes in Eggsy, as he did his father, and gets him on the path to start his training. Now is the perfect time too, because a tech mongrel, Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson) is about to kill a good portion of mankind. I remember seeing the previews for this and th...

This is what happens.. This is what happens when your Netflix queue is a 50+ DVD disaster. You throw films in, then you can't remember why you put them there or who recommended them to you. This brings me to The Chocolate War. What the fuck was I thinking? This story follows Jerry (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) a new student at a private Catholic school who has to deal with his new classmates forcing him to conform to their ways, and one of the weirdest teachers of all time in Brother Leon. (John Glover) On top of that, Brother Leon is practically forcing these kids to try to sell chocolate bars to get the school extra funds.  Maybe I was feeling nostalgic for The Dangerous Lives of Alter Boys or Saved when I threw this one in the queue. I do like to grab random indies as I see them, but this just wasn't good. It was sluggish and decent performances aside couldn't save it. Plus the casting is terrible. I get it, adults play teenagers. It's easier to avoid child...

It's never that simple. Private Amy Cole (Kristen Stewart) is assigned to work at Guantanamo Bay. After a rough start, she forms an interesting relationship with one of the detainees, Ali, (Peyman Moaadi) which is against the rules. I've been watching to see this film for ages, but it never came to any theaters near me. What I learned while waiting is that it raised a lot of questions. Was Ali innocent? Was it wrong to show GITMO in this light? I try not to get too political when watching films. What I can say for sure, that this film was very thought provoking.  I can add this to the never ending list of films that people who bitch about Kristen Stewart's acting should she. She's excellent here. Her part was originally written for a male, but it was changed to suit her well. I couldn't picture anyone else in this role. Moaadi was the star for me. He's someone I've only known from A Separation , which he was wonderful in. I hope to see more of...

Everyone ready to be depressed? This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is movies with devastating endings that make you want to weep. As someone who cries in movies all of the time, this wasn't too hard. My only gripe is that I already used Atonement , and that should surely be here too.  Spoiler Alerts , obviously 1) Requiem for a Dream This movie is so devastating and disturbing I don't think I could ever watch it again. Especially when it comes to Ellen Burstyn's character. I sobbed the majority of the time she was on screen. 2) The Mist This might seem like a weird choice because it's a horror movie, but the ending is SO depressing. Unable to outrun the monsters, a man with only four bullets left in his gun kills his young son and three other survivors. As he waits for the mist to take him, a military tank shows up with a bunch of other survivors, some he encountered earlier. He killed them for nothing. 3 Old Yeller Hey, you...

No more massive windows. Seriously. Does anything good ever happen to people who live in these nice houses with more floor to ceiling windows than actual concrete walls? No. Because it's creepy. I love a nice view as much as everyone else. I also like blinds.  Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) have recently moved from Chicago back to California, not far from where Simon grew up. He got a new job, she's recovering from depression after a miscarriage, this new start seems fitting. However right when they move back, they run into Gordo. (Joel Edgerton) Gordo is an awkward old classmate of Simon's that seems innocent enough at first, but he starts leaving random gifts on their door step and showing up with Simon isn't home. When they try to end things with Gordo, Robyn starts to realize that maybe there's a very good reason he's showing such an interest in them. I first saw the trailer for this a couple of weeks ago, and I figured it woul...

We all have the capacity for cruelty. When Libby Day was seven, her mother and two older sisters were murdered in their house in the middle of the night. She escaped, and her older brother Ben went to jail for the crime. 28 years later, Libby (Charlize Theron) hasn't done a thing with her life and is living off her diminishing trust of donations from the crime. She comes in contact with Lyle (Nicholas Hoult) who is part of a "Kill Club" where the focus is solving murders. They don't believe Ben to be the killer and eventually start to get Libby to question how things went down herself.  I'm a huge fan of the novel by Gillian Flynn, and though she didn't adapt the screenplay like she did for Gone Girl , writer/director Gilles Paquet-Brenner does a fine job. There were only very minor changes. Though Paquet-Brenner is a horror director, and sometimes I think he went a bit too heavy on that tone for this film.  When I first saw the casting of Thero...

I think IMDb trivia is lying to me. Per IMDb, the script for Cut Bank made the infamous "Blacklist" for best unproduced screenplays in 2009. Either that's total bullshit, or the ending changed drastically from the screenplay back in 09. This review in the final paragraph will contain spoilers for the ending , because I can't get around talking about it to explain why this film is ultimately pretty ridiculous.  Dwayne (Liam Hemsworth) hates living in Cut Bank, MT. But he has to take care of his ailing father, so he feels he's stuck. He wants to leave for "the big city" with his girlfriend, Cassandra (Teresa Palmer) but one day while they're recording a video for her audition in the Miss Cut Bank pageant, they witness the murder of the local mail man. (Bruce Dern) They show the video to the beautiful cinnamon roll Sheriff Vodel(John Malkovich) and Cassandra's dad, Stan. (Billy Bob Thorton) They start to investigate, but at the same time...

I'm going to politely kill you now. When we first meet Dwight (Macon Blair) he seems like just another homeless man trying to get by. Soon, he's informed that a man that did prison time for killing his parents has been released. He finds him and kills him, but soon that man's family, led by Teddy Cleland(Kevin Kolack) is hot on his trail.  Blue Ruin is a perfect slow burn. Movies often get criticized for being slow, and some certainly deserve it, but it works very well here. Dwight is very soft spoken, and almost too naive to be carrying out the violent crimes he commits. There's a lot of waiting on his part. It fits with the constant worry that Dwight is in over his head. Blair is excellent here. And the Cleland family is so perfectly trashy. Their faces needed bullets. I was on the fence about this movie for awhile, but I'm glad I finally took the plunge and watched it. It was definitely worth it. Grade: B+ Memorable Quote: "Wipe that of...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is alien invasions of Earth! Before we get into this, if you're not participating in this awesome weekly series, you should be. Admittedly, I'm not crazy about alien invasion movies, but there are a few I'm okay with. So that's what this list will be about. Films that are just "okay"  1) War of the Worlds I know people kind of hated the remake, but I had a good time watching it. When I saw it in theaters, there was an insane thunder storm going on at the same time. My friends and I ran to my car in the midst of pouring rain, thunder, and lightening. Then as we were driving away, we saw someone we knew whose car was stuck in a massive puddle that we had to go push out. I won't forget it.  2) Mars Attacks This movie is so stupid, but so funny. Terrible music defeats the aliens. You can't get much better than that. 3) The Faculty  This is one of the first R rated movies I ca...

Teenagers suck Seriously, they're are the worst. The following film, while marketed as somewhat of a thriller is actually just a lesson in how awful teenagers are.  Emily (Kara Hayward) is a bit of an outcast with a blog no one reads. She gets into a fight with the mean girl of her school, Mary. (Georgie Henley) Mary makes her flub an audition in drama class, Emily steals her phone and posts her texts on her blog. Eventually, they cool down. Then Mary starts a mysterious group called "The Sisterhood" It's very exclusive, and only Mary gets to decide who gets in. Several of the girls in their school desire to be a part of it. When Emily secretly follows them and sees them doing cult-like activities, she blabs about it on her blog and the entire town they live in turns into a media hell hole. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was having trouble taking Georgie Henley seriously as a mean girl because I was so used to her as Lucy in the Narnia movies. No,...

Too much privilege. Anne (Romola Garai) is the adopted daughter of Alexander, (Bill Nighy) a member of the Parliament. She lives a very privileged and sheltered life in Norfolk with her (non adopted) siblings, Ralph (Eddie Redmayne) and Celia. (Juno Temple) WWII is impending, and Anne eventually finds some secret gramophone recordings of her family members threatening others in the pro-appeasement movement. When she attempts to learn more, people start dying around her. The film also spends a bit of time in modern day London with Michael (Toby Regbo) who is Celia's grandson, attempting to get more information on what happened to Anne.   I've talked about my Netflix DVD queue being a permanent disaster area that's taken me ages to get through. I was on a Charlie Cox kick last year and threw this in there. When It got to me last week I looked at the summary again and was like "why the fuck did I do this to myself, it's going to be so boring!" I wa...