Rambling Film

Get in the Christmas Spirit. 10 years ago, Ethan's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) parents were killed right before Christmas. Since then, his childhood friends, Isaac (Seth Rogan) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) have spent Christmas Eve with him partying in New York City. Most recently, they've been trying to secure tickets to an exclusive party called the Nutcracker Ball. Although Ethan isn't ready to let go of the tradition, Isaac is about to become a father and Chris is a famous NFL player, so this will be their final Christmas together.  I've been looking forward to this film all year, even when it was boringly dubbed "Untitled Jonathan Levine Christmas Comedy" for months. This cast is fantastic, unfortunately the movie has quite a few cliches, and not nearly as many laughs as a cast like this deserves.  Don't get me wrong, I did laugh during this, especially at the guys' drug dealer, Mr. Green. (Michael Shannon) but I felt like it could've been ...

I just felt like I knew you. Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill) is a writer for the New York Times who's fired after he fudges the details on a story. As he retreats back to Montana to his girlfriend, Jill (Felicity Jones) he learns of a man named Christian Longo (James Franco) who has just been arrested in Mexico for the murder of his wife and three children. While on the run, he was using the alias "Michael Finkel of the New York Times." Intrigued by why Longo would pick him, he visits him in prison and Longo promises to tell his story to only Finkel. I knew about Christian Longo before I watched this film, so while some were disappointed by the lack of shock revelation at the end, I already knew what was true and what wasn't. That helped me enjoy it a bit more. I had no "shocking" expectations at all. Hill and Franco are both fine actors who are not getting enough credit for this movie. One of the biggest complaints I read is that they cast these two ...

All hail Wandering Through the Shelves . This week's theme is movies about royalty. When all three picks don't immediately come to mind, I tend to use a little Google-fu for some reminders. This week, I realized that there's a lot of movies about royalty that I meant to see, but never got around to it. Here are some ones that I enjoy. (And I limited myself to one cartoon because I was prepared to go all Disney Princess on this) 1) The Other Boelyn Girl I feel like this movie is kind of universally hated. I remember the film makers got a ton of shit for not actually casting British actresses in the lead roles. I just dig it for some reason. Even if I wanted to punch several people by the end of it. 2) Anastasia  This is one of my favorite animated flicks and "Once Upon a Decemeber" is still one of the best songs to ever come from an animated movie. 3) Ever After Guilty pleasure time!  The accents are bad, the story a bit silly, but I love this, ...

Woooooooooooooooooo awards season is upon us! Let's start with the most laid back award show there is; The Spirit Awards. I love these because they put more indies on my radar, but the trade is I haven't gotten a chance to see a lot of these. Here's a list of the nominees, my thoughts as always follow in green. Best Feature Anomalisa Beasts of No Nation Carol Spotlight Tangerine My theater is getting Spotlight this week so I'll get to check it out soon. Carol's awards buzz isn't dying any time soon either.   Best Director Sean Baker - Tangerine Cary Joji Fukunaga - Beasts of No Nation Todd Haynes - Carol Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson - Anomalisa Tom McCarthy - Spotlight David Robert Mitchell - It Follows I love that It Follows got so many nominations. It deserves them. I like seeing Fukanaga here even if Beasts lost its way towards the end. Best Screenplay Charlie Kaufman - Anomalisa Donald Margulies - The End of the Tour Phyllis N...

What I knew going in: It was another screwball comedy, and the director seems to think he mostly failed at it. David (Cary Grant) is a paleontologist who is trying to secure a hefty donation for his museum, and also a missing dinosaur bone he needed to complete a skeleton. While out trying to impress the person who may be donating, he crosses paths with Susan (Katharine Hepburn) an irritating heiress who decides she loves him. She drags him into her shenanigans which involve a dog stealing his bone, and her pet leopard Baby escaping.   I had such a strange feeling while watching this. I could feel myself wanting to hate it, Susan is honestly the fucking worst . But I could never stop. It still had these very endearing moments despite me wanting to scream every now and then.  Grant is always good, as is Hepburn. A lot seems to be made of her comedic timing in this film and how hard it was to get her to pull it off. I didn't notice, I thought it worked fine. ...

Rambling film is a weekly series were I ramble about the things I watched on television. The Walking Dead We got another week of filler, but at least this filler was somewhat interesting, though very plot device-y. Glen is back! Literally no one thought he was actually dead because of the way the powers that be and everyone involved with the show talked their way around it, but it was so nice to see him back.  Rick, Carol, Morgan, and Michonne finally had a talk about Morgan's bullshit "all life is precious" mantra. Carol was seething that he let some Wolves go, Morgan tried to counter with "Well, Rick didn't kill me back in King's County, and if he did Daryl and Aaron would be dead." No, he knew you. Doesn't count. That conversation was not along enough though. Other small things that happened: Rosita is a wonderful teacher. Poor Denise is getting tricked into helping Morgan, Maggie saw Glenn's signal, Ron is walking around obviously...

War is hell. So are love triangles. We pick up right where we left off in Mockingjay Part 1 . Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) is recovering from being attacked by Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) who has been turned into a weapon against her by President Snow. (Donald Sutherland) Katniss begins to disagree with President Coin's (Julianne Moore) refusal to put her on the front lines to fight, so she takes matters into her own hands. She infiltrates the Capital along with a few familiar faces. The supporting cast has a lot less to do this time around. Stanley Tucci and Gwendoline Christie have one scene a piece. Willow Shield's Primrose only has a few, same with Sam Caflin's Finnick and Jena Malone's Johanna. They sit out good portions of the movie. This film focuses so heavily on Katniss and her vendetta against Snow that nearly everyone else falls aside.  Personally, I've always thought the first half of the Mockingjay novel was terribly boring. I was looking f...

#ProxyProblems William (Conal Byrne) is a workaholic geneticist who causes a terrible accident that drives him and his wife, Jules (Seimetz) apart. The film then jumps to a later time, with William's twin brother helping him with his memory loss, only things are not what they seem. I've been waiting for this movie for awhile because the insanely talented Melissa McBride has a small role. Too small, in fact, but at least it was something else to see her in. This is a very small film, with McBride easily being the most well known. Director Dan Bush has worked with his star Byrne before, and this seems to be his most ambitious film yet. Byrne did a great job here. He's on screen for nearly every second of this film, and he plays all the different variations of William. He's shaky at times, but not often. The only time the film really drags are the scenes with Steimetz. It didn't help that Jules is extremely underwritten. We barely know anything about her, an...

Dell over at Dell on Movies came up with this quick idea for a blogathon . This week he's been focusing on a different film each day with a female lead and asks us to do the same. I'm going to talk about the lead in one of my favorite independent films of all time, Dreamland . I reviewed it at the start of my blog way back in 2009. It's one of the films that kind of got me hooked on indies. So instead of a full blown review again, I'm going to list 5 things that make Audrey interesting. 1) She's caring. Her father is agoraphobic, and can't leave their desert trailer park without suffering panic attacks. Her best friend, Calista has recently been diagnosed with MS. She takes care of both them emotionally. 2) She's thoughtful. She's a talented writer, though she's finished high school, she's too afraid to go to college because that means leaving her family and friends to take care of themselves. 3) When she's not busy hiding her co...

Votes for women! Maud (Carey Mulligan) never considered herself a Suffragette. She's been working as a washer woman since she was seven. She's married to Sonny (Ben Winshaw) who at the beginning seems like an okay dude. They also have one son. She begins to notice more women joining the movement to secure women's rights to vote and for equal wages. Violet (Anne Marie Duff) catches her attention first, and when she accompanies her to speak, then ends up sharing her own testimony instead, Maud can't ignore it any longer. She's aided by Edith (Helene Bonham Carter) an educated nurse, and seemingly the only woman in this movie without an asshole for a husband. Emily (Natalie Press) and Alice (Romola Garai) round out the rest.  Carey Mulligan is magnificent in this film. It's a joy to watch her go from this timid woman to one who chooses to stand up, just a little more each time to fight for her rights. Even when men like Inspector Steed (Brenden Gleeson) ...

The Walking Dead Show runner Scott Gimple loves himself a bottle episode, and this week we are "treated" with yet another one. Tonight only followed Sasha, Abraham and Daryl.  I should no longer be surprised that TWD shoots itself in the foot momentum wise. This week, and the week before were very slow and not nearly up to par with episodes like J.S.S or Thank you . But Always Accountable was a step up from last week's Now. Daryl's whole "redneck with a heart of gold" schtick fits well with his characters, but it's a shame they made him so careless this week. After being shot at by a bunch of randoms, he's held hostage by three people, Dwight (he's from the comic, we'll see him again) and two women, Tina, and (assuming) Sherry, but her name was never mentioned. They tie him up, threaten him, then when Tina passes out, he bails with their bag that's holding his crossbow. They shoot at him again. When he gets far enough away, he fi...

"I'm only asking for equality" Laurel Hester (Julianne Moore) is a detective on the Ocean County police force and has been for about 23 years. She's a lesbian, but she keeps that a secret from her colleagues out of fear of discrimination. Even from her partner, Dane (Michael Shannon) who she's worked with for many years. She meets Stacie (Ellen Page) they fall in love, get a dog, a house, a domestic partnership and everything goes swimmingly until Laurel is diagnosed with stage four lung cancer and has to fight for her pension to go to Stacie. I never saw the documentary short on Laurel and Stacie. I looked for it, but could never find a place to watch it. It made me wonder while watching this film how much Dane really did for them. The two women almost become supporting characters towards the back half of this film as they chose to follow Michael Shannon's Dane instead. It's hard to complain, because it's Michael Shannon and he's wonder...

Heeeeeeeere's Charlie Michael Peterson (Tom Hardy) has been in prison for thirty four years. What started as a seven year sentence for robbing a post office escalated into a longer sentence due his love for fighting and taking people hostage. He goes by his alter ego Charles Bronson and becomes some what of a celebrity in the prison system. This movie is weird as fuck. There's no other way to put. It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Nicholas Winding Refn is definitely the right director for this project. Everything is so theatrical and the music is wonderful. (This was pre- Drive , but since I saw Drive first, the soundtrack reminded me of that instead of the other way around.) If you're a Tom Hardy fan, this is definitely a film you need to see. He's so energetic, scary, funny, menacing. I can't praise him enough. Plus the guy runs around naked for a good portion of the film so you have to give him props there.  If you...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is movies about making music. The only trick is, you can't use bio pics or movies about real life musicians. Here's what I came up with. 1) Once This beautiful story about an unnamed Guy and Girl flourishes with the music they make. They only spend one week together, but you just know neither forgot each other after that. 2) Begin Again Begin Again is one of my favorite movies in recent years, and it's also done by the same director who did Once. He knows how to make movies about struggling musicians for sure, and this one about a singer/songwriter and the man trying to produce the album is perfection. 3) Hedwig and the Angry Inch Hedwig transitioned from a man to a woman in order to marry an American GI, however his surgery didn't go as planned so now poor Hedwig is playing her music in bars across the U.S while another boyfriend stole her songs and became famous off of them. This film is ...

"Here, let me tell you how to drive to Fargo!" This valuable piece of information is given to our title character, Kumiko (Rinko Kikuchi) by a tourism guy in the airport. Why yes ma'am, I can see you barely speak English so let me give you driving directions instead of taking one of the approximately 10 nonstop flights from this very airport.  Kumiko is a lonely woman living in Tokyo who is obsessed with the movie Fargo  and actually believes that it's real. Fed up with her awkward existence, she takes off with her company's credit card to go dig up the treasure buried in the film. Rinko Kikuchi is an actress that really should be getting more roles. She was the best part of the mediocre Babel . I wish she was given more to do here. She was very believable as an awkward, soft spoken woman. She's silent much of the film, partly because she's shy, and partly because of the language barrier. I thought the film had some beautiful camera wo...

"They don't get to smack us just for asking the question." This happened when I was in high school. I worked three jobs to avoid going home until late at night and was very self involved. I vaguely remember my Government teacher talking about this. I don't think I actually took the time to read about it until years later. I didn't care. I grew up in a red state that was going to back Bush anyways. I wish I would've taken it a bit more seriously then. Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) is a producer for 60 minutes who gets word of a story about President George W. Bush getting special treatment to go into the national guard to avoid Vietnam. She assembles a team of Mike Smith, (Topher Grace) Col. Roger Charles (Dennis Quad) and Lucy Scott (Elisabeth Moss) and gets to work. She's given a close in air date, so they do not properly verify the documents without a shadow of a doubt. She notifies anchor Dan Rather (Robert Redford) who puts his trust in Mary. ...

Rambling TV is a weekly series were I rant, rave, and ramble about what I watched on TV this week. The Walking Dead Red shirts need loving too, and that's what this episode was about. Focusing on the Alexandrian red shirts who are mostly going to die in the episodes to come. So instead of seeing the fallout between Carol and Morgan's way of handling the Wolves, instead of Michonne telling Betsy about what David said (Betsy was that Alexandrian that slit her wrists and turned into a walker, by the way) instead of Rick running to immediately check on his children, we get the Alexandrians instead. Background characters do need development, I'm not faulting that, I just wish this episode would've balanced it better, and shown more of Rick's group along side them. Then maybe it wouldn't have some off as such a failure. The highlight of the episode was definitely Maggie and Aaron going to look for Glenn. She drops the "bombshell" that she's pre...

*rings bell* Shame. Shame. Shame. Richard (Jack Reynor) is the popular kid in his Dublin school. Athletic, charming, the leader of his group of friends. He lands a new girlfriend in the summer between high school and university, Lara (Roisin Murphy) and everything seems to be going well. Then he does something that ruins it all. This film does well with a slow burn. It takes its sweet time warming us up to Richard. To make sure we see just how much of a stand up guy he is before the event in our title happens. Reynor, little Irish Chris Pratt look-a-like that he is does well in the role. He's completely believable in both his lovable side, and when he inevitably falls apart. Most of the actors in this film have few credits to their name. They look and feel very natural. While the film is strong, I do think it handles the aftermath of the incident a bit poorly. A bit more time could've been given to it, especially since the film clocks in at a short 88 minutes....

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that involve listening to Wanderer at Wandering Through The Shelves , and picking movies weekly. You should too. This week's theme is movies with spies/secret agents in them. There's so many to choose from, and a few I used already, so here's what I came up with. 1) The East Sarah goes undercover to spy on a group of eco-terrorists. I love Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij, they make a wonderful team, and this film is my favorite of theirs. 2) Skyfall I don't like Bond movies. Blasphemy, I know, but this is the exception. It's just stunning. 3) The Bourne Supremacy I always say that this film has one of the best car chases in cinema history. The Bourne trilogy is a fun ride, this one being my favorite. 

Good. Great. Grand. Wonderful I used to think I was the perfect age for Chris Farley's audience at the height of his career. I was in grade school and thought he was hysterical. I loved any kind of physical comedy. After watching this doc, I realized there was no perfect age for Chris Farley. Everyone thought that guy was funny, no matter what age you were. Being a fan of his, I was bummed when I missed this when it initially aired on FX, so I'm glad the DVD release came quickly. We hear from Chris' family, his former SNL friends/costars like David Spade, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Dan Aykroyd, Bob Odinkirk, etc. It's clear they all thought he was a genius comedian.  It was nice to hear them talk. It could've easily been a rehash of his SNL skits, and while some of those are peppered in while they're talking about them, just listening to these people talk about his process was interesting. They don't hold back. They're quick to say how funn...

Child. Solider. Killer. In an unnamed country in Africa, Agu (Abraham Attah) is just a regular boy, trying to think of interesting ways to make money for his family. He has a loving home life, even though his country is on a brink of a civil war.Until the fighting ends up in his town. His family is separated, then murdered right in front of him. He runs, but is stopped by the rebels, lead by Commandant (Idris Elba) who force him to become a soldier.  A film like this is brutal, and watching Agu go from such a carefree child into a murderer is heartbreaking. We're treated to voice overs every now and then, with Agu praying to God, at first helplessly, then almost as if he's trying to convince himself that this is the whole way. Attah gives one of the best performances of any child actor I've ever seen. Beasts is going to have a rough way to the Oscars as it is, but they should focus on him, because he truly deserves it. He over shadows everyone else, including El...