Rambling Film

You can't he half a gangster I shouldn't have to label this film an "Indie Gem." Had The Revenant not been released in the same year, I imagine the studios would've been trying to ride on Hardy's performance here. But alas, they didn't and this film got zero marketing in the States. It played in 107 theaters at its highest peak, then dropped to 19 two weeks later. Reggie and Ronnie Kray (Tom Hardy) are twin brothers and gangsters in 1960's London. We see them spend time in jail, own night clubs, ruin those clubs, and slowly rise to more power throughout. Reggie's relationship with Frances Shea (Emily Browning) is also heavily featured. I never thought I'd be into gangster movies. I don't know much about the Krays, but hearing the name Meyer Lansky mentioned, as his people deal with the them gave me a bit of Boardwalk Empire nostalgia. The atmosphere in this movie is great. It's well shot, calm and steady. Then the music ...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is about affairs. I swear sometimes I feel like I'm having an affair with my blog. I don't actually tell anyone I know that I do this. There's a lot of great films out there that fit, but I'm going to try to stick with films I haven't used in any of the previous years. Admit it, you were expecting American Beauty to land here? 1) The Good Girl Until Cake, this was probably Jennifer Aniston's best role. She's Justine, who ends up having an affair with a young colleague that she finds intriguing.  2) The King Gael Garcia Bernal plays a young man who goes to look for the father he never knew, only to have that man, played by John Hurt turn him away. So he goes an has an affair with his 16 year old daughter.  3) Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus Diane's affair with Lionel starts as curiosity and grows into a companionship she craves. Though you feel very bad for Diane's...

A gifset film... Macbeth (Michael Fassbender) receives a prophecy that he'll one day become the King of Scotland. His wife, (Marion Cotillard) is on board with this and pushes him to take matters into his own hands, he murders the current king to take the throne, however nothing is that simple. I read this play in high school, but it was very forgettable. As I was watching this film, some things would come to me. I remembered why I forgot it in the first place; it's pretty damn bleak. The film clearly chose style over substance, which brings me to the title of this post. This film looks like an extended series of gifsets. They do great things with color and scenery, and all the things I'd expect to see while scrolling through tumblr. It's like this film's only purpose is to be seen in these small, yet beautiful frames by themselves, with nothing to tie them together.  The dialogue is at times very hard to understand, Fassbender and Cotillard are e...

Game of Thrones It's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. This was a sold opener (aside from one thing) that got the ball rolling. Castle Black Davos hears Ghost's heartbreaking howling and he finds Jon's body. He, Edd, and some other Night's Watch men get his body into a room and baracade themselves. Throne, like the asshole he is tells the other members of the NW about what he did, and tries to rally them to their side. Davos knows there's going to be a fight. Melisandre takes one look at Jon and leaves, her faith shaken. Edd goes off to summon the Wildlings while Davos makes terms with Throne like a boss. Stannis would be proud. The episode ends with Melisandre's glamour coming off, showing her in her true form...that of an ancient woman. Wow. Win terfell/North Ramsay brings his dead girlfriend up to his wife's bedroom. Talks about how much he loved her, then orders the maester to feed her body to the hounds. Stay classy, Ramsay. Roose then keeps up wit...

What I knew going in: Nothing. I didn't read the plot summary until right before the film started, and I picked it based on seeing it pop up on others' lists previously. In 1944 France, Julien (Gaspard Manesse) is a young boy sent off to a Catholic boarding school during the war. He could somewhat be described as a "mama's boy." He wishes he could stay with her while his brother François (Stanislas Carré de Malberg) seems largely indifferent to being away.  He's a bright kid who also tries to hide the fact that he occasionally wets the bed. But that's not the only thing he ends up hiding. A new student named Jean (Raphael Fejtö) shows up and becomes a bit of a rival to Julien. He's quiet, yet very bright and slightly  better in school than Julien. He soon learns a secret about Jean, and the two become friends. To put in perspective how good this movie really is, let me tell you about the DVD Netflix sent me. It was terrible. It had a massive scr...

"I used to be someone." Tahir (Anthony Mackie) is a Nigerian man who is homeless on the streets of NYC. We meet him as he's being released by the police on a disorderly contact warning. He finds his cart and all his thing stolen. He spots another homeless woman, heroin addict Hannah (Jennifer Connelly) with his jacket, and follows her. After a rocky start, the eventually fall in love and we find out what put them on the street in the first place. At first it's almost jarring to hear Mackie speak in an accident that's not his own. I've grown so used to him in Marvel movies. It's a welcomed change to see him out of his comfort zone. Jennifer Connelly is intense as always. I found Tahir and Hannah's relationship to be very layered. Tahir finds Hannah at rock bottom, rock bottom for being homeless anyways. While they both homeless for different reasons, the way they somewhat connect is heartbreaking. This is Paul Bettany's directorial de...

This week's theme from Wondering Through the Shelves is all about astronauts. You know, that thing everyone wants to be as a kid but few actually do as adults because it's really hard to become an astronaut. Here's three of my favorites.  1) The Martian Mark Watney is the king of Mars! The poor guy got left there and managed to survive. Mars fears Watney's botany powers. Hopefully NASA doesn't bill him for the effort to retrieve him... 2) Gravity If Gravity had a title like Birdman's, it would be "Gravity: Or fuck that, I'm never going to space." Even though I'm not a Sandra Bullock fan, I loved seeing a strong female character lead this film. It's also one of the few movies I think worked in 3D 3) Moon This film is so underrated and Sam Rockwell deserved an Oscar nomination for this astronaut who has been working on the Moon by himself for three years. It also has twists you may or may not see coming. I certainly didn...

The evil step king Brad (Will Ferrell) loves kids. He can't have any of his own, so when he marries Sara (Linda Cardellini)  who already has two young children from a previous relationship, he thinks he has it made....until the children's absentee father, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) comes back into their life and he finds himself in an awkward dad-off to win the children's affection. If you've seen The Other Guys , you know Ferrell and Wahlberg have tons of comedic chemistry. Since this film is PG-13, and not an Adam McKay PG-13, it does feel like they're held back a bit. There's a lot of really stupid things about Daddy's Home . Some jokes are very over the top. There's a scene half way through the movie where both Brad and Dusty attempt to teach their young son how to fight some fourth graders who are picking on him. The pay off of this scene is so hysterical it  almost makes the entire thing worth it. Truthfully, there's not a lot to sa...

Better Call Saul This was hands down the best episode of Better Call Saul they've had this season. Maybe even for its entire run. Not only did we have Mike in old school Breaking Bad style sabotage the Salamanca's truck in a big way, but we found out Nacho is on to him. It makes me wonder if this is the next step to "no fucks given" Mike. We know Mike doesn't like to leave people alive in Breaking Bad, but he has on this show. Is Nacho's warning what will push him into that territory? The real star tonight was Kim. After she gets Mesa Verde back, Chuck goes on a whiny bitch rampage to prove that Jimmy doctored his paper work. I have to say, it gave me great joy to watch Chuck fail. It really did, I don't even care how terrible that sounds. But in a scene in Chuck's home where he explains to Kim, in front of Jimmy, what he did. You can tell Kim believes it, instead she turns it on Chuck, hands out a ton of truth and manages to make both Chuck AN...

Your country's history from 1938-1945 is missing. It's 1958, Johann Radman (Alexander Fehling) is a bottom of the barrel public defender who overhears a reporter, Thomas (Andre Szymanski) going off about Auschwitz. However no one seems to be taking him seriously. What happened in the camps at this point in time was kept very secret in Germany. Johann wants to dig deeper, and ends up exposing cover ups that change Germany's history forever. This film was submitted for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, but even though they've typically gone after Holocaust movies in the past, they didn't bite at this one. It surprises me as this is a different take than what we're used to. It's interesting to see the perspective of the war a decade later in the eyes of a lawyer who's largely been kept in the dark. Fehling is a great lead. His naivety is apparent,  and you can't help but root for the guy. He just wants to do the right thing, even if his bias t...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is movies featuring a character who is "a fish out of water."  For some reason I had a really hard time finding movies with someone who doesn't quite fit in, which is kind of ridiculous considering there's so many, but here's what I came up with.  1) Some Like it Hot This is one of my favorite films to come out of my Blind Spot lists. Joe and Jerry couldn't be any bigger fish then they are, dressed as women hiding out with an all female traveling band.  2) The Devil Wears Prada Poor Andi, she just doesn't get or appreciate fashion, despite her job in the world of high fashion. This film makes me want to go shopping every time I watch it.  3) Brooklyn Eilis is an Irish girl trying to make it in Brooklyn by herself with her family back in Ireland. I have so much love for this character. While she's not the only fish out of that pond, it's still amazing watching her come i...

DIY the pain away. Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) loses his wife in a tragic car crash. While sitting in the ICU, he gets his candy stuck in a vending machine, and ends up writing a series of letters explaining his predicament to their customer service department. Karen (Naomi Watts) reads them and becomes concerned, and reaches out to him. Davis realizes that he was coasting through his life previously. He was always told he didn't pay enough attention, and now he's finding that to be true. Aside from writing letters to Karen to cope, he also starts to crave working with his hands, and disassembles quite a few different things. I felt like this movie had something interesting to say, but then ran out of those things about half way through. For a film as short as this one, it drags in the 2nd half. Davis goes from coping with his own trauma to trying to figure out what's going on with Karen's teenage son, and while it provides some nice moments, it mostly felt force...

I'm so glad The Walking Dead is over, none of my shows pissed me off this week. It's been so long. Better Call Saul While Mike continues to creep on the Salamancas, Jimmy is working hard to screw over Chuck. Howard and Chuck took Kim's big clients away from her, so while Chuck is having a panic attack over his electricity allergy, Jimmy takes a bunch of his documents to a copy store and changes the addresses around. I feel almost as corrupt as Jimmy here. I should feel bad for a clearly mentally ill man being taken advantage of.... but I don't Fuck Chuck. Agents of SHIELD After last week's spectacular filler episode, Mac sits this one out and we end up with an hour full of character development and plot advancements. That was nice. (And we also saw that damn space ship again) Daisy encounters another InHuman, Charles,  that can make you see the future by touching you, and in those visions, someone always dies. It was profoundly sad to listen to t...

Putting up a good front. Laney (Sarah Silverman) is her own worst enemy. It's hinted that she's suffered from some type of mental illness for awhile. Possibly depression and bipolar disorder. At this point in her life, married to a supportive husband, Bruce (Josh Charles) with two children, she's just being destructive. She drinks too much, sneaks into her bathroom to snort cocaine, she's having an affair with a friend. After all of this comes crashing down, Laney goes to treatment in an attempt to get things back to normal. Silverman was a surprise SAG nominee for this role, though after seeing it, it's no surprise at all. She was great. I knew she had dramatic chops in her when I saw her supporting role in Take This Waltz . Here she commands every second of screen time and was so believable in playing an addict. An especially weird one, mind you. There's a few really uncomfortable scenes in here. Josh Charles is also very realistic as the supportiv...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is something I love. I fucking LOVE campy movies. We film fans spend so much time being lost in these amazing films and trying to decipher them. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and watch something so bad it's good. 1) White Chicks I've written about this film being my guilty pleasure before. I had a nice time seeing this with friends in high school and I still love it. I don't care how terrible it is. I will laugh at Terry Crews in this movie for the rest of my life. "Eaaasssssy White Chocolate." 2) Sleepaway Camp I love campy horror films. This film is pretty terrible, but the ending is actually really surprising. I didn't see it coming at all. I think I was 14 or 15 when I saw this. It's all over the internet, so even if you haven't seen it you probably know it. Still, it's something else.  3) The Room I participated in this "So You Think You Can Review...

Kill first, protocol later. Eye in the Sky spans three countries. In England, we have Col Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) who has been tracking an English citizen turned extremist for six years, and has finally found her in Nairobi. She's holed up in a house with a bunch of explosives and two men putting on suicide bomber vests. General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) is also in England, communicating with Powell while he sits in the room with the Attorney General and other powerful members who are not used to war. On the ground in Africa is Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) who is flying a little beetle with a camera inside to see what the terrorists are doing. In the United States, there's Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) and Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox) who are operating a drone high in the sky above the house. But when they're given orders to shoot, conscience gets in the way and everyone finds themselves between a rock and hard place. Without the cast, I'm not sure if I woul...

The Wa lking Dead Well, we made it. The season finale of what I'm going back and forth on as being the worst season of TWD to date. (Season 4 was pretty terrible, it might still be worse, but this was terrible TV too) And how does TWD reward you after it's hyped its new big bad all season? With a finale of filler and a massive cop out ending. I really hope critics and viewers continue to call out the show on their bullshit. The ended a lackluster season with a pathetic attempt to get big ratings for their season premiere, even though anyone following filming spoilers will know who the person is that died in May. It's too bad Negan can't bash all of our brains in for putting up with this show. I feel bad for everyone that doesn't read spoilers and didn't know this was coming. Gimple knew Negan was going to be the very last moment of this season, so he stalled, he dragged out stories, he gave come characters personality transplants and forced arcs that made ...

Love. Hardship. Bluegrass? Set in Belgium, Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) is a banjo player in a blue grass band that falls for a tattoo artist named Elise. (Veerle Baetens) They're so different, but he takes to her free spirit and she takes to singing in his band. Eventually they have a daughter, Maybelle (Nell Cattrysse) who develops, and later dies of cancer at only 6 years old. This drives Didier and Elise further apart and their conflicting beliefs on faith do nothing to help. It's interesting to see American bluegrass in a film from Belgium. Heldenbergh also wrote the story, which was originally a play. It got lukewarm reviews when it first came out a few years ago, so my expectations were fairly low, but I was surprised despite it's flaws how much I enjoyed it. Heldenberg and Baetens have excellent chemistry, so it makes it that much harder when life starts driving them apart. The story is told in fragments, frequently jumping around in the narrative. I th...