Rambling Film

Way to go, Dad. Francisca (played by Olivia Bond as a child then Kika Magalhaes as an adult) lives in the secluded countryside with her parents. (Diana Agostini and Paul Nazak) Her mother is a former surgeon and teaches her not to be afraid of cutting things open, then sewing them up. One day, a tragedy happens that shapes Francisca forever and completely changes her outlook on life. To call this movie "fucking creepy" is a massive understatement. This isn't a horror film that's going to get you with jump scares, but like my last Indie Gem The Living and the Dead , it's one that's going to make you uncomfortable the entire time you're watching it.  Kika Magalhaes plays Francisca with a quiet naivety that's perfect for the tone of this film. I never questioned how she was able to pull off the things she did when she's so unassuming. If I have one complaint, it's that this didn't need to be shot in black and white. I think colo...

It's another TV edition this week. Wanderer asks us to choose TV shows that are period dramas. I don't watch too many of these. Most recently I tried to watch Taboo and ended up falling asleep. I started watching Deadwood, but I haven't gotten far with it so I had to cheat a bit with my last pick. 1) Boardwalk Empire This show took place in Atlantic City in the 20's. It was very well acted and produced. Not perfect, in fact, they killed off one character far too early that really damaged the show, but not badly enough to stop watching. Plus Michael Shannon got to lose his shit and kill a a few people, which is always fun.  2)The Crown Having heard good things about this Netflix drama and seeing all the awards they won, I decided to give it a shot and it's pretty good. I'll definitely watch season 2. I didn't realize Prince Phillip was such a dick. (Maybe he isn't, I'm too lazy to research the Monarchy to find out) 3) Mad Men He...

Fuck ups: The Movie A team of scientists are on board the International Space Station. There's David Jordan, (Jake Gyllenhaal) Sho Murakami,(Hiroyuki Sanada) Rory Adams, (Ryan Reynolds) Miranda North, (Rebecca Ferguson) Hugh Derry, (Ariyon Bakare) and their commander Ekaterina Golovkina. (Olga Dihovichnaya) They're studying a life form that they've pulled off Mars in a controlled environment. But of course, mistakes are made and the life form evolves too rapidly and begins to cause problems to say the least. I wasn't planning on seeing this film. I lost the "what movie should we see?" debate but I have to admit it ended up being better than I thought it would. It was never boring, but it doesn't really add anything new to the sci fi horror genre. This movie could've practically been connected to the Alien trilogy. It didn't have many original thoughts.  The acting was good. I cared about all of the characters even though they get pu...

Life is hard. Courgette (Erick Abbate) is a 9 year old boy who lives with his alcoholic mother. She calls him "Zucchini" which he insists on being called after he's taken away from her and sent to live at a group home by a policeman named Raymond (Nick Offerman) At first he has trouble fitting in, but when a new girl Camille (Ness Krell) comes to live at the home, he develops a crush that causes him to open up a bit more. I didn't realize at first that I was going to see the English dub of this Oscar nominated cartoon from Switzerland. At first, it bothered me a bit, not getting to hear it in French, but the moment Offerman started speaking that all went away. His voice, like many of the others is perfect. An animated movie about a foster home is a hard sell, but My Life as a Zucchini manages to explore some very heavy themes all while keeping it somewhat light. The children are beautifully naive at times, and at others so sad and fragile. It reminded m...

What I knew going in: I knew of the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Also stupid trivia fact: This was the movie playing at the theater in the House of Wax remake. Baby Jane Hudson (Bette Davis) was once a child star. At some point, her sister Blanche (Joan Crawford) became a better actress and took all the limelight. Not wanting to be a brat like Jane, Blanche wrote it in her contract that Jane must get a movie every time she does. Years later, Blanche is confined to a wheelchair and relies on her sister, now a serious drunk for help.  I wanted to see this one before Feud started airing on FX.(I watched this in February) I'm so glad I rushed because it was amazing. Davis is absolutely marvelous as the washed up Jane. Crawford's Blanche gets to be very kind and pleasant, so it's Davis that gets to have all the fun. The way the film is shot is very dated. It tries hard to avoid any type of gore that could stem from the story, but the atmosphere is perf...

This week's theme from W andering Through the Shelves is one you probably won't see coming. It's the underdogs. The ones we either don't see or root for despite not being the obvious choice. There's a lot to choose from this week, here are some that I enjoy. 1) Zootopia I actually had a different pick here at first, then I realized I wanted to use it later. Luckily, Allie accidentally posted her Underdog picks a few months ago and I was so inspired by one of her choices that I stole it. lol Judy is the perfect underdog.   2) Dodgeball This is one of my all time favorite comedies. It's completely ridiculous but how can you not love this thrown together dodgeball team? 3) The Replacements This one is more for the nostalgia factor. My friend and I used to watch this DVD quite a bit in high school when we couldn't decide on something else. It's not the greatest, but it brings back good memories. 

These benefits are not worth it. In Bogota, Columbia there is an office building on the outskirts of of the city belonging to Belko Industries. It seems just like any other day for their employees, until they notice the heightened security. They assume it's just a threat and push on. There's Mike ( John Gallagher Jr.) who's in a relationship with Leandra (Adria Arjona) Leandra has to put up with the unwanted advances of Wendell.(John C. McGinley) There's Dany (Melonie Diaz) who is just starting her first day. And then there's COO Barry (Tony Goldwyn) trying to take charge. In total, 80 people are in the Belko building today. Suddenly, a loud speaker goes off and an unknown voice informs the employees that if they don't kill a certain number of their colleagues, these people will double that. It's impossible to ignore the political undertones of this movie. I don't think it was intentional. James Gunn wrote this film a while ago, but I couldn...

Or how not to make a "day in the life of a historical event" film. *Spoilers ahead for 37 , Bobby , and Orange is the New Black * I decided to forego my traditional review format for a little film I watched on Netflix recently called 37 . (As I'm sure you'll be able to tell from this post, I would've given it an F) 37 is a fictional account about the large group of bystanders that either saw or heard Kitty Genovese being murdered and did nothing about it. Kitty was a real person, as anyone who has ever taken an American criminal justice class would know and what happened to her was awful. What drew me to select this film? Well, to be honest, I started thinking of Orange is the New Black again, and how upset I was that they killed off Poussey. So when I saw Samira Wiley's face on it, I thought "why not?" The film tries to make us care. Wiley and Michael Potts play a black couple moving into a white neighborhood in the 60's. Mari...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is movies set in the ancient world. To be honest, I hate most movies that fall into this theme. I have no idea why, I have nothing against the theme itself. I just feel like this is a pretty easy one to fuck up. Here are a few that I enjoy 1) Troy I swear I don't like this movie just because Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom are super hot....okay, that's most of it.  2) 300 This one I actually do like, it was different and those slow motion shots were great. 3) Hercules I was tempted to use the Rock version just for the line "fucking centaurs" but I legitimately love this cartoon. The Muses' for life. 

Really, British legal system? Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) is a professor and historian living in Atlanta, GA. She publishes a book about Holocaust denial and in it, she calls a spade a spade and refers to a man named David Irving (Timothy Spall) as a denier. He in turn, sues her for libel in England where she's forced to prove that SHE is the correct one because that's how the legal system works. Luckily for her, she has two very competent lawyers, Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkinson) and Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) to guide her along the way. This is based on a true story and immediately grabbed my interest. I wrote a lengthy paper on Holocaust deniers in high school after encountering one and being baffled that these people actually exist. I wish I could remember the books I referenced in that paper. I almost wonder if Lipstadt's was one of them.  The film's strongest moments are in the courtroom. Before the trial happens, I found the dialogue to be ki...

He's a God here. Bill Randa (John Goodman) and Houston Brooks (Corey Hawkins) work for a a mysterious company and are heading a mission to a remote island in the south Pacific that has gone mostly unnoticed due to a storm that constantly surrounds it. All they have is satellite images and a hunch of what could be there. They meet up with with a group of soldiers that were just about to come home from the Vietnam war, Colonel Samuel L. Jackson, (Samuel L. Jackson) Mills, (Jason Mitchell) Cole, (Shea Whigham) Slivko (Thomas Mann) among others. A few scientists San, and Nieves (Tian Jing and John Oritiz) a photo journalist, Weaver (Brie Larson) and a British tracker Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) and set off for the island. There, they encounter Kong, and a lot more.  Monster movies tend to have bland characters and thus, you don't really care for them and only want to see carnage. That's half true for Kong . I did care about what happens to a few of them, like those playe...

Does anything ever go right in a huge creepy mansion? "Ex-Lord" Donald Brocklebank (the late Roger Lloyd Pack) owns a sprawling mansion that's falling apart. On top of that, he has to take care of his bed ridden wife, Nancy (Kate Fahy) and his mentally ill son, James. (Leo Bill) When Donald is called away to settle his bankruptcy, he hires a nurse to look after Nancy. James isn't very pleased with that, and is determined to take care of his mother himself. He locks the nurse out, and stops taking his own medication. Of course, everything goes down hill. This might be one of the most effective horror movies I've ever seen. Nearly everything about it was hard to watch. There's no supernatural forces here. It's all about mental illness, it's difficulty, and what happens when it's not managed. The film handles that subject with care. Leo Bill could've easily given a disrespectful performance here, but he doesn't. Fahy and Pack are al...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is very different from what we're used to. These movies don't actually exist yet. Wanderer asks us which sequels and/or remakes of films we would actually like to see? That's a good question. At first I thought I'd only stick with sequels, then I remembered an entire trilogy of films that should be remade.  1) Moonlight Our time with Chiron wasn't finished, damn it! I needed to see what happened to him and Kevin. I don't even need a full on sequel, just give me 20 more minutes. My curiosity is endless.   2)  The Star Wars Prequels I would redo all of these and remove them from canon. When we meet Anakin, he would already be an adult. There would be no Jar Jar, less politics, and no midicholrians.  3) Ain't Them Bodies Saints I would like a sequel that shows Ruth and Patrick actually living a good life together.  Bonus: The Harry Potter Series - This is a bonus because I'd like...

She's just like you. It's 2029, Logan (Hugh Jackman) is one of the few mutants left. There's no more X-Men, he isn't healing like he used to. He cares for Charles Xavier, (Patrick Stewart) who now suffers from Alzheimers in a secret location on the Mexican boarder. Then he crosses paths with a new mutant. An experiment, Laura (Dafne Keen) who is being pursued by the organization that made her. Charles and Logan must get her to the Canadian border to safety. Nothing will ever make up for the continuity clusterfuck that has become the X-Men franchise, but Logan almost does. We've watched Logan through so many time lines, that's it hard not to take his new state personally. He's beat down, ill, has no nope. He's reluctant to help Laura. It's all Charles's idea at first, and it's hard to watch him in his current state as well. Logan makes the best use of it's new R rating. It's brutal and gritty, which is exactly the way ...

Never meet the parents. Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is meeting his girlfriend, Rose's (Allison Williams) parents for the first time. He's concerned about how they'll take him as a black man dating their white daughter. But she brushes off his concerns. When he arrives he realizes that something far more sinister is happening when he sees her parents' black employees acting strangely. The minute I saw this trailer, with Kaluuya and Jordan Peele's names on it, I knew I had to see it. I expected this to be more of a comedy than a horror film, but it isn't. While it's absolutely hilarious at times, it gets downright creepy in several places. It's far scarier than I would've expected it to be.  I feel like I can't do justice in describing the most important thing about Get Out , which is how it handles race. Every time I type something, it just feels wrong or stupid. Someone said it better elsewhere. To me, it brought forth the "I don...

"We're a mess." Frank (Michael Shannon) is a chef is Las Vegas. His girlfriend, Lola (Imogen Poots) is fresh out of college and is working as a graphic designer. After a rough spot in their relationship, Frank learns about a man in Lola's past named Alan (Michael Nyqvist) and while he goes to Paris for an audition to be executive chef at a new restaurant, he decides to pay him a visit. I really enjoy short crime/thrillers. Red Eye is another that comes to mind. Frank & Lola clocks in at 88 minutes and doesn't give us time to drag. It's also a very understated thriller. No car chases, no one gets murdered. At the heart of it, it's really about these two people deciding how much their relationship means to them.  Shannon and Poots are both very good. They have believable chemistry and despite how cold they are to each out in various points of the film, you want them to work out.  Grade: B Memorable quote: "What should I orde...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves probably doesn't want you to know where it is. It's all about characters that are on the run from something or someone. I tried to think outside of the box a little, since all the films that first came to mind are very popular (Bonnie and Clyde, Natural Born Killers, No Country for Old Men, Catch Me If You Can, etc) Here's what I came up with 1) Dirty Girl Danielle decides to run away from home and she ends up taking her classmate Clarke, and their bag of flour that they're supposed to be pretending is their baby with her. It has a horrible title but is actually a lovely little film. 2) Looper Joe's job as a "Looper" means he has to eventually "close his loop" IE kill his future self as part of his job description, but when he fails to do that, he ends up on the run from the Gat Men as he tries to find out who the mysterious "Rain Maker" is. I love this fi...

If you're not familiar with m.brown's blog, Two Dollar Cinema  you need to be, because whether you know it or not, something is missing from your life.  He's brought back his Mr. Rushmore of movies blogathon, which I'm thankful he still talks to me after I submitted this last time around. The rules are simple: 1)  I'd like to have all posts done by Friday, March 3rd (where I'll create a master list, linking back to all of your, er, both of your sites), but it's cool if you finish way before that. Or later. I'll update as they come in. 2)  Send me a heads up on twitter @twodollarcinema , reply in the comments below, text me, e-mail me (twodollarcinema@gmail.com), smoke signals, Bat-signals, non-verbal cues, Beastmaster handshakes - whatever! when you've finished, okay? Cool. 3)  In your post, please use the rad banner my wife designed after forcing me to do the Truffle Shuffle. Okay, she would never do that...but still.  4)  Share the an...