Rambling Film

OMFG Ray (Elle Fanning) wants to transition to the boy she was always meant to be. Her mother, Maggie (Naomi Watts) is understanding but reluctant to sign over the papers to make the big decision. She's getting pressure from her mother (Susan Surandon) and then faces another hurtle when she needs to get Ray's father, who's not in the picture's signature on the forms. This movie was originally titled About Ray and was supposed to be released two years ago. It was pulled a mere days before it's scheduled release. That's the first indicator that something is wrong, but that didn't stop me from watching. Holy shit, it's like I turned on Lifetime. There is so much damn melodrama in this film that I sat there incredulously wondering how this happened. This movie has good bones and a talented cast, who approved these writing choices? When Ray decides to scream at the top of her lungs to diffuse a fight going on between her parents I basicall...

Never let me go. An Australian tourist Clare (Theresa Palmer) meets local Andi (Max Riemelt) while exploring Berlin. They hit it off and end up at his secluded apartment building to hook up. The next day, Clare wakes up to find herself locked in his apartment with no way to escape. Andi has no intentions of letting her leave. Don't worry, it's not torture porn, though the premise makes it sound like it could be. I'm actually really torn on this film even though I'm offering it up as an Indie Gem. I think it does an interesting job of trying to show how Stockholm Syndrome effects people. Andi wants to make Clare into his girlfriend. Yes, she tries to escape many times, but then she also shows compassion towards him. When a family member of his dies, she comforts him. He brings home a puppy that she happily plays with. It's only when she gets glimpses of the real world that Clare seems to remember she needs to leave, and that is quite fascinating. It...

It's another TV week at Wandering Through the Shelves . This week I have to cheat a little. There are only two shows I watched with subtitles. One is Inuyasha, which I already chose, and the other is Attack on Titan, which I haven't finished, and probably need to completely start over since it's been so long since I started watching it. The following three shows I watched in English dubs, but they originated in other languages. 1) Fullmetal Alchemist I don't know if I've ever talked about how watching anime was considered social suicide in my high school? If you watched anime and admitted it, you were a dork. If you cared too much about what other people thought (like me) you watched anime on the DL. Fullmetal Alchemist was one of those shows I watched even though it was so fucking weird.  Years later when I went home for Thanksgiving and met up with a bunch of classmates for a beer, we somehow got into a discussion about anime and just about every singl...

A colossal military disaster.  In 1940, allied troops are stranded on the beach of Dunkirk, France with enemies closing in from the land, and picking them off from the sky. We follow three different stories spanning different times. The Mole , lasts one week and follows soldiers attempting to get off the beaches. The Sea takes place in a day, and follows a civilian Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) as he and other sailors respond to calls for help from Dunkirk. The 3rd story is The Air , which takes place in an hour and follows a pilot (Tom Hardy) as he attempts to stop the enemies from above.  I can't think of another movie where I had this sentiment, but character development barely matters here and Nolan spends no time on it. It works, because we don't need to know these soldiers' and civilians' back stories. We already sympathize with them trying to escape a desperate situation. We start right in the action and stay there the entire time. Anything else would...

That's a lot of pressure, right? To know you've been chosen to do something that's probably really dangerous and important. This week Wanderer asks us to talk about said chosen ones. We're about to get franchise-y up in here. 1) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 The boy who lived, come to die. Words cannot describe how much the Harry Potter franchise means to me. This film is my favorite of the bunch. Mostly because Ron and Hermione finally kissed. 2) Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith Okay, so the Star Wars prequels were mostly awful but RotS was at least watchable. You were the chosen one Anakin, and look where you are now. Obi Wan kicked your ass. 3) The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King Frodo finally brings the ring to Mordor. He never expects to make it, but he does. I love these movies too. I only re-watch the extended versions though, especially of this one. One does not simply exclude that Saruman death scene.

What I knew going in: I had seen parts of this film before, but never in order. We follow three boys in inner city Los Angeles. There's Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.), who is raised by his father "Furious" (Laurence Fishburne) to have a strong sense of character and his friends, half brothers Ricky (Morris Chestnut)  and Darren (Ice Cube) who are taking two very different paths.  For all the times I managed to catch this film on TV, I never realized that it actually started with our three leads as children. Another one of the many reasons I love the Blind Spot Series.  Boyz in the Hood still feels very relevant today with its commentary on racism and violence. It's well paced and even though you know something awful is likely going to happen, that's not the point. The violence in that place and time was predictable and that's the saddest thing of all.  Fishburne was the standout to me. Furious' name seems like it would come from what lies beneath. He...

Hail, Caesar Two years after hate filled Koba started a conflict between human and apes, that war is still raging on. Caesar (Andy Serkis) has hidden his colony of apes deep in the forest. When he shows human soldiers mercy, their Colonel (Woody Harrelson) repays him in kind by orchestrated a night time raid on Caeser's colony. Now hellbent on revenge, Caesar attempts to leave on his own to find the Colonel, however a few of his loyal followers, Maurice (Karin Konoval) Rocket (Terry Notary) and Luca (Michael Adamthwaite) don't let him go solo. I've really come to love the Planet of the Apes franchise. I've always enjoyed the movies, but in the past year or so I've really come to love them even more. I'd go back and bump up my original letter grades from B's to A's on each film if I believed in altering my old reviews. War does what I wish the other films had done more of: they focus on the Apes, the humans have even less screen time here.  ...

The nominations for the biggest night in TV are here! With my favorite show, Game of Thrones taking a seat this year, it made the Drama Series category very interesting to me. Below are the nominees followed by my thoughts.  OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES Better Call Saul The Crown The Handmaid’s Tale House of Cards Stranger Things This Is Us Westworld Game of Thrones won last year so their spot was up for grabs. I'm bummed Mr. Robot missed out, but with The Crown and The Handmaid's Tale getting raves, I knew it was going to be tough. I still wish I could sub House of Cards for them though.   OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA  SERIES Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us Anthony Hopkins, Westworld Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul Matthew Rhys, The Americans Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan Kevin Spacey, House of Cards Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us Last year's winner Rami Malek was shut out. I think that's ridiculous. Did Milo really need to be there? I'm surprised...

This week Wanderer asks us to talk about amusement parks. I've always been a fan of those. Sure, they're over priced but I like to wander around and eat fair food. Here are three of my favorite films that take place at amusement parks, although I would never want to visit these. 1) Zombieland It's the zombie apocalypse and the place to be is at an amusement park. Sure, there's zero logic in that idea but why not ride that roller coaster one last time? 2) Jurassic Park I love dinosaurs. I loved learning about them as a kid. If I was offered the chance to go to an amusement park where they recreated dinosaurs? Fuck no. I know what's going to happen. (it involves being eaten) 3) Adventureland This park isn't as stressful as the other ones. It's just basic to the point where the entire staff is bored. Still, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart have great chemistry. 

When you're tired of waiting.. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) isn't exactly adjusting back to his high school life very well after being called upon by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) in Civil War . Parker attempts to prove he's ready to fight alongside the Avengers by trying to help people around New York. He ends up encountering a man named Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) who makes a living selling alien weapons to criminals and this provides Peter with his biggest solo threat since. It feels good to have Spider-Man back in the MCU. His cameo was perfect in Civil War and his first solo outing was good as well. While Tobey will always hold a dear spot in my heart, I think Holland is the best Spiderman we've had. He captures that naivety and humor Peter has perfectly.  Homecoming finds a good balance between Peter's school life and his new life of fighting crime. Vulture was a good villain. He felt fleshed out and the film even took the time to give us a q...

Therapy all around. Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) are a married couple in Tehran who are forced to evacuate their apartment. While performing "Death of a Salesman" on stage, one of their castmates offers them a temporary apartment where the previous tenant had lots of visitors. When Rana is assaulted by one of these visitors, Emad struggles with wanting to go after that person and trying to understand how to support Rana through this trauma. Director Asghar Farhadi impressed (and infuriated me) in 2011 with A Separation so I was happy to see him getting Oscar attention again for this again. He crafts fascinating character studies. At times it's hard to watch Rana and Emad navigate the murky waters of PTSD. You want them to go to group therapy together and just LISTEN to each other, but it's never that simple. Farhadi and Alidoosti are great in their roles. The film handles the assault very delicately and nothing graphic is shown o...

Ahh summer. Remember when you looked forward to that when you're in school? Now when you're an adult and a parent like me. You look forward to the lovely weather then groan internally for three minutes over the fact that you have to find daycare for a few months. Wanderer asks for summer vacation movies, and here's three I think you should see. 1) The Kings of Summer I was not expecting to like this movie. I'm in that point in my life where I struggle with watching movies about teenagers because I suddenly feel so old. But this one is great, and I can't get enough of Nick Offerman 2) My Girl One of my favorites growing up. I liked Vada a lot. As a kid, she felt very familiar to me. I still cry when I watch this. 3) My Summer of Love Teenage Emily Blunt had it then. This movie about two girls and well, their summer of love. It's a beautiful film. 

You mad, bro? When young Amy (Oona Laurence) stumbles upon wounded Corporal McBurney (Colin Farrell) in the forest, she brings him back to her mostly empty school for girls. Headmistress Martha (Nicole Kidman) decides they will treat him instead of giving him up to Confederate soldiers but soon the teachers and a few older students find themselves trying too hard to get his attention. I never saw the original so I can't compare it to that, but this film was very Sofia Coppola. It's slow, methodical, and beautifully shot. It also ended up being way more amusing than I think it meant to be when you realize that some of these women just really want the D. Story wise, there's not a lot here but it's enough to keep you interested. The cast is wonderful. Kidman is top notch, as is Kirsten Dunst. It's also nice to see Oona Laurence and Angourie Rice when they stole the shows in their last respective films ( Southpaw and The Nice Guys ) The only one I felt strugg...

All for the super pigs Mija (Seo-Hyun Ahn ) is a young girl in South Korea who has been raising a "super pig" named Okja for the last 10 years. You see, Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) is trying to pass off her company's genetically engineered food as more "heartwarming" so 26 super pigs were sent to farms all around the world 10 years prior to be raised, then entered in a quasi pig beauty contest for the "best" one. However that's all smoke and mirrors as the Mirando company really just plans on chopping them up and making food out of them. Mija is not too keen when Okja is taken from her farm to New York City. She attempts to follow, but runs into some animal rights activists (Paul Dano and Steven Yeun among others) who are trying to save Okja and expose the Mirando Corporation for what they really are. Okja is a fucking weird movie but in the best way. Nevermind the fact that you have this massive CGI pig running around. Jake Gyllenhaal ...