Rambling Film

I don't know... Lena (Natalie Portman) is a biologist whose husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac) went missing a year prior on a covert mission. When he suddenly reappears in bad shape, Lena is taking to a top secret facility. She meets with Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who explains her husband's mission consisted of him going into "The Shimmer." A strange bubble like substance engulfing an area of national park space. He's the only person they've sent in that has come back. Lena decides to join Ventress's mission into the Shimmer along with three other medical professionals/scientists. (played by Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez and Tuva Novotny)  I haven't read the book this film is based on so I can't comment on how well it's adapted, but I found this to be very thought provoking. After recently being let down with another scifi film, Mute , seeing this one meet high expectations was a relief. It's definitely weird and doesn't ...

We're almost a week away from March 4th ceremony. There's a chance that I won't be able to watch live which is currently gutting me at the moment. Time will tell. Until then, here are my predictions on who I think should win, and in some cases, who should win. Best Picture Call Me by Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Who will win: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Who should win: Three Billboards, Lady Bird, or Get Out I know The Shape of Water is picking up steam but I still don't think it has a realistic chance of bumping Three Billboards, which is fine with me.  Best Lead Actor Timothée Chalamet, “Call Me by Your Name” Daniel Day-Lewis, “Phantom Thread” Daniel Kaluuya, “Get Out” Gary Oldman, “Darkest Hour” Denzel Washington, “Roman J. Israel, Esq.” Who will win: Gary Oldman Who should win: Kaluuya or Chalamet Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz with this...

It's another TV week over at Wandering Through The Shelves and this time we're talking about legal dramas. Please allow me to take the stand and confess. Despite really loving legal dramas in film form, I actually don't watch any on TV. I thought about stretching the rules a bit and picking shows that just feature lawyers, but I'll play it straight. So below is one I watched and loved, one I've caught a few episodes of, and one I tried to watch and hated. 1) American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson The OJ verdict is the first big news story I can remember. I was seven. (Which makes me wonder what my own child will remember news wise? Hopefully it's Trump's impeachment.) Anywho - Aside from the verdict and everyone saying he was guilty, I actually didn't know much about the case to begin with. This show was pretty eye opening for me because I never researched it thoroughly and I was on the edge of my seat even though I knew the outcome. Thi...

It's a curse. When his ex wife decides to move their daughter further away, Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) talks his brother, Clyde (Adam Driver) and their sister Millie (Riley Keough) into robbing the Charlotte Motor Speedway during a Nascar race. They need the help of an incarcerated thief, Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) to pull this off, so they find a way to temporarily break him out of prison to assist. This film is a textbook example of actors elevating the material because script wise there were a lot of issues here. I felt like there were a lot of plot holes in their plan that they never properly filled in, and there were all these extra side characters played by Seth McFarlane, Hillary Swank, and Sebastian Stan that served little to no purpose. But there's something charming about Logan Lucky that makes it possible to look past these things.  Adam Driver was the standout for me. He's tremendous and while it has nothing to do with the film, I'm still baff...

The King has arrived. After the events of Captain America: Civil War , T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman) is heading back to his home country of Wakanda to officially become their King. When an old enemy Klaue (Andy Serkis) is spotted about to make an illegal vibrainium deal, T'Challa along with his general of his Dora Milage guard, Okoye, (Danai Guriria) his ex girlfriend and War Dog spy, Nakia, (Lupita Nyong'o) and some virtual help from his tech genius sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) They stumble upon Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) who has a very compelling reason to hate everything Wakanda stands for. Black Panther was a stand out in Civil War and now he comes to us with one of the most nuanced stories Marvel has every done. This is more than just a comic book movie. It's that, it sets up Infinity War subtly and nicely, but it's also a Bond film. A social commentary on privilege. A film showcasing female empowerment. It's so much and director Ryan Co...

What I knew going in: The story Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) is a lawyer who is wrongfully fired by his partners after they find out he has AIDS. He hires another lawyer, Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to defend him during his trial. Joe has to grapple with his own homophobia as he gets to know Andrew and fights for justice.  I love courtroom dramas. I haven't came across many that I didn't like and thankfully this didn't go that route either. I do think it played it rather safe. There are better films out there that address the AIDS crisis within the gay community. I feel like the filmmakers really wanted to touch on it, but were too afraid of how the public would take it. Tom Hanks is wonderful in this. You can see the pain in his eyes throughout. Denzel also brings his A game. Sometimes I wanted to laugh with Joe, and others I wanted to scream at him. He could've easily been completely unlikable but Denzel never lets it get to that.  This film however has ...

Would the world be a better place if we all spontaneously broke into song? Maybe. This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is all about that, but with a twist - they can't be from musicals. Here's what I came up with. 1) (500) Days of Summer Okay, they technically break into dance in this film as the lead isn't singing, but I absolutely loved the little number they did to "You Make My Dreams" in this movie.  2) 10 Things I Hate About You Heath Ledger singing "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You" will never not be sexy.  3) Step Brothers  I almost went with another one of my favorite comedies - Anchorman when they sang "Afternoon Delight", but then I remembered how hard I laughed in the theater when Derek's family sings "Sweet Child O' Mine" in the car. The kids are hamming it up, the wife is phoning it in, and the husband is annoyed.

Like most Oscar Seasons, the foreign language and documentary features I rarely get to see before the ceremony. Thanks to Netflix, I was able to catch a few of them before the Oscars. Here are some quick reviews of the ones I saw. The Square - I liked the idea of this movie far more than I liked the execution. It's about an art curator who has an idea for a new exhibit, but it really ends up being about an hour too long. With its avant garde style filming, having this film at 2 and a half hours just wasn't a good choice. It left too much room for dragging. C Last Men in Aleppo  - This film was incredibly heavy and I was heartbroken while watching it. It follows a group of White Helmets who stay in Aleppo helping their fellow Syrians during the on going civil war. It's atrocious what's happening there and how normal it has become. There's literally a scene where they have just pulled a dead baby out of the rubble, and someone mentions he has to leave at 6:...

5 star idea. Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) robs a bank with his mentally handicapped brother, Nick (Benny Safdie) in an attempt to make life better for them. Great idea, right? Of course it goes horribly wrong and now Nikas has to spend the rest of the night breaking his brother out of jail. Things get complicated in ways he never imagined. When I first saw previews for this film I thought it looked terrible. And to a degree, it does. It looks like it was shot by the actual characters in the film. The editing is jerky, some shots that were seemingly meant to be artistic are out of focus and "Good Time" is weirdly trademarked in the title cards (that practically go on for 20 minutes) But this film did something that I never expected, and it threw a curve ball I did not see coming.  I love when films surprise me. Maybe others saw the big wrench in the plan coming but I did not and I practically gawked at my TV when it happened. Robert Pattinson also gives an ex...

Romance is in the air! Wanderer wants us to talk about romance movies. These are hit and miss for me. I love romances, but not always movies centered around them. But there are a few I'm always here for. I swear I wasn't trying to do a depressing ending theme either.  1) Blue is the Warmest Color I was so into Adele's life and her love affair that I actually caught myself wondering if everything was going to work out with her after the credits rolled. That's remarkable. And on a completely immature note. This film holds a special place in my heart for having a sex scene that was long enough for my husband to go outside, shovel the sidewalk, and come back in to say "they're STILL having sex?" 2) Brokeback Mountain I'm not sure there will ever be a tragic romance I love more than Brokeback Mountain. This film is perfect in every single way.  3) Atonement Speaking of tragic romances, I felt like this film punched me in the face at t...

Who would you like to talk to? In the near future, a service provides holographic images of your lost loved ones so you have a chance to talk to them and cope. Marjorie (Lois Smith) is elderly and suffering from early dementia, but she chooses to speak with her late husband when he was in his 40's (John Hamm) Her daughter. Tess (Geena Davis) doesn't know how to process this, though her husband Jon (Tim Robbins) is very supportive. You can tell this film is based on a play, but it doesn't come to life on screen the way say, Fences does. It's very quiet and relies on long cuts. The problem with this is that even though there's conversations going on, when we jump to a new timeline it's almost jarring and it took me a few seconds for my mind to catch up with it. Whose passed on, who's a hologram now, the film doesn't do the greatest job of seamlessly changing scenes. I really like Lois Smith. I knew her from True Blood and she played this s...

This is how it starts. In an international space station, a team of scientists from around the world, Hamilton, (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) Kiel, (David Oyelowo) Schmidt, (Daniel Brühl) Monk, (John Ortiz) Mundy, (Chris O'Dowd) Volkov, (Aksel Hennie) and Tam (Ziyi Zhang) are attempting to test a device that would potentially solve the energy crisis going on in parts of the world. Before they try to fire it, we catch a quick glimpse of a fanantic on a news station warning about the terrible things they could cause by doing what they're doing. And of course, this comes back to bite them. I've said before how genius I thought the marketing for the original Cloverfield movie back in 2008 ones, and now The Cloverfield Paradox is giving them a run for their money. This was a Superbowl ad during last night's game, followed by the announcement that Netflix was going to drop it immediately after the game was over. That's never happened before (or if it has, at least not w...

Never surrender Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) is selected as Prime Minister of England during the worst possible time. This is during WWII, and Churchill must decide whether to negotiate with the enemy or continue to fight. I have been dragging my feet to see this. I like to see all the Best Picture nominees, but this one never looked that exciting to me. I double featured this with I, Tonya . So I was in an upbeat mood going in, hoping for the film to prove my judgement wrong.....but alas, this movie was just as dull as I expected. This film is essentially a bunch of old men arguing, with Lily James thrown in just for something different. She's our avatar for this story, she's the only one that stands out amongst the crowd. I appreciate the effort. This story, while important to history was always going to be an uphill battle. Director Joe Wright tries to throw us a few bones of humor but none of them work. It's still just boring.  I already saw a bett...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is about stories within stories. This kind of tripped me up a bit because I kept thinking of movies within movies instead, and I don't think that was the intention. I imagine these are going to be common picks. I couldn't think of anything clever 1) The Usual Suspects Keyser Soze tells the ultimate story. If you haven't seen the film, you've probably at least heard about the massive twist that blew everyone's mind back in 1996 when this film came out.  2) Nocturnal Animals  Aside from one directorial choice, I really loved this movie. The story here is so full of tension I was actually wishing it would hurry up and end at one point so I could breathe.  3) Forrest Gump This film is like Shawshank, it's always on TV and I always find myself watching it when it is. Film twitter seems to hate this movie, but I've never had an issue with it.