Rambling Film

It's another TV week from Wandering Through the Shelves . This week we're talking about the entertainment business. This one was a bit tough for me. (Seriously, I almost chose Hannah Montana) but I managed to find three shows that I enjoyed. 1) Feud: Bette and Joan This was such a fantastic mini series. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford were already larger than life and Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange were the perfect powerhouses to play them. 2) American Dreams This show wasn't on very long, but it was about American Bandstand and they frequently had singers like Kelly Clarkson guest star in roles. Most of those performances can be found on Youtube. 3) 30 Rock  I didn't watch all of 30 Rock, this is one of those shows that I would sit down and watch if it was on, but never followed it all the way through. Even so, every episode I saw was hilarious. 

Never tell me the odds. Because he became the smuggler/war general we all know and love, Han (Alden Ehrenreich) was just another scrapper trying to get off of a nowhere planet with his girl, Qi'ra. (Emila Clarke) He meets Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson) and joins him and his team on a mission that changes everything. Despite Han Solo being one of my favorite Star Wars characters, I can't say I was hoping for an origin story for him. I love Harrison Ford as Han and seeing someone else fill his shoes was never high on my priority list. After watching this film, fun as it is. It's easily the most mediocre of the new batch of Star Wars films. The thing I loved the most about this movie ended up being Chewbacca. After seeing the previews, Lando stood out to me. I was interested in seeing Donald Glover's take the character but he still came in second to Chewy. I knew I was supposed to feel some type of way about Han stepping foot in the Falcon for the first ti...

I want to burn. In the future, books are illegal and burned on sight. Firefighters no longer put out fires, they find books to burn. Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan) was content with being a firefighter and looking up to his superior, Captain Beatty. (Michael Shannon) But then he starts remembering things, and an encounter with Clarisse (Sofia Boutella) changes everything he knows. I never read the book this is based on. I understand there were some big changes, like the technology in the future. For someone that didn't have that preset expectation, I thought it looked really cool and made sense. If they've taken over the internet and wanted to maintain control over everyone 24/7, why wouldn't the buildings look like they do here?  The Michaels have had a great year. This is the second of two strong performances Michael Shannon gave on TV this year, though I think he was better in the brilliant mini series Waco . Michael B. Jordan, of course brought us one of t...

We're getting friendly this week for Thursday Movie Picks. Wanderer wants us to pick movies about friendships. This is another topic with plenty of movies to choose from, so I decided to dive into my Indie Gems for picks. 1) Water Lilies This lovely little French film follows three girls who meet at the pool over summer break and the semi-love triangle that forms. There's lots of angst but lots of beauty as well. 2) All The Days Before Tomorrow Wes and Alison are best friends who probably could've been a couple had the timing been right. Before Alison leaves to move to Japan she and Wes take a trip down memory lane.  3) Driving Lessons This is a bit of a quirky/dumb comedy but it reunites Rupert Grint and Julie Walters. Ben forms a friendship with Evie when he goes to work for her. 

What I knew going in: As weird as this sounds, I thought I had seen this when I was a teenager and just forgotten most of it, but as I watched it in full now, I'm fairly sure I was confusing it with something else.  Ann (Andie MacDowell) is pretty indifferent to sex at this point in her life. Her husband, John (Peter Gallagher) has started an affair with Ann's sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo)  in the meantime. When John's old college friend Graham (James Spader) comes back to town after a long absence, he changes the lives of everyone involved.  You would think with a title like this there would be a ton of nudity and sex scenes, but there isn't, and that's the beauty of it. This film makes its dialogue about sex. It's discussed, described, implied off screen, but never gratuitously shown.  Director  Steven Soderbergh is an interesting filmmaker. When I view several films from one director, I'm always trying to find their style. What makes them th...

Get small. When scientists figure out a way to shrink humans to about 5 inches tall in order to save the planet, Paul (Matt Damon) and his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) think it will be for them. They're struggling with money but what they do have saved will translate into millions once they shrink. When Audrey bails on Paul after his procedure, he finds he can't live like the king he wanted, and is forced to get another meaningless job there. It's only through his easy going Serbian neighbor Dusan (Christoph Waltz) that he meets Ngoc (Hong Chau) and finally starts to see the bright side of things again. I wasn't so sure about this film when it was in theaters. Matt Damon is kind of on my shit list at the moment, and the trailer showed so much of Kristen Wiig whom I can't stand. Thankfully, she completely disappears after the first 15 minutes and Damon, personal life aside is actually very good in this role.  They don't spend a lot of time with the s...

Plot twist.........actually not really, but this week at Wandering Through the Shelves we're talking about twisty thrillers. This is such a broad topic and there are so many great films that fall into it. I have a little theme within a theme here. These are thrillers that I saw quite some time after they were actually released.  1) Frailty  I was so late in seeing this film. I didn't see it until 2013 and I happened to catch it on IFC one afternoon. I was blown away by it, and my husband couldn't believe I had never seen it before.  2) Fight Club My friends and I put this in one night at their house, and the first words out of someone's mouth were "can you believe...*spoils ending*" Followed by several apologies because I was the only one that hadn't seen it. Even knowing the ending ahead of time, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie.  3) Mulholland Drive This was on one of my Blind Spot lists and I'm so glad I watched it. Don'...

I'm here to help you too. Surprise! I actually saw something new instead of going to see Infinity War again. Marlo (Charlize Theron) is about to have her third child. It wasn't planned, she already has her hands full with two other children, one with special needs and her husband Drew (Ron Livingston) is utterly useless. Her rich brother, Craig (Mark Duplass) gifts her a night nanny in the form of Tully (Mackenzie Davis) who is there to make Marlo's life easier.  There's been a lot of think pieces written about this film, which I will address after I give my rating because I can't do so without spoilers. The review itself is spoiler free. Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody make a good team. Bringing back Theron after working with her in Young Adult was a great move on their part as well. Unlike her character in that film, I found Marlo to be believable and I understood her struggle. Marlo needs Tully because she has no support system anywhere. The...

I consider the Cannes film festival somewhat of a frenemy. Many times I've been tricked into watching a film because of a reaction it got at Cannes, and only half the time do I love them. Cannes introduced me to one of my least favorite filmmakers, Lars Von Trier when I watched a film solely because people lost their shit over it at Cannes. But this week, Wanderer wants us to talk about Cannes favorites. So don't worry, no AntiChrist or Melancholia rants from me.  1) The Piano This Palme d’Or winner is a beautiful film. It features one of my favorite piano pieces - The Heart Asks Pleasure First, and of course some wonderful performances.  2) Drive Drive was so good and so well liked at Cannes that it almost made me blindly accept anything Nicholas Winding Refn made. Coming back down to Earth after seeing Only God Forgives was tough.  3) Raw This made my Top 10 list last year. This French cannibal feature doesn't sound like it would be a huge hit ...

Bow down Patti (Danielle Macdonald) is an aspiring rapper who is seemingly stuck in her hometown in New Jersey. She's not taken seriously, especially when her mother is a fairly well known local singer herself. She's also ridiculed for things like her weight and social status. At a show, Patti and her best friend  Jheri (Siddharth Dhananjay)   meet a performer/producer named Basterd the AntiChrist (Mamoudou Athie) and the unlikely trio comes together to form a group and chase their dreams.  I first heard of this film when it was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, but I hadn't seen many reviews of it. So when it was an option for an in flight movie, I wanted to give it a chance.  I absolutely love the three leads in this. Macdonald, Dhananjay and Athie have fantastic chemistry together and are completely immersed in their roles. Even if the film follows a pretty typical formula these three are so different from what I'm used to seeing that ...

This week's theme from Wandering Through the Shelves is all about a new start. Everyone dreams of those at least once, right? Here are a few of my favorite films that are trying to make that new start a reality 1) Ingrid Goes West After a stint in a mental institution Ingrid takes her inheritance money and goes off to California to stalk her newest Instagram obsession and to give herself that perfect social media life she craves. This was one of my favorites from last year.  2) Silver Linings Playbook Pat, like Ingrid in my first pick is also fresh out of a stint in a mental institution for beating up his ex-wife's lover. He's on a good set of meds and he's ready to be a changed man. I think this film gets a lot of flack nowadays but I still really love it.  3) For A Good Time, Call... Lauren gets dumped by her boyfriend and let go from her job at the same time. Her new start comes in the form of getting a new room mate who moonlights as a phon...