Rambling Film

I'm very excited to talk about this week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves because it's all about anthology series. Not only is one of my all time favorite TV shows an anthology, but there has been so many good ones on TV lately. Here are three of my favorites below.  1) Black Mirror Showcasing the dangers of technology, this is one of the best series I've ever seen. It's not perfect, a few of the episodes are duds, but the overwhelming majority are spectacular. You don't have to watch them in order (I started with two episodes in season three, then went back and started from the beginning) but I have to caution you, if you start with season one episode one, please note that none of the episodes that follow are that gross. I forgot to warn people about this when I started enthusiastically recommending this and that episode really is for someone with at least a sense of humor. I could talk about this show forever. 2) Fargo Unlik...

What I knew going on : I had seen this on stage.  In 1930's Berlin, an English man, Brian (Michael York) befriends a cabaret singer Sally (Liza Minnelli) when he moves in next door. They form a friendship, all while Nazism starts seeping into the world around them. I've seen this performed by local theater groups before and I suppose I never really took the time to think about how different the film would be. It's a very loose adaptation, though to be fair it's been over a decade since I saw this on stage.  I think the balance of being a musical while including something as ominous as what is to come with WWII is very interesting. It paints a layer of extra sadness over everything. While Sally and Brian pay no mind to any of it at first, all I could think of is how drastically their world will be different in a few years time. That said, sometimes I wish they had gone a bit more in depth with the subplot between Fritz and Natalia. The musical numbers were stu...

I'm fine here. Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) feels like she can't leave her home town of Columbus, Indiana. Her mother is a recovering addict, whom Casey looks after. She graduated a year ago, but didn't go to college. She loves architecture and spends her time working at a library. Jin (John Cho) is a Korean American who comes to Columbus when his father falls into a coma. He meets Casey and tries to encourage her to think of her own dreams for once. If you haven't seen this film, and have only read reviews or watched trailers, you've probably noticed most are from Jin's perspective. Jin is struggling with his father's condition and goes to Columbus, but really, this is Casey's story. She has the most screen time, and we learn the most about her through her daily routine and her conversations with Jin. Jin and Casey easily have one of the best platonic relationships I've seen on screen in a long time. Another film may have had them have...

Despite growing up in middle of nowhere Midwest, I can't relate to farm life. I know people with farms, I grew up driving past plenty of them. but they're not my thing. This week Wanderer wants us to talk about films where farms play a part. Because they do nothing for me, this ended up being a bit on the hard side, but I did manage to find three films I enjoyed.  1) Nowhere in Africa One of the products of Fisti's Four Ways A Best Picture blogathon, which I am now kicking myself over for not saving now that his blog is gone - I think I liked this film the most out of our panel. It's about German Jews who move to Kenya during WWII and adjust to life running their own farm.  2) Shotgun Stories Jeff Nichols' first picture isn't technically about a farm, but a good portion of the scenes do take place on one. It stars Michael Shannon and is about two families who feud after the father passes away.  3) Casa de mi Padre Have you ever wondered what...

Can you do this one thing? Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) is an eager to please mommy blogger that meets Emily (Blake Lively) when their two children request a play date. Emily is effortlessly cool, lives in a big beautiful house and has a gorgeous husband Sean. (Henry Golding) Stephanie can't but be infatuated. Then Emily disappears and Stephanie attempts to get to the bottom of it.  The marketing behind this movie is kind of all over the place. In one trailer it's a comedy, the next a murder mystery. It's definitely more of the former. Sure, there's lots of twists and turns but they're mostly all played out for laughs. Since I've never read the novel this was based on, I don't know if the book took it this lightly either.  At two hours long, I really liked this for the first 100 minutes or so, then I started to get antsy. I've always adored Anna Kendrick but she's chewing so much scenery here that I realized there's such a thing as to...

Man, the Emmys were weird this year.  They made a huge deal about how inclusive the nominees were and a whopping three POC won, I think? The best part of the ceremony was when Glenn Weiss, who won for directing the Oscars proposed to his girlfriend. The worst was the terrible skits from Maya and Fred. It wasn't funny. Fred Armison is almost as overrated as Kristen Wiig. I'm still annoyed this show is on a Monday, but I have to say having the presenters not announce the nominees really sped things along. But onto the winners... While The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel dominated writing and directing for comedy series, drama was all over the place. The Americans won for Writing, The Crown for Directing. RuPaul's Drag Race finally won an Emmy, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver took home a second as well. Below are the acting and show winners in green + a few thoughts. I guessed a whopping seven of these correctly.  DRAMA SERIES The Americans The Crown Game of Thron...

Chris recently decided to revisit his best of the year lists to see if he still felt the same, and I thought it was such a wonderful idea that I had to do it too. I started my blog in 2009 and I decided to only go as far back as 2015, because I feel everything after that is still pretty fresh in my mind and wouldn't change.  I learned a lot putting this together. Mainly how cringy it is reading my first few years of posts. 😂 I was also kind of surprised at how much my opinions have changed on a few of these films. I really don't miss the time in my life where I lived in the middle of nowhere and only had access to wide release films. Let's jump in and see how much has changed. I'll try not to make this too long. 2009 My Top 10 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, An Education, Coraline, Precious, Star Trek, Moon, Up in the Air, District 9, Inglorious Basterds, (500) Days of Summer What stays - Up in the Air, Inglorious Basterds, (500) Days of Summe...

We're going to start fresh.  Medina (Maika Monroe) has just moved to Palos Verdes with her family. Her father, (Justin Kirk) is a doctor who has just accepted a new job. When he ends up leaving the family and sending his wife, Sandy (Jennifer Garner) into a tailspin, Medina and her twin brother Jim (Cody Fern) find themselves dealing with Sandy's mental illness while Medina attempts to surf all her troubles away. This is a very quiet film, but what caught my eye was Jennifer Garner. I sometimes forget that she was once a highly capable actress on Alias. All I associate her with now are these mom roles in family films, and it was nice seeing her tackle a role like this. Sandy is complicated, while they don't flat out name her illness she's pretty clearly bipolar and goes through extreme highs and lows, and Garner plays her very convincingly. It was hard watching her two teenager children struggle to deal with that on top of being horribly manipulated by their ...

The Emmys are coming up next week (On a Monday for some fucking reason) so it's that time of year where I attempt to guess and fail miserably. Here are my predictions on who will win, and in some cases, who should.  DRAMA SERIES The Americans The Crown Game of Thrones The Handmaid’s Tale Stranger Things This Is Us Westworld Who will win: Game of Thrones Who should win: The Handmaid's Tale or The Crown GoT is my favorite show but season 7 was their second weakest season to date. I still think the withdrawals will be strong and the Emmys won't refuse them, which is a shame because Handmaid's Tale and The Crown had really strong second seasons. I have not seen The Americans, but they could be a dark horse here as well.  COMEDY SERIES Atlanta Barry Blackish Curb Your Enthusiasm GLOW The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Silicon Valley Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Who will and should win: Atlanta This show has been getting the most buzz and I'd be surprised if...

The Suspiria remake is two months away, and this week Wanderer wants us to talk about remakes that are actually good. I always go horror when I think of this theme. I can't help it. Here are three remakes that I thoroughly enjoyed. And yes, I prefer all of them to their original versions  1) The Ring This is hands down the best PG-13 horror movie ever made in my opinion. It was actually frightening. I didn't see the original, Ringu until after watching this, and while that one was good too, The Ring was far superior for me. It helped having a fun theater experience. People were losing their damn minds when Samara started crawling out of that TV. 2) Dawn of the Dead I've talked about this film so many times. I straight up hated the original Dawn of the Dead/Night of the Living Dead movies. They're so dated, and I'm apparently too extra to appreciate dated zombies. This film was the perfect balance of fun, camp, and gore. "Fuck me harder, Steve!...

Do we ever really know? Single dad David (John Cho) is thrown for a loop when his teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La) goes missing. Not believing she would simply run away, he breaks into her computer and attempts to piece everything together. Searching is shot entirely through another screen. Computer monitors, video chat, news reports. This gimmick isn't new, most recently Unfriended used this technique and before that, Megan is Missing also used it to disastrous results. I wonder if writer/director Aneesh Chaganty saw the latter and used it as an outline of what not to do. Realistically, no one uses video calling this much, but the film uses it in a way that's almost completely believable and I appreciated those little touches, such as David just leaving his video chat app open on his computer while he makes a regular telephone call. So we still see David through the screen, but it's not his only form of communication. This is a proper mystery throu...

This week's theme at Wandering Through the Shelves is about the new kids at school. I never had to be that kid. Sure, I started schools for the first time, but never alone. I never had to move to a new city or attend a new school right in the middle of everything. These kids had to in some capacity 1) Morris from America Morris is an American living in Germany where his father takes a job. He dreams of being a rapper but has trouble fitting in. I really loved this movie and seeing a different side of Craig Robinson.  2) The Perks of Being a Wallflower So Charlie doesn't technically qualify as being a new kid, seeing as he did know some of his classmates, but I couldn't resist using him. Without his best friend, and a sister that ignores him, he was truly alone until Patrick and Sam took him in.  3) Au Revoir les Enfants  Unlike Morris and Charlie who just have trouble fitting in, Jean is a new kid at a French boarding school because he's hiding f...

Oh man have I been lazy lately. I've been watching a fair amount of films but haven't written out full reviews. Since we're entering Oscar season, of course I'll get back into the swing of that, but here's a few mini reviews of what I've been watching lately. Documentaries Larry King of Valentine Road The Bridge - This full doc is available on YouTube and it's about the number of people who commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The film makers captured 23 of the 24 suicides in 2004 on film and allegedly called authorities whenever they saw someone they thought was a possible jumper. While this is very depressing, it is an interesting account of depression. I can see why this gets a lot of unfavorable reviews, there's quite a few ethics questions here. B There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane -  I started watching this a long time ago but never finished, I finally saw it all the way through and it's still just sad a...