Rambling Film

It's official, he's a has been.  In Hollywood, 1969 - Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a fading TV star trying to hold onto relevancy with his stunt double, Cliff Booth. (Brad Pitt) Cliff has a chance encounter with members of the notorious Manson family that will eventually change their lives forever. I've been torn about this movie ever since it was announced. At first, I was bothered by the fact that Tarantino was including Sharon Tate, which I felt had potential to be kind of exploitative. Then the trailers came out, and the film actually looked really good. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he probably wasn't going to actually show Tate's murder - and he doesn't - but I'm not sure what he does with her even makes her appearance in this film worth it. To be clear, this movie would be unwatchable without Brad Pitt. It's not that DiCaprio is a bad actor or that Dalton isn't an interesting character, DiCaprio is ...

The subject of VHS was brought up in a conversation I had recently, and it got me thinking about how many VHS tapes my family owned. My childhood home had shelves full of VHS tapes that were not purchased, but recorded off TV. Most of them far before my time. I was going to avoid children's movies all together, but I had to squeeze a little known one as my final pick. Here are five random films that I watched in the 90's to the point where the tapes became unusable.  1) The Color Purple This and My Girl where my go to movies when I felt like crying. I had a habit when I was younger of only watching the first hour and a half or so of this, then not finishing it. Because I did that so often when I sat down to watch it in full when I got older the back half was almost completely foreign to me. Eventually  the tape started to get fuzzy right in the middle where I'd stop and rewind it.  2) Troll This movie is so beyond belief stupid. I'm not sure what drew me to ...

Finding where you went wrong. Ben's (Thomas Middleditch) life is a complete mess. His wife just left him, and the opening scene is him failing at several suicide attempts. He's determined to figure out where he went wrong in life so he can attempt to fix it. He finds out from his parents that he almost had a sister. They adopted a daughter, but when his mother found out she was pregnant they had to give her back to the agency. With the help of his neighbor Tabby (Diana Bang) he eventually finds Hanna (Jess Weixler) and they fall in love. Don't worry, there's more. This is going to be a strange review because I both loved this film and had a serious problem with its execution. I can't stop thinking about it. I actually watched it twice. (It helps that it's available to stream on Netflix and is a whopping 85 minutes long) First thing, when Hanna gets introduced, you're going to immediately think you walked into some manic pixie dream girl bullshit, ...

This week's TV theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is crime. I'm addicted to true crime shows. I find them so fascinating. I decided to do a mix of episodic TV and true crime here. 1) Sherlock This is hands down my favorite version of Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have amazing chemistry. Sure, the last episodes got weak when they decided to add Mary but they still made for interesting watches.  2) The Keepers This is a true crime documentary on Netflix and it's fascinating, but so infuriating because you know this is a case that is probably never going to get solved.  3) True Detective Season 1 of this was near perfect TV and the two seasons that follow were good too, though they never reached S1's heights. 

I'm tired of feeling afraid all the time. Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) is an awkward loner who is mugged one night while out buying dog food. This scars him even more and now he won't leave the house at night and is intimidated by everyone. He comes across a karate class, led by Sensei (Alessandro Nivola) who tries to teach him the art of self defense. I'm happy to support an indie film getting released in the middle of what feels like a sea of Disney remakes. I had seen a few trailers for this and the cast looks enjoyable. When I rounded out the first hour, I actually pulled my phone out to see if the same person who directed Napoleon Dynamite had anything to do with this. (he didn't) It turns out it's directed by Riley Stearns, the same man who brought us Faults back in 2014. Once I got to the end of the film, that made sense. Your enjoyment of this film will likely depend on how your tolerance is for dead pan mostly emotionless delivery. For me, that...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is about those blockbuster.....flops. Yes, not every big budget movie is a hit and some of them bomb hard. However, there are a few major flops that I have a soft spot for.  1) Poseidon   This remake of The Poseidon Adventure ate a 77 million lose. I don't think it's good by any means, but it was entertaining enough.  2) Blade Runner 2049 Blade Runner may have a bit of a cult following but apparently the masses were not ready for a nearly 3 hour sequel. That's a shame, because 2049 was really good and beautifully shot.  3) Peter Pan (2003) So Peter Pan has been done....a lot. But 2003's live action version is a lot better than it gets credit for and it lost 70 million. 

I forgot the Emmys were going to be announced yesterday, so I was pretty surprised when I refreshed my Twitter feed and saw it trending. You know I have some thoughts... Outstanding Comedy Series Barry Fleabag The Good Place The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Russian Doll Schitt’s Creek Veep I didn't realize Russian Doll was a comedy. I had thrown it in my Netflix queue based on reviews but I was assuming it was a drama. I'm here for Veep and Mrs. Maisel.  Outstanding Drama Series Better Call Saul Bodyguard Game of Thrones Killing Eve Ozark Pose Succession This Is Us We all knew GoT was going to get this even with its lackluster finale. What confuses me is The Bodyguard. I found that show SO dull even with sexy ass Richard Madden in it.  Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series Jason Bateman, Ozark Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us Kit Harington, Game of Thrones Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul Billy Porter, Pose Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us I keep meaning to ...

What I knew going in: I had seen parts of this on TV before. Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) goes to Germany in 1948 to oversee three former judges being tried for their crimes during the Nazi regime.  I enjoyed the way the courtroom scenes were staged. The standout is still  Maximilian Schell playing the German defense attorney. I'm glad he's the one who went home with an Oscar that year.  This was one of the films I was most looking forward to on my Blind Spot list because I enjoyed the parts I've seen previously. I realize now that I must have been watching an edited version on TV because a lot of the non courtroom scenes were completely new to me. The run time for is over three hours and I did feel that length at times. I'm glad I finally saw this in one sitting. It wasn't as thrilling as I had hoped it would be now that I got to take it all in at once. I'm struggling to talk about it a bit because I didn't love the one thing most people see...

Can you believe this little blog has been around for TEN YEARS! When I picked Blogger as my place for sharing my full length reviews, I hoped I would keep it up, but I never imagined I'd be around a decade later still typing away. To celebrate, I figured I would share 10 things I love about blogging. 1) YOU. I've been online since 1999 and have found myself in many fandoms and groups along the way, the movie blogging community, while not free of drama has been the most welcoming and consistent. I wouldn't still be at this without the lovely and interesting people I've met along the way. Especially those who take the time to read and comment. Thank you! 2) Not having to worry about catering to a specific audience. I shared movie reviews on another site at one point in time and I'm pretty sure no one there liked the same kind of movies I did. It's nice that most film fans are open to anything. 3) Another excuse to go to the theater. 4) Expanding my hori...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is searching for some inspiration. We're talking about muses today. Is it just me or is there a shortage on movies with male muses? Every one I thought of was female. Here's what I came up with.  1) Factory Girl Sienna Miller gives a career best performance as Edie Sedgwick, who goes on to become Andy Warhol's muse with tragic results.  2) Girl With A Pearl Earring Greit becomes somewhat of a muse for painter Johannes Vermeer. While this film is a tad slow, there are great performances all around. Even Cillian Murphy in that awful wig.  3) Phantom Thread  Alma becomes a muse, and wife, and eventually something much stranger to Reynolds Woodcock.  I didn't love this movie as much as Film Twitter did but I certainly laughed my ass off at a part that probably wasn't meant to be laughed at. 

Join the festivities.  Dani (Florence Pugh) has been going through a lot emotionally. Her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Raynor) wants to break up with her, but keeps putting it off. His friends are mostly assholes about it too. When they plan on going to Sweden for a festival, Christian reluctantly invites Dani along. Saying things get weird is an understatement. Ari Aster has really made a name for himself in the past few years. His brand of horror is weird and very psychological. He's not just interested in gore, he's interested in emotions and this film is very in line with what he's done in the past. Midsommar is the prettiest nightmare you'll ever see. Its full of flowers and sunlight. It never once gets dark and gloomy, even though the subject matter certainly calls for it. Florence Pugh gives an amazing performance. Dani suffers from panic attacks and the way they're portrayed here was so realistic. This is easily one of the best performances of t...

Back from the blip. Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has had quite the year. He fought Thanos, died, came back, and fought Thanos again. Now he wants to have a relaxing summer on a science trip to Europe so he can hang out with Ned (Jacob Batalon) and tell MJ (Zendaya) how he really feels. Only Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Colbie Smoulders) show up and hijack his vacation when strange things start happening. Far From Home has the tough spot in following Avengers: Endgame and having to show the aftermath of Thanos' snap. They don't dwell on it, but they manage to show both the hilarious side, and the sad one with people being displaced.  Holland continues to be my favorite live action Spider-man and he does a great job with all of Peter's emotions. He feels the tremendous pressure of no longer having a mentor in Tony Stark yet still just wants to do regular things like give the girl he likes a necklace. There's never too much Fury in a Marvel ...

The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things Savannah (Kristen Stewart) has just moved to San Francisco. She takes over an apartment owned by her brother, Geoff (Jim Sturgess) and sister-in-law, Laura. (Laura Dern) Laura wrote a best selling book under what she calls an "avatar", JT LeRoy, a young man who grew up in poverty and prostitution. She convinces Savannah to pose as JT in public, and the rest is history. I first heard about JT LeRoy around 2006-2007 when I happened upon a movie based on his book - The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things . Asia Argento starred and directed (Diane Kruger plays a version of her in this film) and actors like Jeremy Renner, Ben Foster and the Sprouse twins were in it. It was very disturbing, and also very different from films I had been watching at the time. It grabbed my interest, so I read JT's novels along with it. Of course a quick Google search showed that JT wasn't a real person but the audacity of his hoax was just fa...

June FLEW by. A lot went on for me personally in this month so it felt a bit chaotic but I still had my down time to watch some TV. Here's what was keeping me busy on the small screen in June. Attack on Titan Season 3 came to a very beautiful end and it is announced that S4 will be its last. There's quite a bit of Manga left so I'm hoping there's plenty of episodes to fit that all in. And hopefully the guy running things is reigned in a bit because we don't needed forced Eren/Mikasa in every episode. (Seriously, the worst ship) Big Little Lies Season 2 has been great so far. The biggest surprise for me has been Adam Scott. Not that I'm surprised he can act, I knew that, but they gave him great material. You can tell Reese is gunning for that Emmy this year. Meryl Streep's Mary Louise is the worst character I've seen in a long time. I hope she gets tossed down the steps at the end of this season. Euphoria Euphoria has been a big surprise....

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is about parenting. Everyone participating this week that is a parent is going to tell you how hard it is, because that's true. Parenting is fucking hard, and you will never believe how much you can worry over someone else, but it's so rewarding. Even if it turns you into an emotional mess. Of course since I'm me, I'm bringing you some depressing parenting movies that I enjoy. 1) Infinitely Polar Bear So this one isn't completely depressing, but it is completely underrated. Mark Ruffalo plays a depressed man trying to take care of his two daughters while his wife is away at school. I adore it. 2) The Broken Circle Breakdown Aside from one terribly misplaced scene, this is a very solid story about two people who start a whirlwind relationship, have a child, then struggle to deal with that child getting cancer. It manages to feel a bit different from your usual sick kid movie.  3) We Need To T...

Take a sad song and make it better. Jack Malick (Himesh Patel) is a singer/songwriter in England trying to make it big while working part time at a warehouse. He's encouraged by his friend and manager, Ellie. (Lily James) One evening, the entire world loses power for 12 seconds, and at that exact moment, Jack is riding his bike and is hit by a bus. When he wakes up following the accident, he realizes that no one else but him remembers The Beatles (among other things) so he takes the opportunity to pass off their songs as his own. Danny Boyle is one of my favorite directors so I make a point of seeing everything he makes. On top of loving The Beatles, I thought the concept of this film was really interesting. The best thing about this film is Malick and James together. They have absolutely wonderful chemistry and their characters felt the most genuine when they were playing opposite of each other. Unfortunately for them, and Alexander Arnold who plays Gavin, the pers...