Rambling Film

A look into a life cut short. Through plenty of home footage and interviews with both his parents, his friends, and several co-stars. This documentary explores the short life of the extraordinary actor, Anton Yelchin. It follows his start in the business, his private battle with cystic fibrosis, and his many hobbies including photography and music. The title of the film comes from how he would sign most of the letters he wrote to his mother.  Anton Yelchin has always been an actor I loved to watch. And when I read about his death in 2016 I was shocked. It was so random and cruel, but one thing this documentary made very clear was the love for him radiating off of everyone who participated. His parents especially showed a lot of courage here. It can't be easy talking about the loss of your only child, and it was very clear how much Anton loved and admired his parents too. I loved the little stories some of his co-stars like Chris Pine and Jennifer Lawrence told. ...

How's social distancing going for everyone? How are my fellow non-teachers adjusting to now being official homeschooling parents? It's been an interesting couple of weeks. While I've been fortunate enough to work from home, my 8 year old has been watching a plethora of garbage while I'm doing my job. I thought I'd share my observations for the shows he's choosing to watch right now. 1) Boss Baby: Back In Business - Yes, there's a Boss Baby series on Netflix and my kid has watched all three seasons more than once. He loves it. He says it's "funny" and I cannot for the life of me understand why. I will say the voice actors are pretty good at sounding like the ones they got for the movie, and I suppose I should credit this show with helping him understand the concept of "seasons" but this is unbearable every time it's playing when I'm in the room. 2) We Bare Bears - I'm not going to lie, this show is pretty amusing. I...

It's another TV week at Wandering Through The Shelves and this theme is one of my favorites - docu-series. This is my favorite way to consume true crime in media. I know plenty prefer podcasts but I like this format. Here are three docu-series that I highly recommend 1) The Staircase I believe this one is available on Netflix now, but when I watched it years back, someone had uploaded it to Daily Motion. It follows Michael Peterson who is accused of killing his wife. This case is so bizarre, on the face of it, you think he has to be guilty but after watching this doc go look up the "owl theory." It's either the greatest reach of all time or the answer to everything depending on where you land. 2) The Keepers Making a Murderer is probably the most popular true crime series Netflix has to offer but I always suggest giving this one a watch. The frustrating thing about it is that I feel like this case will never get solved and that's awful because Siste...

You're the only one of you. This documentary follows singer/songwriter Taylor Swift over the past handful of years, particularly through the writing process of her album Lover . I suppose if I had to put a label on myself regarding Swift, I'd classify myself as a former fan. I really enjoyed her first three albums. I'm not a fan of country music, but I liked her poppy-country sound. When she went full pop, I just wasn't as into it and chalked it up to me just getting older. I'd like a single or two - like 22 from Red , but otherwise I'd say my opinion of Swift for the past few years has been lukewarm at best. The phony squad thing, the Kimye drama (and boy that took an interesting turn last week, didn't it?) Because of all that I wanted to see how someone like me would take this documentary. I actually enjoyed it overall. One thing I'd never take away from Swift, even if I'm not into her music anymore is the fact that she writes her o...

I went back and forth on whether or not I was going to make a post on the worst movies I saw last year. I normally include them as an aside in my Top 10 posts, but at the time, I knew I was missing a handful of films that were way more worthy of the title "worst" than the ones I had saved.  Seeing as we're now in the midst of a global pandemic, what better time than to get rid of the trash? Now remember, my worsts are always films I went into expecting to at least like a little bit. Cats isn't here for that very reason.  10)Yesterday - I was really looking forward to this and I still can't believe a Danny Boyle movie could be this bad. What was this supporting cast? Stop putting Ed Sheran in things.. 9 ) Glass -  Why do we keep giving M. Night Shaymalan chances? Why did   I   give him another chance? What a waste. 8) The Lion King - Animated Lion King all day every day. This was souless garbage. 7)  Last Christmas - I underestimate just how ...

Ah, those irresistible men that we're not supposed to be attracted to, but are. This week Wanderer wants us to take a look at films where bad boys play a big role. Here's what I came up with 1) 10 Things I Hate About You Patrick Verona is THE bad boy, at least for someone my age. Heath Ledger played him perfectly in what is still one of my favorite rom coms of all times. 2) The Last Jedi Ahh Kylo Ren. This second film in the new trilogy is really what gave this bad boy all the layers we needed to see that made him one of the most interesting characters in all of Star Wars canon. I'm still upset about how TROS ruined everything, but at least I'll always have TLJ. 3) A Streetcare Named Desire   Stanley Kowalski is a "bad boy" but as much as I like this movie, I have no idea why Stella is with him. He was a raging douchebag. 

And we're done! Back in December I started posting my favorite shots of the decade, but I had to wait for all the 2019 releases to start hitting DVD before completing my list. Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and comment on all of my other posts. Here are my favorites from this past year. Don't forget to tell me yours.  Previous posts Parasite The Last Black Man in San Francisco Jojo Rabbit Portrait of a Lady on Fire Avengers: Endgame Midsommar The Farewell Knives Out Rocketman Us

Have you known love? Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is a painter sent to an island to paint a portrait of Héloïse. (Adèle Haenel) The painting is for her soon to be husband, who will marry her if he likes the painting. Héloïse's mother ( Valeria Golino) tells Marianne she must paint in secret and that she's only there to accompany her on walks, but soon they form a bond and Marianne can't help but come clean. Was there a non- Oscar movie more hyped on Film Twitter this year than Portrait of a Lady on Fire ? I went in with impossibly high expectations and thankfully I didn't leave disappointed.  I really enjoy director Céline Sciamma's work. While I still prefer Water Lilies on a technical level this film is probably her best. It's beautifully shot and acted. The interesting thing is that there's no score, apart from two scenes where music plays. It's an interesting choice considering one of the first conversations these two women have is about ...

What I knew going in: The main plot Jake La Matta (Robert De Niro) is a famous boxer whose temper gets the best out of him outside of the ring. That's an understatement, he beats his wife, Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) and frequently gets into it with his brother, Joey. (Joe Pesci) He wants a nice family life, but he can't control himself enough to actually make that happen. I haven't seen a lot of Martin Scorcese's early works. I had Taxi Driver on a Blind Spot a few years ago and enjoyed it immensely so I figured Raging Bull would be a good place to go net. Unfortunately I didn't like this one nearly as much. For me, the only thing this film really had going for it was the way it shot the fighting scenes and the acting. De Niro is great and I'm not surprised he won an Oscar for this, not only for looking so toned while fighting but for gaining so much weight to play La Matta at the end of his story, but he nailed the part emotionally as well. The problem ...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves lets us choose between spoofs, satires, or mockumentaries. There was once a time where spoofs were everywhere but achieving greatness with either of these three topics is very hard to pull off. I decided to take one film from each category to talk about. 1) Scary Movie For my spoof, I go with this. Granted, these movies got terrible after the first two but it will never take away how hysterical the first Scary Movie was. This is how you do a great spoof. You can tell once they hit the 3rd one and had to start pulling from non horror films that they were seriously running out of ideas.  2) Jojo Rabbit For my satire one of the best movies from 2019 is an easy pick. Jojo Rabbit is my favorite satire of all time (It was Tropic Thunder before this) I love everything about this movie.  3) 7 Days in Hell Mockumentaries aren't as popular as the other two but this short one that Andy Samberg and Kit Harington...

He can hear us. Cecelia (Elisabeth Moss) escapes from her abusive boyfriend in the middle of the night, only to find he's committed suicide two weeks later. She's then plagued by un-explainable things and comes to the conclusion that he's not really dead and that he's just found a way to be invisible. Now she has to get everyone else to believe her. When trailers for this first came out, I honestly didn't even think of the H.G Wells classic this is apparently re-imagined from. Aside from a man learning to be invisible, there's not much overlap. But if you're disappointed that you won't be getting a Dark Universe one with Johnny Depp, Leigh Whannell's film is here to give you what you didn't even know you wanted.  We as the audience never doubt Cecelia. We know straight away she's telling the truth and our suspense is what Adrian will do next. And this film IS tense. I was surprised to see the run time exceeded 2 hours because i...

But is it the last thing SHE wanted? Elena McMahon (Anne Hathaway) is a reporter who used to spend most of her time in Central America cracking stories with her fellow journalist, Alma Guerrero (Rosie Perez) but now her desk has been frozen and she's regulated to the campaign trail for Ronald Regan's second run as president. Her sketchy father (Willem DaFoe) falls ill and begs her to complete a job for him. Bored with the assignment she's been given, she helps her father as it puts her right back into the place that she wanted to be.  Or something. Honestly, I need someone to explain this movie to me like I'm five because I had a hard time following it. I'm not quite sure why either, this movie should've been very straightforward. But with every new bit of information, I kept questioning how Elena got to where she was or why she was doing it in the first place. Which is funny, because she asks herself these very same questions in the opening voice...

It's another Seven Deadly Sins edition at Wandering Through The Shelves and this week we're tackling Gluttony. This one was hard for me and one of my picks is SO obvious but I couldn't help it. Here are three films I enjoy that are on topic this week. 1) Se7en Yes, I chose the film where some gluttonous dude is literally murdered and has GLUTTONY carved into his wall. But damn it, IT WORKS. This movie has slowly crept up my favorites list for years and has made its way into my top 5. I never get sick of watching it.  2) Spirited Away Chihiro's parents fall into a very gluttonous trap in my favorite anime of all time. I love this movie and cannot recommend it enough. Even if you're not into anime or animation at all, this is worth the watch. 3) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Believe it or not, I actually like this one better than Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It's not great, but the acting from the children is leagues better an...

How can I help? Actress Jean Seberg (Kristen Stewart) meets Hakim Jamal (Anthony Mackie) on a plane to Los Angeles. At this point, she was already an activist but after witnessing an example of racial injustice, she takes a photo with Hakim, becomes a donor to the Black Panthers, and they start an affair. At the same time, FBI agent Jack Solomon (Jack O'Connell) and his partner Carl Kowalski (Vince Vaughn) start bugging her phones and that eventually turns into a smear campaign that Jack increasingly becomes uncomfortable with it. Admittedly, I don't know a lot about Jean Seberg, but I really like the cast. Margaret Qualley, Stephen Root and Zazie Beetz also have small roles. Plus the wonderful Rachel Morrison is the cinematographer so of course it's shot beautifully. I liked the three different sides this film shows. It's most definitely Seberg's story and how she felt during all of this, but I liked seeing Hakim's wife Dorothy (Beetz) challenge ...

That month flew by, didn't it? I feel like I made more of an effort with TV this month than I did last. Here's what I was watching. The O utsider This show is still going strong. I've managed to not give in and read spoilers so that's a huge accomplishment in itself. Mendelsohn and Erivo continue to be wonderful and with only two episodes left, I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends. McMillions I'm not sure this docuseries really *needs* to be this many episodes, but it's been interesting more than dull. I think there's a lot of filler but as someone who never bothered to read into the Monopoly fraud, it's been informative. Modern Love This is a anthology series on Amazon Prime and I only bothered to watch two episodes with actors I like. The first was about Dev Patel and the woman he let get away. I loved it. Dev's gorgeous and Catherine Keener was in there too and her character was lovely. The second episode (because I'...