Rambling Film

Nothing about this is easy When we meet Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) she's singing her heart out at the school talent show, but her song is drenched in subtext. "He makes me do things I don't want to" she sings. Then later when her family celebrates at the diner, her father refuses to compliment her because she's in a bad mood and she throws water at an unnamed boy's face. She then wanders into a crisis pregnancy center and is told she's 10 weeks pregnant. Her unwavering cousin/co-worker Skylar (Talia Ryder) steals money and travels with her to New York to get an abortion, since hey cannot get one in their home state of Pennsylvania without parental consent. Director Eliza Hittman is amazing at getting honest performances from young actors. I really connected with her first feature, It Felt Like Love , but was disappointed with her last, Beach Rats . But even though I didn't care for it, it's undeniable that everything happening felt very re

The future is electric. This film details the rivalry between Thomas Edison (Benedict Cumberbatch) and George Westinghouse (Michael Shannon) as they race to expand their electrical systems across the U.S This film premiered at TIFF in 2017 and had the misfortune of being a product of the Weinstein Company right when long overdue convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was finally charged with sexual assault. Then it was sold, and re-released as The Current War: Director's Cut in 2019 , which is what I watched. I have no idea what differs from the film that screened in 2017, this one is only 102 minutes so it's not length. It's nice to see Michael Shannon be the rational character again. I'm so used to seeing him blow up at people - and I love that type of Michael Shannon character too - but it was something I noticed. George tries to be fair throughout the entire movie that once he finally does do something shady his wife Marguerite  (Katherine Waterston) rewards

This week's TV Theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is another edition of book to TV adaptations. I'm going to avoid using the same shows I used for this theme last year and if you're reading this post early, you'll notice I've pulled it back and edited it, because I originally wrote this back in February, and Miss Rona has given me the opportunity of watching more TV than usual, so I have new picks.  1) Orange is the New Black I had a lot of ups and downs with this show, it started off great, got really bad, then their finale season rolled around and they went right back to their A game to give the best send off that they could. I really appreciated showrunners that want to write a love letter to their characters and fans and not just rush through it to move on to the next thing. 2) Little Fires Everywhere While I didn't read the book this is based on, I enjoyed Hulu's mini series. The actors were fantastic. I know they made a pretty bi

i'M a cRiMiNaL MaStErMiNd Young prodigy Artemis ( Ferdia Shaw) has always grown up with stories about fairies and trolls from his father. (Colin Farrell) Now when he is kidnapped, he finds that these things are real and that his father may have assisted in stealing something very valuable from them. He kidnaps a fairy police officer, Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) and along with a troll (Josh Gad) and his bodyguard/butler Dom (Nonso Anozie) they must fend off more fairy troupe when they descend on Fowl Manor. While watching this with my son, he asked if I could make popcorn. I told him to pause it, after all, we had just started it, and as I was walking away he was like "Wow, we only have 35 more minutes of this movie left." ..... how did a hour of this fly by with NOTHING happening? And therein lies one of the major problems with Artemis Fowl . It's not really a movie, it's a set up. My expectations for this were set at "Maybe I won't thin

One last obsession. Milla (Eliza Scanlan) is a teenager fighting an unspecified type of cancer. She runs into a 23 year old druggie, Moses (Toby Wallace) and becomes infatuated with his laid back nature. Her parents, Anna and Henry (Essie Davis and Ben Mendelsohn) are already having a hard enough time dealing with the very real fact that they may lose their daughter. Henry is a psychologist, who has gone as far as to medicate Anna to make it easier while distracting himself with helping their aloof neighbor Toby. (Emily Barclay) Eventually, even they give in to having Moses be a part of Milla's life. At one point Anna and Henry remark that letting Moses stay with them is "about the worst parenting ever" which is helpful in suspending your disbelief that parents would ever do this. On the other hand, it's also what contributes to this film being slightly different from all the others in the sick kid genre. Henry tries to sneak photos of Milla looking happy t

Follow protocol. Tobias (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a pilot flying from Berlin to Paris when suddenly his cabin is overrun with hijackers. His co-pilot, Michael (Carlo Kitzlinger) is killed and as he's locked in the cockpit trying to land the plane safely, the hijackers continue to torment everyone on board. One of them, Vedat (Omid Memar) seems to be second guessing himself. I have been staaaaaaaaaaaarved for Joseph Gordon-Levitt content. He hasn't had a film come out since 2016's Snowden. Normally a hijacking story wouldn't interest me at all, but the things we do for the actors we love... Actually, this film wasn't bad. It was a great showcase for both JGL and newcomer Omid Memar's acting. They are both incredible and give wonderful performances. Being a semi-aviation geek myself, I enjoyed the amount of time we got to spend with the pilots as they do their jobs. Some might find the beginning of the film tedious but I loved watching them go throu

This week's theme at Wandering Through the Shelves is the ever divisive Period Dramas. Some love them, some hate them. I have plenty that I enjoy, but I gave myself a rule to not repeat the ones I chose for this theme last year . So here are three more period dramas I enjoy. In fact, let's do a little theme within a theme with the queen of period dramas herself; Keira Knightley. And I won't even use Atonement like you're probably expecting me to. 1) A Dangerous Method This film about the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung isn't talked about very much anymore. I think it's a fine film. Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Michael Fassbender and Vincent Cassel were all very good.  2) Anna Karenina I think this movie is gorgeous. I loved the costumes so much, though I've never read the book so I don't know how it compares.  3) Pride & Prejudice  I'm not big into Jane Austen. I currently own about 6 of her books that I promi

Without the diamonds though. Lucy Cola (Natalie Portman) is an astronaut who has a truly profound experience in space. So much so that when she can't settle back in with her dorky husband, Drew (Dan Stevens) or her visiting niece Blue Iris. ( Pearl Amanda Dickson) As she meticulously prepares to be considered for her next mission, she starts an affair with a colleague, Mark (Jon Hamm) and everything continues to spiral for Lucy.  Much has already been made about the real story this film is based on and what director Noah Hawley chose not to include, so I won't get into that, but I just have to laugh at this point. I was looking forward to this last year and I thought it looked so much more interesting than the other space movie coming out at the time, Ad Astra . My, how the tables turned. Lucy in the Sky is real bad. You can read that sentence in Natalie Portman's over the top Southern accent she dons for this role if you like. There was already no saving th

Back together again. Four men who fought in the Vietnam War; Otis, (Clarke Peters) Paul, (Delroy Lindo) Eddie, (Norm Lewis) and Melvin (Isiah Washington) have returned to Vietnam to bring back the remains of their fallen friend, Norman (Chadwick Boseman in flashbacks, and the main actors also play their younger parts) and the gold he helped them hide. The newest Spike Lee joint has a lot to say. Much like he's done in the past, he starts and ends with important black figures. This time Mohammad Ali, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He uses their quotes to highlight the conflict of what black soldiers faced during the Vietnam war. They were promised freedom, and didn't get it. These 5 men, calling themselves "Bloods" were all connected. Now that many years have passed, things have changed. Paul in particular is somehow a Trump supporter much to the bewilderment of everyone else. And he has a lot to work out with his son David (Jonathan Majors) who tags along f

What I knew going in: All the Oscars it won and that famous line. Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is an ex-fighter working odd jobs on the docks for some shady people. After her brother is murdered, Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint) starts asking questions around the docks and catches Terry's eye. I've heard a lot of people say this is one of Brando's best performances, so that's the main reason I added it to my Blind Spot list. He's great in this (The Godfather is still my #1 of his though) and Eva Marie Saint was as well. They had wonderful chemistry which I sometimes feel is lacking in older dramas that I watch. I found them both compelling and even though parts of the story felt slow, I was always interested in seeing where they went. This is the second film I've seen from director Elia Kazan, the other being A Streetcar Named Desire , while I think I prefer that to On The Waterfront, I've still been thinking about this film quite a bit, even weeks aft

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is prequels! There's no shortage of those nowadays. Some stories are just so good that the people want to know what happened before....or studios just want more money. This week, I want to talk about one of my favorite prequel trilogies. 1) Rise of the Planet of the Apes I was never a huge fan of the Planet of the Apes franchise, and only reluctantly saw this, but it was a lot better than I expected. It's not the best of the trilogy, but it set up more greatness to come. 2) Dawn of the Planet of the Apes Now that the human race is mostly extinct, we get to meet up with Caesar and his apes again, and to best honest they were far more interesting than the left over humans anyways. This was the first time I ever purchased a book version of the film, plus the side story that was released that bridged the gap between this and War. I just wanted to hear more from the apes. 3) War for the Planet of the Apes

Did I do the right thing? Jane (Julia Garner) is working as an assistant to a high powered producer in New York City. We follow her on a single day at work, getting there early, setting everything up, being treated coldly by the male assistants in the office. When she's tasked with training a new assistant, Ruby (Makenzie Leigh) and her first duty is taking her to a hotel room. Jane becomes acutely aware of how differently she's being treated over all. Julia Garner has been an actress I've enjoyed for a while. I'm glad she's finally getting more recognition due to Ozark but she's been giving solid performances in films long before that. This might be one of my favorites from her. It's very understated but so believable.  It would be remiss of me not to admit that this movie gets off to a very mundane start, but I liked how we followed Jane through her routine. Knowing what this film is about, I enjoyed watching her have the office to hersel

More social distancing, more TV. This is what I've been watching on the small screen in the month of May. Six Feet Under - Yes, after years of saying I was going to start this. I FINALLY did. I actually started it in the last week of April but I already had so much written in my April post that I saved it for here. Over all, I'd say this series was okay. I found it a bit inconsistent. There are some characters in this show, like Brenda, Billy, Rico, and Ruth who I found truly so insufferable at times that I wondered why I was still watching. On the other hand, they had a few episodes powerful enough to move me to tears. The writing usually stayed true to the characters, season 4 when they handled a certain characters' death was the only time I found it questionable. I had heard for years that this show has one of the best series finales, and now after witnessing it with all the context, I absolutely agree. What the finale does here in terms of wrapping up everyone

I've been finding it hard to talk about movies this week with everything going on, but I've had this post written up for over a month now and I'm going to try to get back on track. Movies are my happy place, after all. It's another Seven Deadly Sins edition at Wandering Through The Shelves and this week we're talking about Sloth. I love how challenging this series has been, and I know I say this every time..but this one was really tough! I know "Sloth" is more than just laziness but here's what I could come up with in a category that was stumping me. 1) Avengers: Endgame How does this action packed film end up in the sloth category? Well, for good ol' Thor. I'll admit, when I read the spoilers prior to seeing the film about Fat Thor I was terrified because how dare you do that to beautiful Chris Hemsworth, but Thor completely letting himself go to video game and beer is pretty slothy.  2) The Big Lebowski The film where Thor pr

Katy over at Oh So Geeky had the wonderful idea to use this time in quarantine to reflect on our most memorable trips to the movie theater. Her rules are simple, write about at least five memories you have of going to the movies, no matter the theater size. I wanted to focus on positive memories and not all the times I wanted to scream at someone to shut up during a show. I realized when compiling everything that a lot of my positive memories are from blockbuster films. I suppose because of the large crowd size. But here are a few wonderful memories I have in no particular order. Titanic - This is the first movie I can recall my parents letting me go to without them. Everyone in my school went to see Titanic  multiple times and I got to go with a couple of my friends.   The Matrix Revolutions - I took the greatest nap during this movie and woke up with about 15 minutes left. My friend was shocked that I slept through it all but to do this day, the most memorable thing a