Rambling Film

This week's TV theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is all about those movies that were so popular they spawned TV shows. There's an alarming amount of animated options that fit this week, which is where I decided to take this theme. 1) Aladdin Did you know there was an Aladdin TV series that came out a few years after the movie? I did. I used to watch it. It was goofy and took place after The Return of Jafar, and that's about all I remember from it. 2) How To Train Your Dragon: Race To The Edge The popular film franchise also spawned a Netflix show that had 6 seasons. I'm not sure I saw all of this, but I'd watch occasionally with my son and while the animation wasn't the sharpest and it didn't have the music the movies did, it was still a pretty decent companion piece for the films that let you get to know the characters a bit better. 3) The Lion Guard I had to talk about this show because I rejoiced when my son grew out of it. It...

The film industry may be at a standstill during the pandemic but TV was flourishing and we're finally in official Emmy season! I have so much to talk about with these nominations. There's a LOT i love, a few things I'm sad about and some surprising snubs. Below is a list of the acting nominations + my thoughts. Outstanding Drama Series Better Call Saul The Crown Killing Eve The Mandalorian The Handmaid’s Tale Stranger Things Succession Ozark The biggest shocker here is The Mandalorian! I'm psyched for the show and never in a million years thought they'd actually be nominated. The snub in this category is Pose though. They had an excellent second season and not getting anything here stings. Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series Jennifer Aniston, The Morning Show Olivia Colman, The Crown Jodie Comer, Killing Eve Laura Linney, Ozark Sandra Oh, Killing Eve Zendaya, Euphoria Zendaya got in! She was a dark horse so I'm happy for her. Nicole Kidman and Reese Withe...

It's a forever home. Gemma (Imogen Poots) and her boyfriend Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) are looking at purchasing a house. They go to a property management office and meet a very strange man named Martin (Jonathan Aris) who takes them to view a development full of identical houses...then they find out they can't leave. They're stuck eating tasteless food, no matter where they run, they end up back at house # 9 and on top of that ,they receive a mysterious package with a live baby in it and the note "raise the child, and you can leave." When I first saw the trailer for this, I was immediately sold on the creepy premise. And the film keeps that suspense up throughout. So much so that I wish they had expanded on it a bit more. Don't get me wrong, it's not completely ambiguous. It reminds me a bit of Ghost Story or Mother! These films do come full circle like this one does, but it still does leave some questions up in the air. Imogen Poots really acts her ass off ...

I was in a documentary mood last week and every free moment I got went towards that. I have a few other posts, my monthly Rambling TV and another I'm doing specifically about things I've streamed on Hulu that will have more docs in them, but these are three that don't fit in either of those categories. Showbiz Kids - HBO's newest offering from Alex Winter. I thought this was fascinating, yet lacking. There were a variety of emotions from the actors. One of my favorite actresses, Evan Rachel Wood was very matter of fact about her long career and what she loved about it and the harsh reality it can become. (Though now I *really* need to find out which pedophile won a Golden Globe in 2017...that comment was striking) Mara Wilson was another striking speaker. I had read her book a few years ago so I knew a lot of her stories but I think she's just an interesting person, it was nice to hear from her again. Wil Wheaton comes off as very bitter about his time as a child a...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is movies that have secret doorways and/or worlds. I had two picks come to mind fairly quickly and both are very obvious choices. The other I had to think about for a while. Here are three films I love with secret doors 1) The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe Of course I had to go with the Wardrobe, that's the ultimate secret door, right? I actually didn't know anything about Narnia before this movie came out but my then boyfriend was a huge fan of the books. I really liked the first two movies. The third was a bit of a dud, but it's still a shame they couldn't continue with the story for the fans.  2) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix There's quite a few secret doors in Harry Potter but I'm going with the film that introduces the Room of Requirements that only appears when a person really needs something. Also, it's the only one of the HP movies not wr...

I want to be the master of her. Iya (Viktoria Miroshnichenko) is a young woman working in a hosptiral in a post war Leningrad. It's 1945, the fighting has stopped but the recovery will take agees. Iya fought herself, and now suffers from seizures that make her zone out for minutes at a time. This and her tall stature earn her the nickname "Beanpole." When we're first introduced to her, she has a young son, Pashka. (Timofey Glazkov) When tragedy strikes, we find out that it's not her child, but her friend Masha's. (Vasilisa Perelygina) Masha also fought in the war, and wound has left her infertile. Now Iya's owes her another child, and we follow the strange relationship between these two women.  The first thing I noticed was how warm it looks. For a film about something so dreary, the greens, yellows, and reds practically burn through the screen. The cinematography is gorgeous. Initially when Masha first comes on screen, I was wondering how I was going to b...

What happens to all lost girls? A young couple, Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman) are temporarily living with Fred's mentor/professor Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his reclusive wife, author Shirley Jackson. (Elisabeth Moss) Rose is a fan of her work, but Shirley is agoraphobic and isn't happy with her new guests. Her stance towards Rose changes when she becomes obsessed with a missing girl's story while working on her newest novel.  This is very highly praised on Film Twitter. I expected my biggest struggle was going to be whether or not I can ignore Elisabeth Moss's Scientology background (why is such a good actress in such an awful cult?) but as fate would have it, I'd struggle with all of this. I'll give this film credit where its due, it's definitely not like a traditional biopic. You don't necessarily learn a lot about Jackson and it's certainly not filmed like one, which gives it the edge of not being more of the same. I didn't...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is male buddy movies. A popular troupe that occasionally pays off. Here a few I enjoy. 1) The Other Guys I know not everyone enjoys Will Ferrell's comedy but I love this movie. He and Mark Wahlberg had awesome chemistry and the over the top intro with The Rock and Samuel L Jackson aiming for the bushes was hysterical.  2) Rush Hour I loved these movies growing up. My dad and I watched them together over and over.  3) Bad Boys Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are great together. For some reason, I tend to think of Bad Boys II before the original, maybe because I was a little older when I saw it. 

It suits him more. Merab ( Levan Gelbakhiani) is a young dancer in Tbilisi,  Georgia. He has been paired with his partner and friend, Mary ( Ana Javakishvili) since they were children and is vying for a spot in a traveling company. Then another dancer, Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) shows up and tests Merab with his natural talent. They begin to form a friendship, then a hidden romance that can under no circumstances be known about in their conservative country. I think the only other Georgian film I've seen was the wonderful joint Estonian feature, Tangerines . This one had a fair bit of buzz this winter, so I was happy to see Netflix had it available to rent on DVD. In terms of plot, aside from the setting this forbidden love type of story has been done countless times. But director Levan Akin gets such honest performances from his actors and it's the smaller choices that make this stand out. For instance, despite this being a movie about dancers, there's no flashy dance seq...

You may have heard of this. Seemingly carefree Nyles (Andy Samberg) is at a wedding in Palm Springs. He helps get a flustered Sarah,(Cristin Milioti) out of her maid of honor speech and they strike up a conversation. At the end of the night, strange things begin to happen and when Sarah wakes up the next morning she realizes she's living the same day again. Nyles (get it, he's a bit nihilistic) lets her know that she's stuck in the same infinite time loop he's been in for quite some time. Even though the trailer looked amusing, I was a tad reluctant to watch this because I'm not big on time travel movies, or movies where they keep repeating the same thing over and over. (like Vantage Point )  But seeing as it was on Hulu and what else am I going to do during a pandemic, I gave it a go. To the film's credit, it's a very fresh take. Sure, Sarah and Nyles are stuck in the same day, but they spend those days doing a variety of different things so it never feels ...

What I knew going in - I've seen clips of all of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' dances together. I went for something a little ambitious. I knew I wanted to watched some of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' films, but couldn't decide which one to pick, so I went with both. For Top Hat , Jerry Travers (Astaire) is an American actor who goes to England and falls in love with a woman Dale Tremont (Rogers) that he initially annoyed. In turn, she mistakes him for a famous producer. The funny thing about Top Hat is how much I felt like I didn't miss once I saw this film in its full context. I had only ever seen the dance numbers, and to be honest I didn't feel like I missed much at all. The film was funny at times, but it  has a solid 20 minutes or so that are insanely boring and I'm surprised a film this sprightly came to a screeching halt like that. Over all, I enjoyed it. Petty side note: I read that Astaire didn't want Rogers to wear that fluffy go...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves are those films that shoot in multiple locations across the world. This has to be an actor's dream right? Getting to work AND see the world? This is what I came up with . 1) Inception Inception takes us to France, Australia, and several dreams in between. This film is very high up on my favorites list.  2) Skyfall Fun fact about me; I don't like James Bond films. Skyfall remains the only one I've watched from start to finish in one sitting...but I did like it. The cinematography was wonderful and of course Bond globe trots in this.  3) The Rundown I got a little stuck on my third pick but after browsing through my letterboxd, I landed on this 2003 film starring The Rock and Seann William Scott. I remember appreciating it as a teen for SWS's gratuitous shirtless shot while swimming in an underground river* but I also remember they jumped around a bit in this film too. Starting in the U.S and mo...

Trans rights are human rights This documentary follows many trans actors, filmmakers, activists and writers as they talk about the history of trans representation in films and the impact it had on them. There are many voices that are not heard enough in the film industry (any industry really) and trans voices are among them. Having so many talented trans artists in one film talking about movies was an absolute treat. More than that, it was an education. I'm obviously coming from a privileged point being a cis white woman, and I was even more aware of it watching this. I had never considered a character like Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs trans representation, and yet that was one of the biggest cultural references of it at one point. Breakfast on Pluto is one of my favorite movies, and I never thought about anyone other than Cillian Murphy playing the lead role. A wide variety of films are touched up on here and I can only hope that we start to see more repres...

Not giving away my shot. Captured live on Broadway in 2016, this play follows one of America's founding fathers Alexander Hamilton (Lin-Manuel Miranda) re-imagined with a blend of hip-hop, jazz and show tunes. I feel like you'd have to be living under a rock to have never heard of Hamilton at this point. It premiered to what felt like unanimous acclaim, tickets were almost impossible to come by  (even when they started touring with a new cast) and it was nominated for 16 Tony's and won 11. Disney announced they would be bringing this to theaters in 2021, only to bless us with it early on Disney+ during the pandemic. I really wanted to see Hamilton, but alas, no tickets. I avoided the soundtrack as best as I could because I wanted to see it *with* the show. I'm glad I did that. Hearing the majority of the songs for the first time while seeing the stage play was the right way to go, and I've had them stuck in my head since. This show is so high energy and the cast is ...

I actually slowed down on TV this month since it's finally summer and I can be outside, even if I still can't go anywhere else. Here's what's been keeping me busy on the small screen. Insecure - For the first time, I didn't love an Insecure episode, and that was the finale. But it is making me look forward to the next season so it's not a complete loss. A lot of people predicted a pregnancy, I wasn't one of them but it happened. I have high hopes for next season. I hope Issa and Molly work it out, and I hope Issa and Lawrence just go their separate ways. I think that would be for the best. I also hope there's more Kelli because god she's a comedic gem. I Know This Much Is True - It's like the TV Gods looked at me and said "Oh, you thought Six Feet Under was depressing?" This was such a heavy show. I never read the book, as I mentioned before so I don't have that to compare it to, but I thought it was a strong mini series...

It's another Seven Deadly Sins editions from Wandering Through The Shelves and this week I'm not going to complain about it being hard! This one was actually quite easy, I thought of these films right away. 1) Raging Bull Boxer and maximum strength douche-canoe Jake LaMotta takes his wrath out on well, everyone. I didn't care for this. I recognize what's "good" about it but it was not pleasant to watch. 2) Prisoners Good ol' Keller takes all his wrath out on dim witted Alex when he thinks he's responsible for kidnapping his daughter. I go back and forth on whether or not this or Sicario is my favorite Denis Villeneuve movie. I love it.  3) Oldboy Dae-su was kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years before being mysteriously released and going on a well-earned revenge mission. If you haven't seen this,  all the good things you've heard about it are true. Bonus Should've Ended in Wrath Pick! The Hunt -  Mads Mikkelson...

Pray to the elves.  Lars (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) have grown up together in a small town in Iceland with only one dream; to compete in the Eurovision song contest. When they end up being the only eligible act to represent their country, they finally get to live that dream, with consequences of course. I knew nothing about Eurovision until 2016-2017, somewhere in there. I've never been a huge fan of American singing shows but Eurovision I enjoyed as soon as I started researching it, and I've followed along ever since. So I'm thankful for this movie maybe introducing a few more Americans to the spectacle that is Eurovision. Of course, this movie isn't great by any means but for something that's streaming on Netflix, it's perfectly watchable. I laughed quite a few times and the songs are catchy as hell.  Rachel McAdams is a treasure. She's not actually singing in this, but damn does she commit. She could've easily phoned...