Rambling Film

It's another TV theme at Wandering Through The Shelves and this time we're talking about shows that have been adapted from novels. I am nothing if not a predictable bitch, so no surprises with what I'm picking.  1) Game of Thrones - I can't not pick one of my favorite shows of all time. Yes, even with those disastrous final seasons, I refuse to let that take away all the hours of great TV, fun speculation and the amazing online friends I made along the way. Despite the show runners tanking it, so many good parts live on. 2) House of the Dragon - So funny thing about Fire & Blood, the novel this show is based on. I didn't like it. It can best be described as Targaryen bullshit, though some parts were admittedly interesting. This show makes it easily digestible and fun to watch.  3) Sharp Objects - How this mini series didn't win ALL the Emmys is beyond me. This is how you properly adapt a book to show.

  What I knew going in: Nothing, really. While on a train across Europe, Iris (Margarat Lockwood) suffers a head injury and is helped by Miss Froy. (May Witty) When she wakes up, Miss Froy is gone and everyone on the train denies seeing her. She enlists the help of Gilbert, (Michael Redgrave) a man she had an annoying run in with the night before to help. I sometimes forget just how long Alfred Hitchcock's career was. I wanted to add another Hitch film to my list this year, and I settled on this one as it was one of his older films. Filmed in 1938, he was already working for a decade before this. I could've dipped into the 20's after all. Very much a whodunnit film  The Lady Vanishes has an amusing tone despite the mind games being played with Iris and Gilbert. It's silly. Most films from the 30's are, but the central mystery is fascinating and never lets up. Up until the reveal, I was never sure of the "why" of it, and that's what I want out of a film...

Brynn (Kaitlyn Dever) is a nervous young woman who has been ostracized by the people in her town. So she has no one to turn to when aliens suddenly enter her home in the middle of the night. Recently my husband and I were having a conversation about how talented Dever is. He's been watching Justified , and she is in a few episodes. So when we saw Hulu had a new sci-fi movie starring her, we clicked "play" without hesitation. Director Brian Duffield forgoes dialogue (There are literally 2 words spoken clearly in this entire film) to craft a creepy home invasion story while our heroine deals with the grief of her past. You'll have to wait a long time to get answers about how Brynn ended up the way she is, but you'll be entertained until then. I jumped twice while watching it, and the way the aliens appear in frame is very unsettling. The special effects team deserves a lot of credit for that. I will say the film is atrociously lit. I'm sure that's to make u...

When a beloved theater director falls into a coma, her son Troy (Jimmy Tatro) is tasked with keeping it afloat in her place, despite knowing nothing about theater. Most of it falls to Amos (Ben Platt) and Rebecca-Diane (Molly Gordon) two former theater kids and now teachers at the camp. I didn't go to theater camp, nor did I know of any camp like the one depicted here around the area I grew up in. I imagine for a sizeable set of people, this is going to be filled with nostalgia and in-jokes. And judging by the reaction this film is getting, I think that goodwill is going a long way, because overall it's kind of a mess. Featuring 2 directors (one of them being Gordon) and 4 writers, Theater Camp feels like several ideas crammed into one feature. The film is initially framed as a documentary, but that idea comes and goes. Ayo Edebiri plays a character that feels like she was added in at the final stages with no explanation. Talent like hers shouldn't be wasted. And strangely...

  This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is the re-occurring films not in the English language. Like I've done the past few years, I'm picking foreign films that I saw the year prior to narrow down the scope a bit.  1) All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - Every time I say I'm over war movies, one comes along that pulls me back in. Least year, it was this German offering from Netflix. Amazing from start to finish.  2) Ema - Ema as a character is truly a trainwreck but man did I love watching her. This Chilean film was shot beautifully. 3) Lady Vengeance - I found this film as a whole to be very uneven, but the parts I did enjoy were brilliant. This Korean film had been on my watch list for some time. 

Welcome to my monthly TV recap! As usual in the summer, I don't have a ton of TV shows to what, but here's what I made time for on the small screen.  What We Do in the Shadows - Guillermo's secret continues to spread to everyone except Nandor and it still manages to be good TV. Episode 8 ended on something so dumb, yet so funny I'm still laughing about it days later. I had mistakenly thought this was the final season, and I'm glad to find out I was wrong. Reservation Dogs - Our beloved Rez dogs are on their final season though, and season 3 has been a bit hit or miss. I give them props for trying something new. Deer Lady worked very well for me, whereas House Made of Bongs didn't. I'm still looking forward to the few episodes we have left, and I really hope I see more of these actors in future projects. Ahsoka - I've tried to avoid reviews of Ahsoka from everyone other than my blogger/twitter friends because the Star Wars fandom is so toxic, BUT I...

Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and PJ (Rachel Sennot) are two dorky teens who start a "fight club" in disguise of an after school self defense club in order to hit on other girls. I have to admit, even though I LIVE for anything Ayo Edebiri does, I was hesitant on this. For one, the two lead actors cannot pass for high schoolers, even though I can see why they would want to act in something Sennot wrote. But I've been in a theater drought lately and needed a laugh. I'm glad I put that aside, because Bottoms was far more of a parody of high school films than I was expecting. It made the casting make a lot more sense. And our two leads are hilarious. After seeing Nicholas Galitzine in Red, White, and Royal Blue , it was fun to see him here as football star Jeff. Real football star Marshawn Lynch playing their preoccupied teacher and club advisor Mr. G was another treat. There's plenty of laughs here, and a lot more blood than you'd expect. It still falls victim to a lot of...