Rambling Film

Official Synopsis: The adventures of Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) as she sets off to the forests outside Portland to find her kidnapped brother. Ever since the first trailer for Wildwood premiered with "The hands that created Coraline" my family and I have been sold. I didn't realize until after I saw this film that it's based on a book (written by Colin Meloy of The Decemberists) so I can't speak for how the story goes adaptation wise. Count me in with everyone else saying Wildwood is a visual masterpiece because it is stunning. It brought me back to when I saw WALL-E in theaters for the first time and how blown away with how far animation has come then. That feeling stays here. There were several times throughout the film where I just kept thinking "wow" or "how did they pull that off" or "God, that must have taken forever." And these thoughts didn't distract me from the story in any way, it just made the ride so much ...

  Official Synopsis: Dismissed as underdogs before they even step onto the pitch, the Emei Women’s Football Team enters the prestigious Supreme Invincible Cup determined to prove everyone wrong. Back in 2005 I went on a date with a guy who took me to see a movie called Kung Fu Hustle.  He’d loved the director’s previous film, Shaolin Soccer and insisted that it was okay that I hadn’t seen that one before we dove into Hustle. I was pretty flabbergasted with that movie at the time, but I did grow to appreciate how ridiculous it was. So when I saw Shaolin Soccer  was getting a spiritual successor following a woman’s soccer team, I of course wanted to check it out. Unfortunately the majority of the goofy kung fu one would expect from a Stephen Crow film takes a back to seat to complete AI slop. According to Crow, about 50% of the film’s budget went towards generative AI for the visual effects and if I had known that before pressing play, I would’ve skipped it all together on...

Official Synopsis:  When a theft goes awry, a veteran pickpocket, Harry (John Turturro) is sent on a mission through New York to reclaim what he stole A film asking you to follow and sympathize with a thief is already tough ask. Thankfully, a perfectly cast John Turturro is there to help guide us along the way. Even though we’re talking about pickpockets, the love for New York is front and center in this film. It’s beautifully shot in a way only a born and raised New Yorker could do. This is Noah Segan’s second time in the director’s chair for a feature, and he’s clearly put a lot of work into his craft.  I find myself at a crossroads with this film because much of it is good, but there is one plot point that I’m having a hard time getting past. Turturro like I said is perfectly cast. And while Harry is not painted in a good light, he’s still pleasant enough to follow around, even when he’s making awful decisions. Having a veteran actor play against other vets like Steve Busce...

This summer I decided to finally see what all the fuss was about The Diplomat , the Keri Russell led drama that recently premiered its 4th season on Netflix. Now that I'm finally caught up. It's time to put my thoughts down on "paper" The Good * The actors: Russell is perfectly cast and I really need to go back and watch The Americans  * Rufus Sewell is fascinating. I always think of A Knight's Tale when I see him, and this type of role that borders on being a villain is great for him.  * Ato Essandoh should be getting way more attention for this role that he does * Rory Kinnear playing the British Prime Minister again! At least there's no pigs involved in this show. * Georgie Hensley is so sweet. I wish she was in the show more.  * Allison Janney and Bradley Whitford are both great additions to the show later on in the series. * For the story - especially the first season, it moves very quickly and there's always a mystery to be solved.  The Bad * It is v...

Official Synopsis:  Liz Baxter (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor)  works as a nanny for a prominent white family in Oakland, California. In 1967 she discovers that the Connor children are suffering under the hands of their mother, Jane, (Rachel Lefevre) and attempts to step in to protect the children. This film is based on an autobiography of the same name written by Todd Connor, one of the children who Liz ultimately saved. According to Connor, Liz's bravery goes unnoticed for years until he stands up at her funeral and shares how she saved his and his siblings' lives. I haven't read his novel so I can't compare the film to page, but the admiration for Liz is easy to see.  Writer/Director Sterling Macer Jr has a tough task of re-contextualizing a child's story of his caretaker that he loved so much with what was going on in Okaland in the 60's. This was the during the rise of the Black Panther movement and any encounter a black person had with law enforcement in that time...

Official Synopsis: Thirty-four days before she's sent to prison, notorious Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes invites a skeptical film crew to document her every move. What begins as an intimate portrait becomes a mind-bending three-year journey. I can't remember the last time a documentary has generated this much buzz prior to Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's You Can See Everything . Fielder, famous for his comedy staring incredulously at the never blinking Elizabeth Holmes in that teaser was enough to make everyone both uncomfortable and intrigued. And that feeling it kept out for it's nearly 3 hour run time. It feels far more cinematic than the typical talking heads style doc we're used to.  Like everything else you've probably heard, the less you know about where this goes the better. I would take it a step further and tell you to not even look at the film's IMDb page if you REALLY want to be surprised.  The amount of access Elizabeth and her husband...

I went into East of Eden with zero familiarity of the source material. I’ve never read the book. I never saw Elia Kazan’s 1955 film. But I’m a big fan of his granddaughter Zoe Kazan, so when I saw she was adapting it into a series, I knew that’s what I would start with. This version plays out across 7 episodes giving Kazan plenty of time to flesh out the characters. I enjoyed the series overall, though I expected a bit more from the ending. Florence Pugh is the absolute stand out and it’s nice to see what Joseph Zada can do ahead of his big turn in the upcoming Hunger Games adaptation. I did decide to look up what big changes Zoe made to the source material, so I thought it might be fun to talk about those. Cathy Ames is more fleshed out - I can’t say I’m surprised to hear that a male author in the 1950’s didn’t give his female character any agency but this show is good BECAUSE it chooses to follow Cathy so much. It never makes excuses for her, but it explains why she views the world t...

Official Synopsis:  Bodies start to pile up when a drug-user nurse, Mandy (Angela Bettis) and her cousin, Cathy (Julianne Dowler) try to find a replacement kidney for an organ trafficker. (Mick Foley) This is another film that was featured on the documentary 1000 Women in Horror that I previously had not heard of.  Being released during COVID probably didn't help that, according to IMDb this film grossed a little over $6,000 in its opening weekend. Thankfully, it has now found a home on Netflix for easy viewing. 12 Hour Shift is a horror comedy first, and your mileage may vary with just how much absurdity you can handle. Mandy is a an easy character to follow. She has a drug problem, but she and her co-worker, Karen (Nikea-Gamby Turner) mostly have their shit together when it comes to handling their jobs and moonlighting as organ smugglers. It's when Cathy comes into the picture that it can get trying. Cathy is easily one of the dumbest characters ever written. It's very i...

  Official Synopsis: Follows Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison), a young Facebook engineer, who enlisted the help of Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), a Wall Street Journal reporter, to blow the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets. Writer/Director Aaaron Sorkin follows up the very successful 2010 feature he also wrote, The Social Network with how Facebook is still ruining people’s lives. Only this time he loses Director David Fincher, his Oscar nominated star in Jesse Eisenberg, but you know what? That’s fine! He doesn’t want you to view this as a sequel anyways. And it’s true. this isn’t exactly a sequel, but Fincher, Eisenberg, and I’d argue even Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross cast heavy shadows over the film that is sometimes just impossible to get around. I’ll start with the good. Because there IS good here. I’ve always been a big fan of Sorkin’s writing, even if his directing isn’t as strong. The rapid fire dialogue has always appealed to me and because of it, his...

Official synopsis : A lonely hairstylist, Claire (Najarra Townsend) becomes obsessed with the private lives of her clients and descends into murderous madness.  This was one of the films I learned about from the 1000 Women in Horror documentary I watched recently. Director Jill Gevargizian adapted this from her short film of the same name. This film is shot like a 90’s erotic thriller at times. the close ups of Claire doing hair with that sensual score playing in the background made me think of that immediately, and it works despite this being a pretty un-romantic film. Claire is a pretty interesting character to follow. It would be easy to write her off because she IS a murderer, but she’s also just an incredibly awkward woman. I weirdly had a soft spot for her. It might be the first time I’ve ever been worried about a serial killer taking too long in a room. Like girl, you’re gonna get caught. The film reminds me a lot of Maniac (2012)  which was another I really enjoyed. Yo...

  Official Synopsis: A celebration of pioneering female filmmakers and performers who have left an indelible mark on horror cinema from the beginning of the silent era to the present.  October is in full swing and I wanted to take this month to finally catch up on some horror films that I missed. And what better way to start than with documentary that gave me a few more ideas to add to the list There are far more than 1000 women in horror, as this doc points out, but it’s nice to get a few of them together so they can talk about the genre they love. Director Donna Davies keeps the runtime concise, though I could’ve listened to these ladies talk for hours. She’s also very careful of what horror clips are shown, because if we’re going to talk about women in horror, we are eventually going to get into some uncomfortable topics. As someone who struggles to watch media with sexual assault scenes, I really appreciated that Davies doesn’t jump scare us with inserted assault clips o ...

Official Synopsis: The most powerful man in the world, Digger (Tom Cruise) embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he's unleashed destroys everything. If you haven't watched this yourself, you've probably seen the headlines about how divisive this is. And rightfully so. This movie is not what it's being marketed to be. And while I'm not going to do a spoiler review, I am going to add an optional spoiler of the swerves this movie takes because it's one of those rare occasions where I think I would've had a slightly better time if I had known. Highlight here for spoiler ---> About 30 minutes into the film, it is revealed that we are not watching these events take place in real time, but rather we are watching actors put on a play about those events. Then later, with about 15 mins of the film left. We are told that the benefactor of said play is Digger's nephew (played by Jesse Plemons) and it is taking pla...