Rambling Film

Is that all that is in your case? Writer Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) had every intention of laying low during his trip to New York City, but when he accidentally switches suitcases with No-Maj (what Americans call Muggles) Mr. Kowalski, (Dan Folger) he ends up opening his case and letting several magical beasts escape. While the newly demoted Auror Tina (Katherine Waterston) attempts to help Newt and Kowalski, another Auror Graves (Colin Farrell) is lurking in the shadows and trying to groom a young man named Credence (Ezra Miller) into helping him find something. The Harry Potter universe means everything to me. I went through a period of not liking to read leisurely, then when I picked up those books they instantly brought me back into that grove. Fantastic Beasts may not capture the magic the way the original films did, but it definitely brings back a lot of nostalgia.  The story is thankfully more about just catching missing creatures, and the more serious st...

What I knew going in: Nothing. This is one I threw in based on title alone. J.J Gittes (Jack Nicholson is a private detective that's hired by a woman named Evelyn Mulwray who believes her husband, who happens to be in charge of the city's water supply is having an affair. He follows him, takes a few photos then finds out that he was hired by an impersonator when the real Evelyn Mulwary (Faye Dunaway) confronts him. Soon, her husband is found dead and Gittes is dragged into a world of conspiracy surrounding this case. When isn't Jack Nicholson fun to watch? I thought both he and Dunaway were great here. I loved getting to the bottom of the mystery with them, even if the details about the water supply did end up being the parts of the movie that dragged the most.  Without spoiling too much, I really dug how dark the ending got. I wasn't expecting something like that at all. The film had been pretty tame before that and I'm glad they took that risk. Recomme...

Got marital problems? Six days on a train should do it. Jessie (Emily Mortimer) and Roy (Woody Harrelson) are in China working with children through a program with their church. Roy, a train enthusiast wants to take the Trans-Siberian railway to Moscow instead of flying home. On the train, they share a cabin with a Spanish man named Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and his American girlfriend Abby. (Kate Mara) It turns out Carlos is smuggling drugs, and after Roy accidentally gets left behind at a stop, things turn out a way that Jessie never imagined.  It's interesting to watch a thriller centered around two people who are frankly, pretty stupid. Roy is a nice guy, almost too nice. Like, this guy would be one of those that probably falls for those phone hoaxes where people lie and say they are from a credit card company or something. He's just a sweet guy, but way too trusting. Jessie is also incapable of keeping her shit together when things get really bad. The film neve...

This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is movies based on toys. I kind of love this. Who doesn't want to see something you enjoyed as a kid show up on the big screen? I mean, sure a lot of times it goes wrong (Hello GI: Joe) but most of the time they make fun popcorn flicks.  1) Transformers This franchise gets a ton of hate, and some of it is deserved, but I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the first three. They were fun popcorn flicks 2) Lego Movie This is one of the most brilliant animated movies of recent memory. Sometimes I wonder if I liked it more than my child.  3) Small Soldiers This one might be a bit of a cheat because I'm pretty sure most of the toys came after, but you can tell they drew a lot of inspiration from Barbie and GI Joe. And this movie was awesome. How can you not love a bunch of toys using "psychological warfare" on humans by playing The Spice Girls music to try to get them to leave the house.  ...

I love true crime documentaries. I was always one of those kids who would get stuck on crimelibrary.com for hours in the middle of the night. That's probably super weird but it's hard to look away from the massive fuck up that is the criminal justice system sometimes. Over the past few weeks I've watched three docs about crimes or the prison system in general. I decided to share them all in one post. 13th (watched on Netflix Instant) This is a documentary I expect to see on a lot of "best of" shortlists. I think it will rightly snag an Oscar nomination too. 13th follows the prison system in the United States and how it's unfairly structured to affect black men and women the most. It takes it's title from our 13th amendment. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”   There are som...

It calls me. I don't review the children's movies I see too often, but I had planned on seeing and reviewing Hacksaw Ridge and those plans got ruined so here we are. Luckily, Moana is a wonderful animated film.. Moana (Auli'i Cravalho) is the daughter of the chief and has always been drawn to the sea. However no one ever leaves her island, they're realitively safe. But when their crops start dying and the fish run out, Moana takes a chance to leave her island and find the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) who stole the heart of Te Fiti long ago and is responsible for the woes of her homeland.  The Oscar race is interesting this year. We had a strong year for animation. Zootopia is rightfully the front runner at the moment. With foreign films like The Red Turtle and My Life as a Zucchini  also likely to get in. That leaves a few other strong American releases. Kubo and the Two Strings , while lacking in story has the most stunning animation this year, I thi...

Agents of SHIELD Network TV schedules are awful. AoS has been on a three week break, and next week is their midseason finale. This break really hurt the show because there was a good portion of this episode where I completely forgot what they were doing. They had no recap before the episode. The fact that AoS also suffers from what I like to call; Generic Brunette White Guy Casting ™ means I wasn't 100% sure if I was looking at the new director or not. It was hard to get into. Luckily this episode provided a lot of great moments for Fitz and Simmons. When Coulson, Fitz, and Robbie were caught in the explosion, it reminded me of Stranger Things and the upside down. Mack also briefly became Ghost Rider in a pretty cool scene. Unfortunately they're amping up Daisy for the finale, and we all know my feelings about her...ugh. Westworld Where do I even start with this episode? I suppose I should start with "Bravo." Westworld had a hell of a first season and th...