Rambling Film

This week's theme from Wandering Through Yourselves is about those smart individuals in the world of science. Allow me to SuBvErT yOuR eXpEcTaTiOnS here and bring you terrible movies with bad scientists instead.  1) Evolution Unlike the other films on this list, I like this but it's not great. In this film, scientists are tasked with handling alien organisms that are starting to evolve. Hilarity ensues. I saw this in theaters with my dad when it first came out and I really liked it then, but when I watched it again as an adult I was faced with the reality that it wasn't as funny as my 13 year old self remembered.  2) Alien: Covenant This group of scientists are not dumb enough to divert from their mission to check out some random planet that appeared out of nowhere, right? Nope. Good thing they got some Michael Fassbender erotica on the way.  3) Alone in the Dark  You know Tara Reid is a scientist because she's got glasses on! All smart people ha...

Are you going mad? Winslow (Robert Pattinson) takes a job as a lighthouse keeper with veteran Thomas (Willem DaFoe) somewhere off the coast of New England in the 1890's. He eventually begins to question his sanity. I'm perplexed with this film. On one hand, I'm glad something so very art house is getting a wide(ish) release here in the States, but the other part of me can't say I actually enjoyed watching all of this.  There is a lot to like about this, don't get me wrong. The way its shot makes it seem like it could've came from the 1930's. I normally dislike black and white in current films but the smaller aspect ratio and the grim tones 100% contribute positively to the narrative. This couldn't be done in color. It would've looked goofy. After all, this is a film that begins with a fart joke of all things. We need that extra bleakness on top of it. Acting wise, Pattinson and DaFoe are great, they nail all the emotional beats but...

A walk to freedom. Minty (Cynthia Erivo) is a woman who escapes slavery and becomes the hero we know her as today: Harriet Tubman. We follow her as she works with William Still (Leslie Odom Jr.) and the Underground Railroad to continue to free slaves and evade her former master - Gideon (Joe Alwyn) who is hellbent on thwarting her plans.  The world deserves a Harriet Tubman biopic and I'm glad director Kasi Lemmons got to bring us one. They play it very safe, but it's here and that's what matters most. Calling Harriet and what she accomplished extraordinary isn't enough. The film condenses it and makes good use of it's 2 hour run time. It never drags and even though you know the outcome of her story, there are plenty of tense moments throughout. Cynthia Erivo (who was robbed of an Oscar nomination for Bad Times at the El Royale last year) is a fantastic Harriet. She nails every scene. We see her at her most vulnerable to her most stoic. She also puts...

Guess who's the worst? In a post apocalyptic world where a mysterious virus has killed off most of the female population, a father (Casey Affleck) dresses his young daughter, Rag (Anna Pniowsky) up as a boy to protect her. We all do dumb things sometimes. In this case, it was me throwing this film into my Netflix queue and bumping it straight to the top because I mistook it for Blinded By The Light. How did I make such an error? Sleep deprivation or wine probably but my stupidity was rewarded by watching a film starring, written and directed by Casey Affleck in which a dad has to disguise is daughter because if these neanderthals found out she was a girl, well you know what would happen.  I know I didn't have to watch it, I could've just put it back in the envelope and sent it on its merry way but I decided to give it a chance because I'm a fair person. I didn't like this. To be fair, it lifts heavily from The Road , which was a film I also dislike...

Another month, another update on what I've been watching on the small screen. Here's what's been keeping me busy in October.  Barry - I finished Barry at the beginning of the month. I talked about it more in my September post when I started it, but lets just say I'll definitely be watching season 3. Succession - This is a show I've been meaning to start for ages. I think the pilot is actually the weakest episode, it gets so much better after that. I'm looking forward to watching this weekly when it comes back. It's not the most bingable show, so I think I'll appreciate it more spaced out. The ending to the second season was amazing. Mr. Robot - I was so pumped for this to come back then they killed my favorite character in the first 5 minutes of the premiere. That was not a great start. I also forgot how annoying it is to watch something on cable. Since Better Call Saul has been off, none of my other shows I've been watching live...

Happy Halloween! Our final festive theme at Wandering Through The Shelves is horror on the small screen. The only rule I gave myself is that I wouldn't use the TV shows I picked last year and thankfully there's still some great things out there. 1) The Haunting of Hill House This was an excellent mini series last year that I binged quite quickly. It even managed to get me with a jump scare.  2) Stranger Things While season 3 moved away from it's normal Halloween setting and instead happened during the 4th of July, it only made it slightly less creepy. 3) Black Mirror While this show as a whole isn't specifically horror themed. You can't argue with the fact that most of the episodes are literal horror movies. Whether you're being chased by robots, put in a scary video game simulator, or being blacked mailed into fucking a pig on national television. 

And this is the motherfucking game. Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) is a comedian trying to make it big. He creates the character Dolemite - a very vulgar, kung fu fighting alter ego that catches on and becomes a huge hit in the comedy album scene. Moore decides he wants to move to the big screen and sets out to make a Dolemite movie. When I started this film, I didn't think I knew much about Rudy Ray Moore, then as it went on I started recognizing several things, and it dawned on me I've had one of this films - The Human Tornado - in my Netflix Queue for over a year. But you don't need to know anything about Moore or Dolemite to enjoy this. It's such an easy film to love. What I liked the most about this film was its structure. Many biopics put a lot of focus on the hardships, and Moore faced plenty, but I liked that they didn't dwell on his set backs. Watching him do stand up is fun, making the movie is outrageous, and whenever they hit a bump, it...