Rambling Film

  Well folks, 2020 is finally almost over and we're now at the final theme of Wandering Through The Shelves ' TMP. This week we're talking about aliens and space on the small screen. Here's what I came up with. 1) The X-Files My go to aliens. This is a show that will always have a special place in my heart.  2) Space Force This on the other hand, was terrible. I really hope they completely revamp the show for the second season because the first one just did not work. 3) The Mandalorian My current favorite space fix. After what The Rise of Skywalker did last year, it just feels nice to be excited about Star Wars again. Bless this show.

Radha (Radha Blank) is a playwright in New York City who hasn't had a play produced in a while. She's been teaching high school theatre, but it doesn't fullfil her. She decides to reinvent herself as a rapper, rapping about what it's like to be a woman approaching 40. I've heard nothing about good things about this since it's released on Netflix and I'm happy to say it lives up to the hype. Radha is so funny and you can tell she put a lot of love into this film. I can't wait to see what she does next, because this was wonderful. There isn't a relationship Radha has in this film that doesn't work. Her scenes with best friend/manager Archie (Peter Kim) are funny and manic. Her students are a riot. While one of them calls her out on her stagnant career, others rally to her defense and it's cute to see her students support her like that. When she meets D (Oswin Benjamin) the producer making her beats, what starts off as a cold introduction blooms...

Joe (Jamie Foxx) is a middle school band teacher who has dreamed of being a jazz musician all his life. When he finally gets the gig of his life, he falls through a sewer hole and comes to on his way to the great beyond. Not ready to meet his fate, he ends up in the "great before" where he becomes a mentor to a new soul, 22 (Tina Fey) while trying to get back to Earth. It's impossible for me not to compare this to Inside Out . Thematically, they feel very similar. I strongly disliked Inside Out . I thought it failed on so many different levels, but my main gripes were that the middle of the film was meandering and boring, and that they struggled with trying to gear it towards children when they clearly wanted to be talking to the adults. Soul doesn't even bother with the kids. They throw in a couple of butt jokes but they are very clearly talking to the grown ups here, and because they don't have that weird, condescending disconnect, it works. Soul for me succee...

In 1984, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is working at the Smithsonian. She leads somewhat of a lonely night, and meets a new colleague Barbara (Kristen Wiig) on her first day. Barbara is asked to identify some artifacts stolen during a robbery, and one of them happens to be a stone that grants wishes. But it falls into the hands of a smarmy business man, Max Lord (Pedro Pascal) and Diana once again needs to save humanity. When it comes to the 80's on film/TV right now, I think the market is completely oversaturated and I'm over watching content featuring it aside from Stranger Things, but Wonder Woman 1984 absolutely commits to being an 80's action movie and I admire Patty Jenkins for that. Plenty of other filmmakers sprinkle it in to scream "look at me!" but she goes all in. Even the annoying tropes, like a woman removing her glasses and instantly becoming hot work here. I get it, the premise *is* silly. It's a bit of a stretch to bring Steve (Chris Pine) back but...

  In 1950's Harlem, Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) aspires to work in TV and spends time helping out her father (Lance Reddick) at his record store so she can watch more of it. There, she meets Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha) a saxophone player on his way to making it big. They fall in love, but will their individual dreams make room for it? I can't say I gravitate towards romantic movies often but something about this trailer made me want to see this. Tessa Thompson is great and I've loved her work so far, and I adore what she did with Sylvie. She's the sweetest thing, but it's not her entire personality. A lesser writer would've left it at that and kept her one dimensional but writer/director Eugene Ashe doesn't do that. Same with Robert, they're both fully fleshed out characters with hopes and dreams, and they work together. Since it's told from Sylvie's point of view, I kept wishing she could just have it all. While this film does fall on some very typical...

  Lily's (Susan Surandon) body is deteriorating. She's dying, but she wants to be the one to choose when that happens before her body no longer responds to her commands. She and her husband Paul (Sam Neill) have invited their family over for one last weekend before Lily drinks a cocktail of drugs that will relieve her of her suffering and let her die peacefully. Her oldest daughter Jennifer (Kate Winslet) is a control freak who is having issues not being able to control this. Her younger sister, Anna (Mia Wasikowska) is aloof and isn't ready to see her mother go before they mend their issues. Over all, it's quite the family weekend. This is a remake of a Danish film that I haven't seen, so I was shocked when this film didn't head right into melodrama and get overly sappy. All of these characters felt like real, flawed people. Anna and Jennifer are both reacting to this situation in dramatically different ways, none of which are good, but can you blame them? Lily...

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you're all relaxing and are safe and healthy. With holiday decorations being so extra and sparkly, it's fitting to review a film today that is also very extra and sparkly. Fizzling Broadway stars Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden) want to rehab their image after being called out for being narcissists. They team up with forever chorus girl Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman) to look for a cause and on Twitter they see a PTA in small town Indiana canceled prom because a lesbian student, Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman) wanted to take her girlfriend. They decide to go to Indiana to insert themselves into the situation and bring a little acceptance to the bigoted town. I want you to imagine having access to every single man on Broadway then still choosing to cast James Corden. I thought Hugh Grant in The Gentleman was the biggest example of an actor trying to sabotage a movie this year, but Corden is unbearably bad and so miscast. Th...