Rambling Film

  What I knew going in: I had seen parts of the film before. Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) is bored on her tour of Europe and sneaks out one night to enjoy herself. She then meets an American expat Joe (Gregory Peck) who at first doesn't recognize her. They spend the following day together. I've been meaning to "finish" this film for ages. Whenever I watched it before, I always missed the beginning. I had no idea what the circumstances where that Ann ends up sleeping in Joe's apartment, so it was nice to have some context there. This film is delightful. I can see why Peck was so convinced Hepburn was winning an Oscar after working with her on this. She absolutely shines as Ann. She's innocent, fun, and very endearing. That's pretty remarkable considering early on we meet her having a tantrum. Peck of course is smooth as always. His characters are always so likable. I really wish this was in color. I know that's a bit sacrilege to say with older films ...

Sam (Colin Firth) and his husband Tusker (Stanley Tucci) are traveling across England in an RV to visit friends and family. Tusker was diagnosed with early dementia and has been declining. This trip is important to them and their relationship. This film came out late last year and made zero impact on the Oscar race despite some early predictions for the lead actors. It's easy to see why. A similar film in The Father was also out and far superior in every way. But even if The Father didn't come out in the same year, I doubt this film would've been an awards darling. In a way it's not fair to compare them. Despite them sharing dementia in their themes, the films couldn't be more different, but I had to bring it up because now I see why I heard next to nothing about Supernova after initial screenings. It's just bad.  Firth and Tucci have excellent chemistry and the film is very much about their relationship and how they're about to lose it to an unfair disea...

Dane (Jason Segel) doesn't really have a direction he wants to go in life. We meet him early on, a best friend to Nicole (Dakota Johnson) and eventual best friend to her husband, Matt. (Casey Affleck) Over a decade later, Nicole is diagnosed with cancer and Dane sees that Matt can't handle the house and their two young daughters all by himself, so he drops everything to go to live with them while Nicole's diagnosis turns terminal. I recently lost a family member to cancer, and on my plane to their funeral, I decided I wanted to mope and only watch depressing movies. So this is how I landed on Our Friend . Otherwise Affleck alone would've normally put me off it. But the thing is, I liked this. Sure, it didn't have anything new to say in the terminal illness department and it uses the ever popular jumping around in the time line trope. (Thankfully in a more coherent way than My Sister's Keeper , for example)  But it's been so long since I've seen Jason Seg...

  This week's TV theme from Wandering Through The Shelves are for those who just don't quite fit in. I've been pretty excited for this week because I was saving one of my favorite new shows for it. Here's what I came up with. 1) Ted Lasso - I cannot describe how much I love Ted Lasso. This show is so wholesome, sweet, and absolutely hysterical at the same time. I'm so glad I started watching it. I just hate that it's on Apple TV and I'll have to pay to watch the second season after my free trial runs out. Football coach Ted moving to England and coaching soccer, a sport he knows nothing about is very out of his element.  2) The Great - I was somewhat interested in this Hulu show where Elle Fanning takes on the role of Catherine The Great, but when I finally started watching I was faced with something so unexpectedly funny. I was not prepared for the tone this has. It's wonderful and Catherine is so adaptable to her new surroundings. Huzzah! 3) The Fres...

A young sea monster, Luca (Jacob Tremblay) dreams of a life bigger than the one he leads under the sea. One day he goes to the surface after following Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer)and realizes they turn human when they are out of water. The meet Giuila (Emma Berman) and try to achieve their goal of owning a Vespa. That sounds like a weird summary, but really that's what the movie is about. The Vespa part is hilarious. The less context the better. Aside from a few running gags that I appreciated, this was pretty mid tier Pixar.  I felt like this film was more of an animation showcase than a strong story. Luca often day dreams, and we see those dreams play out, but they don't exactly add anything. They feel like a slight distraction. The plot itself isn't particularly innovative and there's plenty of bad Italian stereotypes. It's going to draw plenty of comparisons with The Little Mermaid but it's a pretty basic story about friendship that Pixar has told time and t...

Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) take on one of the most difficult cases yet after a routine exorcism ends up being something deeper. I was late to the Conjuring trilogy, but I can still safely say the first film is one of the best horror films in recent memory. The second film was very strong too. It was just unsettling. There is that constant feeling of dread and not knowing what's going to happen next. The 3rd installment starts out that way, but then quickly turns into something generic that lacks the magic of the previous films. What made the first two films so scary were the things we couldn't see. I still think that scene in the first film with Joey King and Mackenzie Foy in their bedroom, staring into the dark corner is one of the scariest things in the entire franchise. This film doesn't have that. It's assigned an actual speaking villain, and it lifts so many shots from other iconic horror films that it becomes distracting.  James Wan n...

  Nature is taking center stage during this week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves . This week we're talking about natural disasters. There's plenty of those to go around so here's what I came up with. 1) The Impossible - About a devastating tsunami, I've never been so grateful to not see a movie in theaters. I cried not even exaggerating through about 80% of this movie. It was a lot 2) The Wandering Earth - I wanted to think outside the box a bit, in this film, the sun is dying out, so it's part natural disaster/part dystopia. While I think the film overall had some pacing issues, it was a really interesting story. 3) The Day After Tomorrow - We have tornadoes, we have floods, we have blizzards, this film is a feast of natural worst nightmares.