Rambling Film

  Happy Thanksgiving, American friends! I hope you're celebrating with friends or tolerable family today. This week's TV edition from Wandering Through The Shelves is one of my favorite genres...mysteries! And because it's also Girl Week over at Dell's blog, I'm picking three shows with female leads. 1) Mare of Easttown - In a world of binge watching, HBO dropped Mare of Easttown this year and it seemed like everyone was watching it together on Sundays and talking about it the next day. This was a great series filled with wonderful performances.  2) Nine Perfect Strangers - This show overall is pretty weird, but I cannot stress enough how great Melissa McCarthy and Bobby Canavalle are together in this. They were the absolute highlights. (along with Manny Jancinto's bare ass) 3) The Undoing - This was from last year but Nicole Kidman's hair and green coat in this lives rent free in my mind. 

The wonderful Dell over at Dell on Movies is once against hosting a Girl Week blogathon! From November 22nd through the 28th, the topic on Dell's blog is going to be focused on women and anyone can participate. If you follow me on letterboxd , you might know that I've been going through HBO Max's Studio Ghibli library in order to watch all of the films. So I thought I would start my first Girl Week post focusing on my favorite Heroines from the Ghibli films I've seen so far. Chihiro - Spirited Away: I have to start my list with the main character in one of my all time favorite movies. What I love about Chihiro is her heart. She comes to care deeply about many of the people she encounters in this film, and her loser parents don't deserve her.  Sophie - Howl's Moving Castle: Sophie is another character with a lot of heart, she's sweet and a bit of a smart ass and very brave. Not that she would acknowledge the last part. Kiki - Kiki's Deliver Service: I...

Richard Williams (Will Smith) has big dreams for his 5 daughters. He's raising future doctors, lawyers, and tennis stars. His two youngest, Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton) are the tennis progenies, and Richard wants to make them the greatest in the world, while still letting them enjoy being children. You have to give this film credit for not fitting so neatly into the standard biopic box. We know that Venus and Serena are two of the greatest athletes in the tennis world, but this film doesn't give them the main focus, and instead looks at what their father did for them. Both women are executive producers, and it comes off as a love letter to their father, for never once doubting them. I think that's a fascinating road to take here. Richard is determined not to have his kids grow up on the streets, but he also doesn't have the financial means to pay the high fees that sports so often require.  When he can't swindle, he has to let his girls' ta...

Princess Diana, (Kristen Stewart) desperate to end her marriage to Prince Charles (Jack Farthing) has to endure another Christmas at Sandringham. She's not in a great place. She's feeling overwhelmed, she struggles with an eating disorder, and is having visions. The new head of security. Major Gregory (Timothy Spall) is causing her even more stress. She just has to make it through these three days. As much as I love Kristen Stewart, I have to admit when her initial casting for this was announced I was surprised. She's not who I think of when I think of someone portraying Diana, after the first trailed dropped, I knew we'd be in good hands. She absolutely disappears in this role. Gone are her normal acting quirks, she fully inhabits the Diana we common folk "know." I haven't seen a lot of director Pablo Larraín's work (Ema is streaming NOWHERE) but I did see and love Jackie.   Spencer structurally is very similar, so if you enjoyed that, you should enj...

  This week's theme from Wandering Through The Shelves is something we never have a shortage of: Book adaptations! I decided I wanted to go with some underrated ones in my opinion that aren't talked about enough. Here's what I came up with.  1) Every Secret Thing - Laura Lippman is one of my favorite authors and this adaptation of her book, starring the wonderful Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald went so under the radar. Maybe it's not for everyone, but I think it deserved way more attention than it got. 2) Choke - I've been thinking of Sam Rockwell's filmography lately and one I'd really like to re-watch is Choke. I never read the book based on it, but I saw this at the Uptown Theatre (RIP) in Minneapolis and I enjoyed it so much. 3) Persepolis - This film is the perfect example of a graphic novel coming to life. I enjoyed both, it's an important story. I wish it would've won the Oscar that year, but alas...Ratatouille. 

Irene (Tessa Thompson) is a mixed race woman who runs into her old friend, Clare (Ruth Negga) at a restaurant in uptown New York. While Irene lives her life, married to her black husband, Brian (Andre Holland) Clare "passes" as a white woman, and is even married to a racist (Alexander Skarsgard) who even has a disgusting nickname for her. Clare is desperate for Irene's friendship again, but Irene is torn between being offended by Clare's passing, and a longing to see her friend again. Rebecca Hall makes her directorial debut with this film, inspired by the book as her Grandfather "passed" in his life. I haven't read the source material myself, but from all the interviews, Hall really seems passionate about it. I had tried to find a copy prior to watching this, but I couldn't. She insisted this film be shot in black and white, allowing her to cast black actresses. For once, I actually agree with contemporary black and white. It makes sense in this con...

Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) is an outlaw who discovers the man (Idris Elba) that murdered his parents and maimed his face is free from prison. He and his crew are ready for revenge. Full disclosure, I hate Westerns. They've never been for me, and Hell and High Water and the 3:10 To Yuma remake are the only two Westerns that I can think of off the top of my head that I've enjoyed enough to watch multiple times. But the CAST in this one. Regina King, LaKeith Stanfield, Zazie Beetz, RJ Cyler, Danielle Deadwyler, Delroy Lindo. Easy sell for me.  I definitely like this more than 98% of the Westerns I've seen. It's very stylish. The cinematography is excellent, though sometimes the editing is a bit strange, but it was fun to look at. The cast is of course phenomenal. It's hard to *hate* Idris Elba when he looks this good, but it's always easy to get behind Jonathan Majors.  The only issue I had with it was the pacing, it really drags at certain points in the back ha...