Thursday Movie Picks: Androids/Cyborgs

So...it's been a few weeks since I last posted on my blog...at all. And it seems I've chosen to return to a theme this week that is really not in my wheelhouse. I'm not a big "robot" movie guy. My favorite science fiction being of the non-robot kind...

...But there are few I do love, the few with personalities that I fully enjoy.

So, it's Thursday, my return to Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. This week, of course, Androids/Cyborgs.

In Defense of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village

It's goes without saying, but there will be **MAJOR SPOILERS** here. But I was spoiled BEFORE I ever saw this film, and I think that made me love it more.

Speaks Reviews: Midnight Special

 

Midnight Special is the kind of movie that forced me into battle myself in some way. To clarify:  it's one I readily admit (after only one watch) that I admire more than I love, if that makes sense.

I went in on the promise of a Spielberg-esque sci-fi chase film. It pulls, quite obviously, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, even quite well at times. But what I ended up with was a film that doesn't reach the emotional high of its predecessor. It's missing the connections that Spielberg so perfectly offers in the end. Midnight Special offers an answer to the biggest question (and not much else), but it's an ending that didn't fully work for me, and the things I really wanted more of were left by the wayside. In a way, that's all good and well. This is a Jeff Nichols film. I know that. This in spite of the fact that (I know...I know!) I have never seen any of his previous work.

Thursday Movie Picks: So-Bad-Its-Good

I am a failure. I have failed in that I have seen so few of the Classics. I mean that in two ways. While I'm lacking in many of cinema's masterpieces (aren't we all?), I am even further (by a country mile) lacking in the worst of the worst, the Troll 2s of the world, if you will. I even Googled on this one to get a list, realizing I'd never seen most of these movies because, well, they sound....bad.

Blind Spot 2016: Imitation of Life (1959)

I know it's April, but this is my March Blind Spot. Thanks for the delayed shipment, Netflix. You ruined my scheme. Or, it's probably my fault for always forgetting to shift my queue and waiting until the end of the month...

Anyway, after years, I have FINALLY watched Douglas Sirk's 1959 supreme "women's weepie," Imitation of Life. My Mom was born in 1959. This is my Mom's favorite movie, or at least one she talks about all the time. She, no doubt, tried to get me to watch this thing many times when I was young. I always rain checked it though, never bought in. I made it a point, this year, to finally do it. I'm proud of myself.

We're All Animals, After All

A Speaks Movie Review

★★★ 1/2 out of ★★★★

Thursday Movie Picks: Intersecting Stories

Now here is a theme I can't quite put my finger on. There are so many places I feel this can go what with so many movies that follow multiple characters and storylines. My mind instantly goes to something from Altman in the vein of Nashville or Short Cuts and beyond that to the Altman-inspired work of Paul Thomas Anderson in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. 

But I don't really want to go there. I've used about every P.T. Anderson movie by now, and, as much as I love those Altman films, I haven't seen them in so long that I wouldn't even know what to say about them.

So, it's Thursday, which means it's time for another entry in Wandering through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. This week...Intersecting Stories, but I'm throwing a curve ball...

Thursday Movie Picks: Movies Narrated by Narrators That Do Not Appear on Screen

Now, this is a good one. It's so good, in fact, that I literally overloaded, shut down, and ultimately went with the three of the first four that came to me (and the fourth is here as a bonus). I love so many movies that use this technique, but I just couldn't find them. This is a trio of movies taken to greatness by the voice of an unseen omniscient narrator, three films that hinge on it for humor, for nostalgia, for exposition, for how imagined histories shape the best narratives. Plus, that bonus...

'Vinyl' Got Good

It really did. Now, I'm not one who came out instantly jaded from the get-go like so many others. I'm totally 100% fine with another Terrence Winter HBO project set up by Martin Scorsese, and this time starring Bobby Cannavale, the guy who played the best Boardwalk Empire foil of them all, as record label head Richie Finestra.

The (Official) Top 15 of 2015

I owe my return to full-on cinephilia to my wife, Amanda. She encourages my movie-watching, plans dates for us to go to the movies, inspired me to start up this blog. Save one or two this year, she is at my side for every single movie I see, at least at the movie theater. And, this year, 2015, is the year we've been able to see the most.