Posts

Cosmic Dawn (2021)

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We’ve been looking towards the cosmos to understand ourselves since the beginning of time. For those who have venture closer than admiring space from afar, abductees or the families left behind try to make sense of what happened and why. It can be a tumultuous experience struggling to believe their own encounters and facing skeptics who question them. In writer/director Jefferson Moneo’s latest film, Aurora (Camilla Rowe) has been searching for answers since she was a young girl and witnessed her mother inexplicably disappearing into the night sky. Years later as an adult, she’s compelled to join a UFO cult The Cosmic Dawn seemingly finding the community she's needed until she discovers its leader Elyse (Antonia Zegers) is not who she seems to be. Aurora is the central anchor to take us through the effects of her life before joining the group, her indoctrination, and the escape attempt afterwards. Largely a model before turning to film, Camille Rowe only has a few credits under...

52 Films By Women Challenge Year-End Recap

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Earlier this year, I set up a few film challenges for myself. The major one was watching 52 films by women - one film a week for a year.  I thought it'd be a pretty seamless challenge - find a movie every week and watch it. But it took quite a few different turns. Streaming services or rentals dropped a lot of titles before I got the chance to watch them, or movies I wanted to check out at random were difficult to find. More often than not, my work  schedule took over my days and nights, so squeezing in time was tougher than it was a couple of years ago when I was mainly working from home. Covering  the Athena Film Festival  gave me a bit of an edge in Spring. But, my original list looks absolutely nothing with what it looks now . Consciously trying to watch more films by a wide range of directors truly put into perspective just how much more movies (usually by male directors) are out there and easily available. Browse any genre across Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, et...

Thursday Movie Picks - Holiday Party

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Wandering Through the Shelves hosts  Thursday Movie Picks . It's a weekly series where bloggers post and share various movie picks every Thursday.  The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page  here . This week's theme is Holiday Party.

Thursday Movie Picks: TMP Television Edition: Holiday

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Wandering Through the Shelves hosts  Thursday Movie Picks . It's a weekly series where bloggers post and share various movie picks every Thursday.  The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page  here . This week's theme is TMP Television Edition: Holiday. December 23rd flew passed me so fast, I didn't realize it. This is completely late, but it's here. lol

Thursday Movie Picks: New to the City

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Wandering Through the Shelves hosts  Thursday Movie Picks . It's a weekly series where bloggers post and share various movie picks every Thursday.  The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page  here . This week's theme is New to the City.

Thursday Movie Picks: Rags to Riches

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Wandering Through the Shelves hosts  Thursday Movie Picks . It's a weekly series where bloggers post and share various movie picks every Thursday.  The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five movies and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page  here . This week's theme is Rags to Riches.

tick, tick,....BOOM (2021)

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Even though I'm a musical nerd, I've never been an avid Rent fan. #blasphemy However, I am Lin-Manuel Miranda trash, so the two was easily a mixed bag to convince me to watch. Like it or not, he's doing things with musicals across every medium that just isn't being achieved by one person. And that is both a good and bad thing.  The level of creativity in lyricism and storytelling explodes from his mind at a frenetic unmatched pace, but that doesn't always spell 'accessible' to most audiences especially when it comes to musicals (an already divisive genre). For his directorial debut, the story of Jonathan Larson's (Andrew Garfield) life is right up his alley. He filters the composer's creativity as he tortures himself to produce his breakthrough Broadway show (a couple of years before Rent ) and the sacrifice of never giving up on his dream even if it means paying a significant price to make it come true.  As a musical first, it works. Miranda provide...