Whenever I find myself looking at the treasured imagery of the American Frontier, there’s always a bittersweetness that washes over. Perhaps it is the grandeur of the mountains looming against the most idyllic of cottages, but there’s this sense of melancholy that’s fascinating to explore. One such example comes in the form of Mona Fastvold’s…
Outwardly unexpressive but inwardly volatile, Jongsu (Yoo Ah-in, “The Throne”), a young delivery man, aspires to be a writer but does not write. He asks himself, “What kind of story can I write?” but he is an outsider looking to the world to provide a story for him. “To me, the world is a mystery,”…
Having already won an Academy Award for his short film “Helium,” director Anders Walter makes a strong feature film debut with I Kill Giants, a reasonably touching, visually captivating adaptation of Joe Kelly’s comic book series of the same name. The story centers around Barbara (Madison Wolfe, “The Conjuring 2”), a tenacious fifth grader who’s…
“A word — you know: a corpse. Come let us wash it, come let us comb it, come let us turn its eye heavenward.” — Paul Célan, “Nocturnally Pursed” In 1951, a little more than six years after the Nazis were defeated and the last camp debarred, the German philosopher and critical theorist Theodor Adorno…
Two bad decisions irrevocably alter the lives of two families when a pair of police officers pull over a suspicious vehicle on a forest road in Felix Ahrens’ taut, tense, terrific short Where the Woods End. What first seems simple shatters into several jagged pieces of moral complexity, all because the driver of the pulled-over…
Not since 2009’s “Up” has Pixar Animation Studios/Walt Disney Pictures fashioned a clever, emotional, family-friendly film that could be embraced by children and adults alike; one that has not only a heart and brain, but a conscience, as well. After commercially-successful and Oscar-winning — but bland and unfulfilling — features such as “Brave” and “Big…
I’ve always sworn there were little people roaming aimlessly around the brains of my brother’s children. With their animated feature, Inside Out, Pixar Animation Studios has finally put a face to them. And a color. And funny shaped bodies. Swirling around the head of a young girl names Riley, these emotional embodiments guide and help…
