For anyone willing to get into the Christmas spirit immediately after Halloween (that would be me, at least this year), there’s the arrival of Disney’s festive fantasia The Nutcracker and the Four Realms to help ease the transition from one treat-filled holiday to another. The title may be a mouthful, but the movie is a…
Ignoring Thomas Wolfe’s observation that “You can’t go home again,” brothers Justin (Justin Benson, “Dementia”) and Aaron Smith (Aaron Moorhead, “Contracted: Phase II”), as an expression of completion, return to a California cult from which they had escaped ten years ago. Written and directed by Benson and Moorhead, The Endless is a low-budget psychological drama…
Mary and the Witch’s Flower, based on the English book “The Little Broomstick” by Mary Stewart, is the first female-led action action fantasy film exploding into theaters in 2018. Originally released in Japan in 2017 this new movie, engineered by some of the directors and animators behind classic cartoon adventures such as “Spirited Away,” “Howl’s…
“Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” — Buddha Directed by Lee Unkrich (“Toy Story 3”) and Adrian Molina, Coco, the latest animated film from Disney-Pixar tells us to follow our dreams, seize the moment, and regard our family as paramount. These ideals can often be mutually…
While we know that some monsters are decidedly not lovable, the creature in Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, like many humans who roam the planet, is more of a lonely outcast seeking connection than a life-threatening presence. Performed by Doug Jones (“The Bye Bye Man”) underneath all the prosthetics, this monster…
Never tell Rian Johnson the odds! The director’s efforts in Star Wars: The Last Jedi prove that science fiction fables can be the jack of all trades: Clever, entertaining and stirring. That said, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is certainly a “Star Wars” movie — it has the showy exterior, the Jedi lore and the…
There is plenty going on in this latest trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi and much of it centers around Rey (Daisy Ridley). Luke (Mark Hamill) recognizes she harnesses powers he’s only seen once before and he is frightened of what it could mean should he continue training her. Supreme Leader Snoke knows it…
