Why am I here? What is the meaning of my existence? What happens when I die? What is the mind? What is my personality? Why am I? Deep and profound questions, well suited to a long cinematic chin-stroker such as Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” and Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life.” Or a swift, snappy animated…
How many readers and cinema aficionados have a strained relationship with their parents? Maybe a there’s a neglecting mother to be ashamed of? Or how about daddy issues stemming from some form of abuse? Well . . . the animated horror story, To Your Last Death, introduces viewers to four siblings, all of them seriously…
Dollhouse: The Eradication of Female Subjectivity from American Popular Culture might be the most grotesque and nauseating films you see this year. It might also be one of the most relevant and important. Following the story of (fictional) teen pop music sensation Junie Spoons, Dollhouse is a mockumentary in the style of a tabloid news…
Onward, the latest animated adventure from the studio that seemingly can do no wrong, Pixar, kinda does. It is a mediocre effort overall, but still a further reminder of the studio’s status as a master heartstring-tugger. In the end, that’s where the studio excels and the way Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley and Keith Bunin’s story…
“Everywhere is the wind of heaven; round and above all are boundless sea and sky, infinite space and a great silence” — Katherine Routledge The familiar saying attributed to Charles Dudley Warner that “Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it” is turned upside down by Japanese director Makoto Shinkai (“Your Name”)…
“Yet if hope has flown away, in a night, or in a day, in a vision, or in none, is it therefore the less gone?” — Edgar Allen Poe Winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, I Lost My Body is an animated film about the attempt to recover…
A franchise’s future often lies in its past. The narrative need to look back upon the legacy of a series starter and the history of its characters provides a clear entry point for many sequels that may otherwise struggle to justify their existence beyond merely financial reasons. It’s a strategy used to moving effect in…
