In case you didn’t know it — Kenneth Branagh is a director who really grasps the magic of the screen. Whether it’s through Shakespearean adaptations like “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Hamlet,” or one of the larger tent-poles like “Thor” and “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” viewers can be sure of one thing: They’re in for…
Wolfy: The Incredible Secret is a family film that tries to straddle the divide between entertaining younger viewers and not boring parents to tears. The best family films are those that succeed in this straddling act while those that fall into the gap can fail to impress anyone. Wolfy: The Incredible Secret mostly succeeds in…
Photography, both still and moving, is given a refreshing challenge in Wei Hu’s cleverly original short Butter Lamp, which concerns itself with a professional photographer’s efforts to take pictures of Tibetan nomads against a wide range of evocative backdrops. The entire movie uses the same camera setup with cuts between each group’s photo session. So…
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…
Forget what you know about Peter Pan (aka “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up”) because Warner Bros. with their prequel Pan is going to make some changes. His devil-may-care attitude will certainly remain though as director Joe Wright tracks his beginnings as a rebellious orphan to his leading of the tribes of Neverland. Seemingly new…
Perhaps there’s irony in the fact that it took Disney buying Pixar, sucking the animation giant into the maw of the even bigger animation giant, to jump start the studio’s feature animation production and give it the creative spark that once gave Pixar an arm up on its now parent company. Or perhaps it’s just…
As the sly penguins have outgrown their “Madagascar” roots so have the lovable minions of “Despicable Me.” Taking place before the days of Gru (although it may end with his being involved), the Twinkie-shaped, mumbling servants are getting their own movie aptly titled Minions to go on a comical adventure to search for an evil…
