There’s only one movie in theaters this holiday season where you can see tap, ballet, hip-hop, and other dance styles performed by CGI cat-people (or are they people-cats?) and you can bet it’s not the latest Star Wars movie. It’s also not exactly good, at least in the way that nearly everyone who watches movies…
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…
Writer/director Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) puts a contemporary spin on Louisa May Alcott’s nineteenth century classic novel in Little Women, now in its eight film version. Alcott’s semi-autobiographical story about four sisters growing up in Concord, Massachusetts during and after the Civil War stands out for its warmth and celebration of family, its exquisite period…
“Everyone has lots of ways of feeling. And all of those feelings are fine. It’s what we do with our feelings that matter in this life.” — Fred Rogers Loosely based on Tom Junod’s 1998 Esquire article on children’s television personality Fred Rogers, “Can You Say . . . Hero?,” Marielle Heller’s (“Can You Ever…
In 2019’s Downton Abbey, creator Julian Fellowes succinctly blends the bold episodic wit of the “Downton Abbey” television series with charm and grandeur — the latter playing wonderfully on the silver screen. A mix of fan service and carefully scripted royal drama, the film is an exquisite homage to the six-season British TV mainstay. Playing…
Depending on your tolerance for redundancy, there’s a surprising amount of fun to be had in Disney’s Guy Ritchie-helmed Aladdin remake. That’s a far cry from the disaster this could have been and seemed destined to be at one point, considering a laundry list of potential issues ranging from the source material that casually mixes…
I don’t even know what to say. Or why to bother. To stare into the void that is Disney’s soul-sucked remake of its cinematic safari The Lion King is to come face to face with a profound and overwhelming sense of meaninglessness. It’s the same movie they released in 1994, only worse in all ways…
