If life is up and down with a few bumps along the way, what better representation is there than a cable car’s ride up and down a mountain? This particular cable car ride takes place in the riveting documentary Manakamana, a ride that brings passengers, both foreign and local, to the Manakamana Temple in the…
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…
Although disaster movies don’t resonate particularly well in the theaters, it doesn’t stop studios from making them. The latest to try their luck in the genre is Warner Bros. with their earthquake actioner, San Andreas. Leading the charge to save his family (daughter and estranged wife) this time — in very much the same way…
Few documentaries are as touching as Alive Inside, a film that realizes at its core that people don’t just learn from true stories; we’re moved by them. This is undoubtedly assisted by the fact that the film’s two points of focus are concepts we can all relate to in one way or another: Music and…
When I was growing up, reading science fiction from such authors as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke meant discovering new worlds of imagination and wonder. Sadly, what passes for science fiction today is mostly a reflection of a world imprisoned by fear. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, a visually thrilling film of…
A little too late to cash in on the “Twilight” trend, but perhaps what fans of the genre need, Wolves brings the young adult audience front and center once again, despite the recent decline in vampire and werewolf themed movies. It has everything it needs to appeal to such a crowd, and yet will probably…
Maker of music pieces, mood pieces, moving pieces, Xavier Dolan is a one-man filmmaking tour de force. And yet he knows that in order to tap into the meaty emotional center of his stories, he must trust his actors and allow them to run away with their roles. Somehow, this adventurous approach, of being both…
