Porco Rosso opens with a dogfight in the skies that is at once evocative of old war movies and yet seemingly from a completely different world altogether. This dogfight involves air pirates, a group of kidnapped kids, air fortresses, and a cacophony of slapstick action making the fact that our titular hero in this air rescue, …
During the desperate race to catch up with Marvel Studios in the cinematic universe arms race, the DC extended universe got itself entangled trying to unite its disparate movies with a specific tone (dour and dark) and a continuity that was both inorganic and overstuffed. Early on in the irreverent and manic Birds of Prey …
Continue reading Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn
1917 is a movie that sucks you into its wake. Beginning in a quiet field with soldiers napping peacefully on a sunny day, the movie quickly plunges you into the horrors of World War I, as director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, American Beauty) embeds you with two soldiers Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay) who are …
When Greta Gerwig first announced that her next project would be an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women", it seemed like an odd choice. After the success of the vibrant and wonderful Lady Bird and with the world seemingly at her feet, it was unclear why she would want to choose a project that had been …
(While I won't be actively discussing the biggest story points here, lets just assume that minor SPOILERS about basic details of the plot will be present in this review) Over 40 years after Star Wars entered and dominated large segments of popular culture Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker comes with the promise of finally bringing the core …
Continue reading Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Big Screen Review)
Knives Out begins by getting straight to the point: the morning after his 85th birthday party with his larger family the successful crime novelist Harlan Thrombey is found dead in his study, and everyone is a suspect. Step up the private detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who from the moment he shows up is obviously the …
Everything you need to know about Ford v Ferrari is right there in the title. This crowd-pleasing and well-made movie about the Ford racing team's quest to win the 24-hour Le Mans race follows just about every predictable beat you can imagine in a sports movie. But what sets it apart is the magnetic star presences of Matt …
The first time I heard the fog horn in The Lighthouse it jolted me out of my seat. By around the sixth time I heard it, I was ready to throw something at the screen, such was the horn's incessant ability to get under my skin. By the end of the movie however that horn had …
"Money is an iron, it smoothes out all the creases." Parasite, the Cannes Film Festival winner and the latest by the visionary Korean director Bong Joon-Ho (The Host, Snowpiercer, Okja) starts with a classic premise: a tale of two families. One of them, the Kims, lives literally below street-level in a back-alley apartment crawling with …
One thing that becomes increasingly clear to anyone who has spent any time watching anime is that our Western understanding of animation is severely limited. While in the West, animation is usually confined to being a genre strictly for the kids and no one else, in Japan (and much of Asia) it is treated merely as …
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