Underneath the bass drops and the electronic harmony of the garage music scene of 1990s Paris is melancholy and loneliness. The parties are bursting with verve and energy, but when the music stops, so does that joy. Hansen-Løve’s examination of a young DJ over the course of twenty years is warm and tender, an incredible look at the pros and cons of following your passion, allowing art to be your escape, and the joy of music.
When I finally got around to seeing Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, the thing I kept saying to people was, “Isn’t it funny that this film needs to be seen in 3D and yet itself does not justify 3D’s place within cinema?” I still hold my “it’s fine” opinion on that film, denying its status as an Avatar0esque game changer, and I thought I’d have to keep searching for that. Luckily, I found it right off the bat at the New York Film Festival: Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D redefines not only 3D in film, but quite possibly film itself.
Over fifty years after Godard helped changed the face of Western cinema with Breathless, his work remains divisive, innovative and for lack of a better word, avant-garde. While Adieu au Langage is Godard’s second foray into 3D technology, it is his first feature length effort using the technique and is far more complex than his …
Walt Disney Animation Studios has become, in its relative old age, both charmingly and cripplingly self-conscious. Each new entry seems to quiver in the shadow of the greats, the vaunted classics that have become untouchable for many.
There’s a long, storied history of Hollywood films being turned into Broadway musicals, none quite so much as animated classics such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. One of the more recent Hollywood-to-Broadway transplants is none other than DreamWorks Animation’s 2001 hit Shrek, which was turned into Shrek the Musical. For those of us who weren’t …
One of the most exciting, complex, and fully realized animated films of the last 20 years is Ratatouille, Pixar’s creative champion to date. The film presents its audience with a patently insane concept—a rat who wants to cook, and become a master of haute cuisine in Paris—and manages to ground every action, every reaction, and every consequence in reality. Not just the reality of the movie, but the reality of the world; when the kitchen staff at Gusteau’s is shown that the gawky young man who took their restaurant by storm is actually controlled, like a marionette, by this sharp, intelligent rat, all but one quit, because what other action would be appropriate?
We are living in a golden age of animation, yet so many people working at Hollywood’s studio-funded animation companies are content working in the realm of the familiar. Too frequently, new mainstream animated films are like a big bowl of soup, with countless flavors that you’ve tasted before tweaked only slightly to not be total carbon copies of something bigger and often better.
Alice in Wonderland Directed by Tim Burton Written by Linda Woolverton Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Stephen Fry, Helena Bonham Carter Alice in Wonderland is a truly inexplicable, baffling, painful film to watch. I don’t know what anyone involved in the film was thinking in making it. Did they want to honor the vision from …
Jurassic Park, like many of Spielberg’s best films, allows us to be children again, even if this is, ironically, a film most kids would be scared to death by. It’s a movie that indulges in horror-movie tropes while making them feel fresh, layering a patina of intelligence over the intense, earth-rattling action. Though the human-dinosaur face-offs are the stuff of movie legend, the early sections where Drs. Alan Grant, Ian Malcolm, and Ellie Sattler debate the ethics of a theme park full of the living, breathing extinct are strangely fascinating and entertaining, at least to 28-year old me.
Monsters, Inc. Directed by Pete Docter Written by Andrew Stanton and Daniel Gerson Starring Billy Crystal, John Goodman, James Coburn, Steve Buscemi Here’s a question that has nagged at me for the last few years: what, really, is the difference between a film made by Pixar Animation Studios and a film made by DreamWorks Animation? …
Life of Pi Directed by Ang Lee Written by David Magee USA, 2012 In his lengthy and idiosyncratic career, Ang Lee has been content to not be pinned down. His identity as a director isn’t through using similar actors or sticking to one genre, but in hewing to a set of themes that will appear …
Wreck-It Ralph Directed by Rich Moore Written by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnston USA, 2012 If, as some theorists believe, there are alternate universes where the vast infinity of possibilities in life actually come true, there’s a world out there where The Princess and the Frog was Walt Disney Animation Studios’ biggest hit since The …
Secret of the Wings, the latest in the Disney Fairies series, is the movie-length definition of the word “innocuous.” It’s hard to imagine that anyone would be truly offended by the film, and that any children would be too scared or frightened by the extremely friendly, candy-colored world of Pixie Hollow and the neighboring Winter …
Frankenweenie Directed by Tim Burton Written by John August USA, 2012 Tracking Tim Burton’s career path is watching a cliché come to life. The trajectory is as follows: a shy, awkward young man becomes a star by staying true to his idiosyncratic ideals, but over time, his most ardent fans are let down as his …
Finding Nemo 3D Directed by Andrew Stanton Co-directed by Lee Unkrich Written by Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds USA, 2003 and 2012 Pixar is in the middle of its growing pains as a studio. The public still loves them, but a good chunk of the media wants them to return to their glory …
Titanic Written and directed by James Cameron USA, 1997 A Night to Remember Written by Eric Ambler Directed by Roy Ward Baker UK, 1958 Marking the 100th anniversary of the disaster, the two most famous films about the Titanic sinking have received the restoration and re-release treatment, albeit one of them on a much grander …
In 1997, I was a high school student when James Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic was released. As I was in an all-girls school, Leomania was off the charts. For a good six months, everyone was talking about how good the film was and how hot Leonardo DiCaprio looked. Now, a good 15 years later, Titanic is …
Drive Angry 3D Directed by Patrick Lussier Written by Todd Farmer and Patrick Lussier USA, 2011 The latest attempt to bottle vintage grindhouse thrills with the aid of a name-brand star and a (relatively) huge budget, Patrick Lussier’s Drive Angry isn’t as odious as some of the attempted revivalists (Bitch Slap remains the gruesome nadir), …
Up Directed by Pete Docter Co-directed by Bob Peterson Those waiting for animation powerhouse Pixar to slip up are going to have to wait a little longer, as their third straight unmitigated success comes courtesy of Up, the latest effort to be directed by Pete Docter, who previously helmed Monsters, Inc. Up may not be …