SNAPSHOT For their eighth fully animated feature, Illumination and Universal Pictures present The Grinch, based on Dr. Seuss’ beloved holiday classic. The Grinch tells the story of a cynical grump who goes on a mission to steal Christmas, only to have his heart changed by a young girl’s generous Continue Reading
Movies
Life exists everywhere: The hilarious wildlife documentary parody Bin Chicken
SNAPSHOT Life survives in the harshest environments on planet Earth. Searing deserts, the frozen Arctic tundra. However there are more toxic places. Our cities and these have spawned an entirely new subspecies: The Australian bin chicken. Scientists have now confirmed what many Australians have believed for decades. once known Continue Reading
Life magically renewed: Mary Poppins Returns and Christopher Robin (trailers)
There’s something utterly delightful about films that not only take to wonderful fantastical places but which remember that, sooner or later, we will have to return to the far more ordinary surrounds of everyday life. It’s that beguiling way of the day-to-day and the whimsically magical that has made Continue Reading
Movie review: See You Up There (Au revoir là-haut)
What could be more horrifying than the existential nightmare of war? Surely that is the apotheosis of every last cruelly dark facet of humanity given the form of guns, violence and senseless death? It would hard to argue against that assertion but in writer/director Albert Dupontel film See You Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: BioPunk and the junk status of the future
SNAPSHOT Biopunk is set in London in 2054, some thirty years after a virus has devastated half the world’s population and transformed them into something other than human. (synopsis via YouTube (c) DUST) The future huh? We’re not desperately enamoured with the idea of it at present are we? Continue Reading
Draw me an Oscar! Watch this supercut of every Best Animated Feature winner (2002-2017)
From Shrek to Spirited Away and Finding Nemo and The Incredibles to WALL-E and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Big Hero 6, UP to Inside Out and Zootopia, there have been some mighty fine winners of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. With the Academy Continue Reading
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the importance of film editing (video essay)
Michel Gondry’s masterfully poignant 2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of those rare quirky films that not only packs an emotional punch, and how, but also says something truly meaningful. Telling the story of a heartbroken man, Joel (Jim Carrey) who submits to a prcoedure that wipe Continue Reading
Movie review: Finding Your Feet
There is a particular kind of film at which the British film industry excels at an order of magnitude greater than pretty much anyone else on the planet. In these movies, a person has variously fallen on hard times/lost their way/had long-held assumptions shaken and find themselves almost catastrophically Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The sweet hopefulness of Cautionary Tales
When I look back on all the many ways my parents tried to get me to behave – like I was ever naughty! Actually as an eldest child I behaved really well … yeah, yeah, I know opportunity lost – I have to laugh at the lengths they went Continue Reading
Script to screen: Bringing Wall-E to memorable life
(image courtesy IMP Awards) Pixar have long been the masters of creating meaningful, evocative storytelling that touches the soul with sometimes the simplest of gestures or words. One of their greatest achievements is WALL-E, the story of a lone refuse clean up robot left behind on a disastrously polluted Continue Reading