SNAPSHOT “Cuca’s cozy rural life is shattered when his father leaves for the city, prompting him to embark on a quest to reunite his family. The young boy’s journey unfolds like a tapestry, the animation taking on greater complexity as his small world expands. Entering civilization, industrial landscapes are Continue Reading
Movies
“The best stories infuse wonder”: 20 Years of Pixar
One of the most transformative experiences of my life took place in 1995 when I went to see a movie called Toy Story. It was the first feature film from a new animation company called Pixar, and as a lover of well told animated stories from way back, I Continue Reading
Slavery or death: What would you choose At the End?
Humanity really doesn’t do all that well when it comes to aliens appearing unheralded in our skies. We’re either slaughtered, herded, bombed, or in the case of short film, At the End, offered sanctuary by a fleet of alien ships from a supernova that will engulf and destroy Earth. Continue Reading
Movie review: In the Heart of the Sea
Grand epics are often fashioned out of humanity battle to come to grips with something wild and untameable. It might be the expansive natural world that constantly reminds us that we are not quite the all-conquering masters of our domain that we might like to think we are, or perhaps our Continue Reading
Ho! Ho! WOOF! MEOW! Merry Christmas from The Secret Life of Pets
SNAPSHOT Comedy superstars Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet and Kevin Hart make their animated feature-film debuts in The Secret Life of Pets, which co-stars Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Jenny Slate, Bobby Moynihan, Hannibal Buress and Albert Brooks. Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri and his longtime collaborator Janet Healy produce Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: Tokyo Cosmo’s flying pigs and monsters
SNAPSHOT Directed by Takahiro Miyauchi and Takuya Okada, Tokyo Cosmo takes us inside the home of a woman with a fantastic imagination. Her imagination is so powerful that a simple household nuisance soon becomes an epic struggle. Things get so crazy we even get to see a courageous flying Continue Reading
Birthday movie review: The Crow’s Egg (Kaaka Muttai)
There is a temptation when telling the story of anyone from a disadvantaged background to gild the poverty lily somewhat; in other words, to cast the deprivations of life on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks in some sort of rose-tinted, we-have-no-food-but-we-have-love glow. And while you can well Continue Reading
He is not like us: The emotionally powerful mystery of Midnight Special
SNAPSHOT In the sci-fi thriller Midnight Special, writer/director Jeff Nichols proves again that he is one of the most compelling storytellers of our time, as a father (Michael Shannon), goes on the run to protect his young son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), and uncover the truth behind the boy’s special Continue Reading
Andrew turns the big Five-O: The 50 favourite movies of my life
Ever since my mother took me to see Star Wars in a small wooden single-screen cinema in Ballina, N.S.W. in 1977, I have been enraptured by the power of movies to tell wholly-engrossing, utterly-immersive stories. It doesn’t matter if it’s fun lightweight blockbuster or a serious “issues” movie, cinema Continue Reading
Take off your nostalgia goggles: Stars Wars (the real first one) gets the Honest Movie Trailer treatment
I love Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. Seriously love it – watching it for the first time in a small wooden cinema in Ballina, NSW, Australia back in 1977 (yes I’m that old; I saw it in the cinema the first time around when it was just Continue Reading