Much like an endangered animal or plant, of which sightings are confirmed but few and far between, coming across a much-hyped tentpole movie which possesses a compulsively-watchable story, exquisitely-well drawn characters, an epic sense of time and place (in this case, literally), richly expressed both visually and thematically, and a solid sense of intelligently-articulated, emotionally-resonant Continue Reading
Movies
The end and the beginning of all things with The Last Scout
SNAPSHOT In 2065, a devastating nuclear war between America and China renders planet Earth uninhabitable. Those with access to commercial and private spacecraft escape the planet and the two sides each decide to search for a new home. Seven years into their journey, the crew of The Pegasus and Continue Reading
Chris Evans is totally Playing It Cool
“Love isn’t a thinking thing, it’s a feeling thing … and this is what it felt like for me.” SNAPSHOT In Playing It Cool, formerly A Many Splintered Thing, Chris Evans plays a screenwriter anxious to write an action movie who is told by his agent (Anthony Mackie) that he Continue Reading
Matrix re-imagined: “It’s an 8 bit world, Mr Anderson”
Sequels aside – waaaaay inside if you please, like somewhere around Alpha Centauri will do if anyone is heading that way – The Matrix trilogy is the Wachowskis gift to the world primarily because the first film, which began our most excellent adventures with Neo, is indisputably one of Continue Reading
The Most Surprised I’ve Ever Been: Marcel the Shell’s small but happy world
I cannot believe it took me this long to discover the anthropomorphic delights of Marcel the Shell With Shoes On. Created by writer/director Dean Fleischer-Camp and writer/actress Jenny Slate, this web-based series of shorts, and an accompanying line of gorgeous picture books (Things About Me, The Most Surprised I’ve Ever Continue Reading
Movie review: Hector and the Search for Happiness
On a quick film-by-film comparison, the Peter Chelsom-dircted Hector and the Search For Happiness, based on the book of the same name by by François Lelord, would seem to share quite a bit of storytelling DNA with that other recent quest for meaning in a moribund life, The Secret Life of Continue Reading
Can’t wait to see: Comet (trailer + reviews)
SNAPSHOT Dell (Long) and Kimberly (Rossum) meet at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. They’re each there to watch a meteor shower, Fate, and Dell’s big mouth, help strike up a relationship. That’s one of five different stories Esmail jumps between, almost at random, throughout the course of Continue Reading
Halloween Pop Art: Fun and easy pop culture costumes for the big night
Halloween is a ridiculous amount of time. That is pretty much incontestable, what with all the dressing up, the partying, the candy … and the candy … oh did I mention the candy? But it can be kind of tough to come up with a cool, original one-of-a-kind idea Continue Reading
Big Hero 6’s short Feast for hungry eyes
Taking a leaf out of Pixar’s book, which has long featured warm, funny and engaging shorts ahead of their feature film releases, Disney has announced that its upcoming movie Big Hero 6 will be preceded by what looks a touching short film indeed, Feast. (To be fair, Disney has Continue Reading
Air New Zealand presents The Hobbit cast in The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made
Let’s be honest – airline safety videos are usually pretty dull, boring affairs, their level of watchability sitting somewhere between a video manual on concreting your own garden gnomes and a travelogue made by boring people of watching paint dry. Most of us either ignore or watch them just Continue Reading