(courtesy IMDb) This may be news to the producers of many a Hollywood blockbuster – this reviewer loves many of them but subtle they are not – but there is real power in telling an emotionally impactful story quietly. While the temptation, especially in our cliffhanger-addicted, streaming algorithm modern digital Continue Reading
Movies
He’s gone too far! Trailer releases for a feisty and fun Cat in the Hat movie
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“Today is going to be THE. BEST. DAY. EVER!” Meet the Cat in the Hat you don’t know! In the whimsical tradition of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat comes to the big screen in his animated theatrical feature film debut, an all-new, epic adventure with Continue Reading
One last roll of the planetary dice … Project Hail Mary releases its first gripping trailer
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTAstronaut Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) awakens with no memory of himself or his mission. He deduces he is the sole survivor of a crew sent to the Tau Ceti solar system in search of a solution to a catastrophic event on Earth. In his search for answers, Grace must Continue Reading
Movie review: Flow
(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s a rare thing indeed to emerge from watching a movie of any kind and feel both soothed and euphoric. Surely the two states are antithetical, with the more active one bludgeoning the other into emotional oblivion with boundlessly energetic vivacity? Or the former chilling you the Continue Reading
Breaking free: How Jim Henson and his team made the Muppets magic happen
(courtesy Muppet Wiki / (c) The Jim Henson Company / Disney) SNAPSHOTThe illusions that have baffled me for years is when muppets go outside when they seem to break free from their puppeteers and become little sentient creatures….These movies were released before CGI was ubiquitous. These are in-camera effects. What Continue Reading
Want to borrow some nostalgia? Head on over to Video Heaven
(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTFor some thirty years, from the 1980s until their decline in the 2010s, video shops were crucial arenas for film culture – and both highbrow and lowbrow American cinema has documented their rise, fall and changing meanings. Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven, a labour of love ten years Continue Reading
#SydFilmFest movie review: The Ballad of Wallis Island
(courtesy IMP awards) A mistake often made is that for something to have real emotional power, an impact that rends the heart and sears the soul, that it must be big, bombastic and loud. But while there are more than enough movies that mistakes neon sign-cloaked, well-telegraphed emotional touchpoints, clumsily Continue Reading
Movie review: Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (MI:8)
(courtesy IMP Awards) If you have seen more than you fair share of blockbusters, and the odds are if you’re a dedicated popcorn-chomping moviegoer that you have, you will be well acquainted with their propensity to go BIG, go epic and go bonkers bananas with barely a moment of hesitation. Continue Reading
Time to fly? Wicked: For Good trailer lands atop flying monkeys and enduring friendship
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOT“You’re the only friend I ever had…” The final chapter of the untold story of the witches of Oz begins with Elphaba and Glinda estranged and living with the consequences of their choices. Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), now demonized as The Wicked Witch of the West, lives in Continue Reading
Movie review: Fountain of Youth
(courtesy IMP Awards) We are a people consumed by endless wonder and curiosity. Evidence of it is everywhere if you care to look for it, but if you’re a pop culture tragic like this reviewer, you see it most often in movies and books and streaming shows where stories lean Continue Reading