At what point do you give up on a dream, one that has sustained you through dead end jobs, living at home with your parents, a rolling tumbleweed of a romantic life and a general sense of early promise unfulfilled? That’s the great dilemma facing Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), who Continue Reading
Movies
Weekday movie poster art: Toy Story 4
I love movie posters and I love and adore the Toy Story series of films, the latest of which Toy Story 4 is a brilliantly-worthy addition to films 1, 2 and 3, and so, the creation of posters by a group of artists celebrating what I would argue is Pixar’s Continue Reading
Some friendships are wild at heart: The enduring friendship of Animals
SNAPSHOTWild, outrageous and utterly hilarious, Animals is the acclaimed new film from director Sophie Hyde based on the book of the same name by Emma Jane Unsworth, featuring stunning lead performances from Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat. (synopsis courtesy Jumpcut Online) At first glance, you may not think that Australian Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: Existential lessons from The Talking Tree
SNAPSHOTThe Talking Tree is an off-beat short comedy film written and directed by Stefan Hunt and produced by Matt Webb. It stars Eka Darville (Jessica Jones, Empire) who plays a man searching for purpose alongside John Ventimiglia (Blue Bloods, The Sopranos) an endearing claymation-faced tree who appears to have all Continue Reading
Movie review: Toy Story 4
Belonging is one of the most fundamental needs we have as a species. If you’ve been any attention at all to Pixar’s superlatively-good Toy Story series, you will have come to appreciate that it’s pretty fundamental to toys too. Time and again in Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Toy Continue Reading
As heartfelt as it gets: Director of UP, Pete Doctor explains the creation of its poignant opening sequence
The opening sequence of 2009’s UP, which is, if you do the maths, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is one of the most moving and beautiful pieces of cinema out there, absolutely and utterly, in any genre, hands down. That may be seem like an extravagantly hyperbolic claim but Continue Reading
Retro movie review: Toy Story 3
If there is one thing that the Toy Story franchise has done beautifully, and deeply movingly it should be added, it is depicting the way all of us have invested vibrant, authentic humanity into our beloved play things. When we’re kids and playing with our teddy bears, action figures and Continue Reading
Lessons From the Screenplay: Minority Report and Dismantling Precrime
Minority Report, from a story by the impressively-imaginative mind of legendary writer Phillip K. Dick, is a tremendously good film by any measure. And one ripe for a video essay from Lessons From a Screenplay which compares Dick’s 1957 short story, Jon Cohen’s 1997 report and the final script by Continue Reading
Retro movie review: Toy Story 2
If you’ve lived long enough to be told you should put your childhood toys away and act like a grown up – seriously, why would you even do that? Don’t, just don’t, your toys need you still – you will likely have developed a feisty aversion to movie sequels. They Continue Reading
Retro movie review: Toy Story
No one likes to feel there’s easily replaceable, either in usefulness or lovability. Yet that’s precisely what happens to Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) in Pixar’s classic Toy Story, released in 1995 and almost immediately hailed as an animation classic, not simply because it contains groundbreaking 3D animation but because Continue Reading