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
Book review: Recursion by Blake Couch
One of the truly exhilarating things about plunging into a book by Blake Crouch is that you know you are going to be treated to a wildly imaginative, enormously clever, fast-paced but emotionally-resonant take on a pivotal issue of the day. It takes a great deal of skill to hold Continue Reading
The Bravest Knight: New Hulu animated series makes a beautiful case for love being love
SNAPSHOTBased on wildly popular children’s book by Daniel Errico The Bravest Knight Who Ever Lived, the story chronicles a young pumpkin farmer’s adventure as he attempts to become the bravest knight who ever lived. The new series is breaking boundaries, featuring a household with two dads (Sir Cedric and Prince 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
Fear the Walking Dead: “Humbug’s Gulch” (S5, E3 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … AND ZOMBIE BOWELS WOOHOO! I MEAN, WHO DOESN’T LOVE ZOMBIE BOWELS? If there is one thing that The Walking Dead has always struggled with, it’s the humanity that should be sitting at the very heart of its storytelling. Sure, Dale (Jeffrey DeMunn) used to bleat on, reasonably 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
Book review: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri
It’s hard to say when it happened but somewhere along the way, people have lost their ability to empathise. Rather than putting themselves in someone else’s shoes and trying to understand what drove or drives them to act in a certain way, people too often condemn and decry, letting fear 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
Movie review: The Dead Don’t Die
What would happen if you invited a slew of A-list actors to the zombie apocalypse and everyone just kind of lost interest? Why, then, you’d have Jim Jarmusch’s gloriously-uneven The Dead Don’t Die which over the course of ever-more-inert one hour and forty-three minutes rather ironically loses its will to Continue Reading