Chris Columbus’s approach to adapting the generationally important book series is certainly a bit broken as a film qua film.
Author: Dan Stalcup
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Below Dreams (2014)
A slice of life drama about poverty in New Orleans, Below Dreams balances naturalist storytelling and audacious visuals to a nearly impressionistic effect.
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Lemon (2017)
Lemon starts as an investigation of how actors use performance to filter out their horrible lives before pivoting to a satire about how pitiful it is to live in LA, I guess?
Note: I wrote a new La La Land review as part of my Damien Chazelle retrospective. You can read it here.
I’m seriously bummed I didn’t see this one on the big screen.
Mostly harmless but bland to the point of brain rot.
A C-tier Lopez song, lots of rehashed/remixed gags and shots from the original Frozen, and a plot you’d expect to see in the third season of a sitcom. (Why does Elsa start acting drunk when she gets a cold?)
The booger snow monsters could have been fun-weird but are just boring-weird.
The only thing I unreservedly like is Elsa’s new green dress, which should probably show you the storytelling sophistication we’re dealing with here.
April 2022 update:
My four-year-old daughter specifically requested we watch this again. I try not to force my opinions on her, so I obliged without comment. But I asked her why.
“The snowgies are weird,” she said.
“And that’s good?” I asked.
“Yes. I like it when they’re weird. I wish I had Elsa’s powers so I could do weird things with it,” she said.
I was so proud. I’m gonna need to put together an age-organized curriculum of weird movies to keep her on this train.
A movie so hell-bent on recreating the original that it casts the same voice actress for the villain, gives her the same design (but skinny), and declares her a “sister.”
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Esther Kahn (2000)
Esther Kahn is an unusual concoction of genres: both a backstage theater drama and a coming of age tale. And much of the film’s charm comes from the thematic richness blending and juxtaposing those genres and their usual outcomes:
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A Goofy Movie (1995)
When I watch The Goofy Movie, I become Anton Ego from Ratatouille after he takes that first bite — a crotchety old man brought back to his childhood with some “peasant food.”
As expressive as the raccoons are…
As compelling as the visual allegory is and how much I vibe with parenting stories like this…
As much as I love seeing new hand-drawn animation projects with clear budget and love and artistry behind them…
The stuttery effect of the character animation absolutely ruined my pleasure watching this. I truly cannot understand what artistic effect they were trying to achieve, because it distracted me the entire time.
The first half of The Little Mermaid, in isolation, might be my favorite Walt Disney Animation Studios film.