Scene 1: Three scoundrels wait at a train station at the end of the world.
Categories
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
Author: Dan Stalcup
Categories
Jean-Pierre’s Mouth (1996)
Mercifully short and non-exploitative, Lucile Hadžihalilović‘s debut is claustrophobic and tense and well-crafted. The film’s sense of dread never boils over into outright terror, but it’s nonetheless a fairly haunting little piece.
Chris Columbus’s approach to adapting the generationally important book series is certainly a bit broken as a film qua film.
Categories
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.
Categories
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.”
Categories
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:
Categories
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.”