The Goods: Film Reviews
In much the same way that short stories allow for bizarre, unsustainable scenarios that would never sufficiently fill out a novel, so Pixar’s short films provide an outlet for not-quite-a-story-but-not-quite-not-a-story premises: An old man playing chess against himself? A living lost and found box? Personifications of day and night? Sure, it works for five minutes.
One thing that Luzzu gets indisputably correct: Water is beautiful. Alex Camilleri captures in his debut film, with the help of cinematographer Léo Lefèvre, about 37 shades of blue, some bubbly, some murky, some bright, etc. I just wish the film spent even more of its runtime at sea.
Here’s a summary of the first few minutes of Read it and Weep:
Totally plausible, right?
I find myself torn between basic appreciation of the filmmaking craft of King Richard and utter annoyance at its awards-bait laziness.
The first hour of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is one of the most entertaining blockbusters of 2000s. Gore Verbinski captures all of his budget on screen, with huge swashbuckling set pieces and chases and outstanding period production values. The action comes at a furious clip. You can almost taste the popcorn as you watch.
Roger Ebert claimed to review movies based on how well they achieved their goals rather than the goals themselves, and I’m here to apply that same philosophy. For Blue’s Big Musical Movie is pretty terrific at being an epic, thoughtful, mildly subversive triple-length episode of the hit toddler TV show.
About Time’s big gimmick is its time travel, yet it’s pretty horrible as a time travel movie-proper.
Ned Vizzini was a young adult author who frequently and openly struggled with his mental health before dying by suicide at the age of 32 in 2013.
Rarely has a numeric rating felt so insufficient in capturing the totality of my opinion towards a film than what you see below.
I’m fairly tolerant of the Chris Columbus outings, but watching Prisoner of Azkaban right on the tails of the first two films is like wandering the desert and then having a big glass of water.