Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Ponyo
Escaping the balmy summer heat in an air-conditioned theater playing Ponyo is like taking an epistemic holiday. Arguably, I suppose, one could say that about many movies―particularly foreign ones―and that’s certainly one of the medium’s charms; but rarely are movies as breezily surreal as this animated import by Hayao Miyazaki. The setting is not far [...]
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Saturday, June 13th, 2009
Up
These days, Pixar stands alone in being a reliable source for “family” entertainment that doesn’t leave any quarters cringing. It’s for this reason, perhaps, that I recoil whenever anyone self-identifies as a “Pixar dork”—as if it were unusual to appreciate something that’s both critically acclaimed and gobbled up by the masses. That peculiarly self-serving form [...]
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Saturday, August 9th, 2008
The Fall
I am, by nature, suspicious of any director who goes by one name, but with The Fall, Tarsem has created a movie that’s wonderful in all senses of the word. The story, set in the late 1910s or early ’20s in a hospital in Los Angeles, is seen through the eyes of a little Indian [...]
6 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Friday, July 4th, 2008
WALL-E
WALL-E, the new Pixar animated film, is as much revered as, or perhaps more revered than, any of its predecessors. It has components of classical “family entertainment”—breezy, (somewhat) optimistic spectacle with charming, hand-holding lovers, skillful importation of elements from more “grown-up” sources, and, of course, a “wholesome” message—and uses them in a way that’s seldom [...]