鹿の王 ユナと約束の旅
Watch afterEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022),
From the start, GKIDS' latest acquisition, The Deer King, can call itself the spiritual sequel to Princess Mononoke without fear. Like Studio Ghibli’s 1997 title, the adaptation of Nahoko Uehasi’s eponymous novel series also has world-building text about clashing factions and ancient magic unfolding over vivid forests and stirring music. One of this film’s directors, Masashi Ando, was a supervising animator for the other one. Wolves and elks are again the beasts with the most screen time. Continue Reading →
Elvis
SimilarBrubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Raging Bull (1980),
Watch afterThor: Love and Thunder (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022),
In the opening seconds of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, viewers are blasted with the sight of the Warner Bros. logo – a variant glowing in gold and crimson, practically exploding with flair and moving parts – accompanied on the soundtrack by a remix of “Suspicious Minds.” Within the first few minutes, sweeping shots of Las Vegas clash with Ocean’s 11-style split screens, and the editing juggles between slowmo and cranked-up fast motion, in classic Luhrmann fashion. Continue Reading →
They Live in the Grey
SimilarA Nightmare on Elm Street (1984),
Although this Shudder Original from Hmong filmmaking duo the Vang Brothers—Burlee and Abel—is part supernatural thriller and part domestic drama, it actually aims to be a character-driven paranormal picture above all else. The character in question is Child Protective Services worker Claire Yang (Michelle Krusiec), who is noted by her boss as an efficient case-closer until this latest one neck-deep in bizarreness. In the Langs’ household, everything is tense as the young Sopviuhie (Madelyn Grace) is hurt and scarred; all the logical deductions will point to her parents Audrey (Ellen Wroe) and Giles (J.R. Cacia) as the culprits. Continue Reading →
Dream Horse
SimilarBring It On (2000), Brubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Raging Bull (1980),
Watch afterAvatar: The Way of Water (2022),
StudioFilm4 Productions, Ingenious Media,
Toni Collette has recently made a name for herself in the broader movie-going culture as a queen of creepy, suspense cinema, with her fantastic performances in Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Charlie Kaufman’s dark and whimsical I’m Thinking of Ending Things. It’s fun to see this resurgence of popularity nearly two decades after she gave what I consider her best performance of her career in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense. Continue Reading →
Nine Days
Edson Oda's debut feature about a group of souls looking to be born into the real world is a great premise with pretty good execution.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.)
Tones, worldviews, inspirations both obvious and implicit—it’s notable when something juggles a medley of ideas. They signal a larger ambition even when they don’t work out. Such leads to a general rule of thumb: the farther a movie’s parts are from one another, the more conversation it’ll stimulate. Then there’s Edson Oda’s Nine Days, which, while not narratively or thematically disparate, follows suit for a while but not by the end.
That isn’t to say it’s a messy movie. It’s actually quite tidy, and that’s the largest issue for a debut film that flirts with its own perspective without fully committing to one. By trying to ground its moral and ethical quandaries in something universal, it reveals its own perspective only to undo it by the end. While steady in how it approaches each character, it maintains an objective viewpoint before procuring its own perspective—until it takes the easy way out. Continue Reading →