112 Best Releases From the Genre Family (Page 4)

The modern era of musicals moves fits and spurts. Over this young century, the form has repeatedly fallen in and out of fashion. 2021 was an on year—one pulsing full of musicals, which ranged from towering works like Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake to the dreaded and thoroughly mocked Dear Evan Hansen. Many of them were quite experimental too, like Leos Carax and Sparks’ Annette and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick…BOOM!. But even against that august competition, Joe Wright’s Cyrano carves out a place as one of the most imaginative musicals of this modern era. Although The National’s newly-composed songs don’t immediately gel with the iconic story being told, Cyrano makes its way towards a moving, complex finale, thanks to a stellar set of performances.  Continue Reading →

NFL Hall of Famer Kurt Warner started as an undrafted, unwanted quarterback bagging groceries and wound up leading The Greatest Show on Turf with the St. Louis Rams. It’s a true story so improbable that it shouldn’t be believable as a movie. But, now that it’s a real movie in the form of American Underdog, a faith-based biopic, it does seem unbelievable. That’s not because of the inspirational tale; it’s because it’s such a mediocre sports film.  Continue Reading →

Aadrman's original 1989 Creature Comforts did something unique. Director Nick Park took interviews with everyday Britain residents and then put those vocals into the mouths of stop-motion animated zoo animals. The result was fascinating, as two disparate elements combined to tap into the daily woes which inform our lives. Whether you’re a lion trapped in an exhibit, or a man just yearning for the space of your original home country, melancholy emotions are universal.  Continue Reading →

Sometimes, it takes a moment for a movie’s subversive qualities to register. Bold artistic swings can take a moment to settle in. In the case of the new Netflix animated feature Back to the Outback, it wasn’t until after the credits began to roll that I realized something astonishing: Back to the Outback needle drops Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy”, but not Men at Work’s “Down Under.” It’s a rug pull if ever there was one. Continue Reading →

To quote Mystery Science Theater 3000, “It’s the 80s! Do a lot of coke and vote for Ronald Reagan!” Continue Reading →

Though their first project made exclusively for Netflix, Robin Robin brings animation studio Aardman back to familiar territory. Aardman’s big claim to fame was Wallace and Gromit shorts released as TV specials like A Grand Day Out or The Wrong Trousers. It may be dropping on a streaming platform rather than on broadcast television, but Robin Robin allows Aardman to once again cram a lot of beautiful animation and charm into 30 minutes of storytelling.   Continue Reading →

Once Upon a Time… Continue Reading →

What if you were the only one in your entire family without magic? Disney's Encanto sets out to answer that question with music and charm as its fanciful powers. Continue Reading →

Disney brought out the nostalgia machine for Home Sweet Home Alone, the latest installment in the franchise of the same name. While it’s not a carbon copy remake, Home Sweet Home Alone lacks the charm of the original 1990 film. It narrowly slides into being a passable family film thanks to the work of a committed cast featuring Archie Yates, Rob Delaney, and Ellie Kemper. Continue Reading →

Watching Clifford the Big Red Dog, it immediately becomes clear that the titular canine’s red fur represents represent the blood of the proletariat spilled at the altar of capitalism. After all, why else would Clifford populate the cast with kindly working-class humans while delivering antagonists in the form of big Pharma executives, cops, and even a pesky landlord? Clifford’s slapstick rampage is directed at the bourgeoise, whose massive number of sins are reflected in Clifford’s gigantic stature. Old Dogs auteur Walt Becker is putting the transgressions of the privileged class on display and introducing children to the concept of class consciousness.  Continue Reading →

First things first. Just to be very clear, Animaniacs remains a funny show. The writing staff led by showrunner Wellesley Wild is undoubtedly clever. They can turn a phrase. They can develop an idea. Likewise, the voice talents, especially the trio behind Dot (Tress MacNeille), Wakko (Jess Harnell), and Yakko (Rob Paulsen, who also provides Pinky’s voice), are quite funny and haven’t lost their gift for motormouthed gab in the years since the first series. Continue Reading →

Remember when the Saved by the Bell reboot hit small screens? How it stunned critics and viewers alike by being a delightful, intelligent show? One that managed to both send up its previous incarnation and deliver the goods in its own right? Head of the Class is the show we were all anticipating. Continue Reading →

Ron’s Gone Wrong has some lofty goals: it’s a bold attempt to talk about how social media addiction, consumerism, and technology at large has taken over kids’ lives in a way that’s not just unhealthy, but that’s actively leaving them lonelier. And if anything can be applauded about writer and director Sarah Smith’s film, it’s in the way it wants to tackle all of this head on. Only in this world, swap the iPhones and tablets for “B-bots”—cute little AIs proudly labeled “your best friend out of the box!” They follow you everywhere, learn everything about you, and use that info to help you make new friends via other kids’ B-bots. It’s the tech solution to friendship! ...And a handy little metaphor for the way tech once designed to bring us together has mutated into something else entirely. Continue Reading →

R.L. Stine is best known for those iconic Goosebumps books, but those aren’t the only stories he’s written over the years. That used to be easy to forget about, but the entertainment landscape of 2021 has reaffirmed this longstanding truth. Thanks to titles like Stranger Things popularizing youth-friendly horror in modern pop culture, a series of recent adaptations of Stine’s other works (which fit into that mold nicely) has reminded us all of just how many different projects Stine has written for over the years. Continue Reading →

The Addams Family characters have existed since 1938 and yet they’ve never felt as tired as they do in The Addams Family 2. A “kooky and spooky” family once known for subverting the norms is now the star of a movie that couldn’t be more ordinary. If you’ve seen one subpar computer-animated kids film from the last 15 years, you’ve probably seen all the worst bathroom and slapstick gags The Addams Family 2 has to offer. Here’s a feature that can’t be called a success unless it’s intended goal was to make one yearn for the sophistication of Hotel Transylvania 2. Continue Reading →

As evil witch Natacha (Krysten Ritter) exclaims in Nightbooks, she doesn’t like stories with “happy endings.” While it’s refreshing to have a children’s horror movie that doesn’t coddle the audience, Netflix's latest is hardly the spectacular, spooky adventure it packages itself to be. Instead, it’s more like the off-brand Halloween candy a kid might get trick or treating. It technically passes as a treat, but not one that will leave kids and parents coming back for more.   Continue Reading →

Netflix is trying really, maybe embarrassingly hard to make He-Man a thing again. With He-Man and the Masters of the Universe their throw-toys-at-the-wall-until-something-sticks approach is genuinely starting to wear out the patience of new and old fans alike.  Continue Reading →

Hollywood’s love for familiar brands has long since transcended parody and probably reached that point when a generic Transformers knock-off got slapped with the name Battleship. It’s almost scary how unsurprising the thought of somebody reviving the 1990s TV show Doogie Howser, M.D. as a streaming show is despite there being no clamor from the general public for such a property. As far as I know, no die-hard Doogie stans are taking to the streets demanding more stories about teenage doctors getting into shenanigans.  Continue Reading →