102 Best Releases From the Genre Family (Page 5)
Jack
There was a trend when YouTube first launched, one that still pops up from time to time, where a skilled editor will take a film such as Dumb and Dumber or Elf and recut the trailer as a horror film. These pet projects are amusing at first glance, and serve to highlight deeply disturbing elements of classic comedies generally played for laughs. They demonstrate the power certain filmmakers have to elicit a specific audience response often diametrically opposed to the given circumstances on screen. Continue Reading →
Big Shot
SimilarWinning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,
StudioABC Signature,
Did you know Disney+ has original TV shows that don’t belong to the Marvel and Star Wars cinematic universes? It’s true! The streaming service also has a bunch of programs that are just too edgy for the Disney Channel, but not compelling enough to make it on other streaming platforms. A great example of this is the new John Stamos sports show Big Shot. Hailing from creators David E. Kelley and Brad Garrett, the show will prove revolutionary to those who have never seen any kind of inspirational sports storytelling before. Continue Reading →
劇場版ポケットモンスター みんなの物語
Stuck in the dark with little but her own fears, the animus of her colleagues, and the terrifying specter of a mysterious presence that haunts the hospital, Val's in for a bone-chilling night that will touch on not just her own personal traumas, but the collective trauma of abused and disbelieved women throughout history. Continue Reading →
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers
It’s been 25 years since we last saw coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) and his ragtag hockey team came out victorious in D3: The Mighty Ducks. But when they return in the Disney+ spinoff series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, things are a little different. For instance, Bombay isn't the same man he was; he now hates hockey and kids. Continue Reading →
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True
SimilarHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), West Side Story (2021), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
MPAA RatingG,
What if during one of your worst nightmares, you couldn't wake up, no matter how hard you tried? This the brooding question hanging throughout Come True, Anthony Scott Burns' sophomore horror thriller, coming off of Our House in 2018. The director (and now screenwriter) brings his visual effects background to develop an atmospheric wasteland of pure, spine-chilling dread with just a touch of analog sci-fi. The result is an ironically snoozy slog about the horrors of sleep paralysis that gets by more on vivid aesthetic than the sheer terror of what keeps us up at night. Continue Reading →
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
Early on in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, the third cinematic iteration of the long-running Nickelodeon series SpongeBob Squarepants -- after 2004's The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and 2015's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water -- the Tim Hill-directed road movie flashes us back to the childhood of our absorbent, yellow, porous protagonist (voiced by Tom Kenny) and his first meeting with his beloved snail, Gary. By the time the film's over, we'll learn that all of SpongeBob's friends -- Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke), Squidward (Rodger Bumpass), Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), and the rest -- all met as kids in an undersea summer camp called Kamp Koral. Continue Reading →
Raya and the Last Dragon
SimilarAliens (1986), Fantasia (1940), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Shrek (2001), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Zatoichi (2003),
Watch afterBlack Widow (2021),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
(Note: We heavily encourage you to read reviews and criticism from Southeast Asian critics, who have a much more intimate and detailed understanding of the cultures from which Raya and the Last Dragon draws inspiration. This thread is a helpful primer.) Continue Reading →
Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
MPAA RatingG,
Who actually wants movies like Tom & Jerry? Think back to the dregs of the Alvin & the Chipmunks movies from the aughts: the awkward blend of live action and animation, the creaky dragging of baby-boomer cartoon mascots awkwardly into present-day pop culture, the incessant noise of it all. What's worse, the characters you've come to see -- the ones your kids never knew -- come on screen in a form you hardly recognize. Continue Reading →
Trolls Band Together
SimilarBring It On (2000), Chicago (2002), Hellboy (2004), La Vie en Rose (2007), Night at the Museum (2006),
Watch afterFive Nights at Freddy's (2023), Saw X (2023), Thanksgiving (2023),
Studiodentsu,
Ed Helms and Patti Harrison charm in Nikole Beckwith's refreshing, pleasurable dramedy.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.)
Nikole Beckwith’s Together Together doesn’t break any new ground. But it doesn’t have to -- the film’s greatest pleasure lies simply in watching every part of the story fall into place the way we predict and expect it to. The dramedy is only Beckwith's second feature, but despite its familiarity, it's a pleasurable and refreshing experience. It’s light and witty, often packed with laughs and touching moments, with two stellar lead performances at its heart. Continue Reading →
하이킥! 짧은 다리의 역습
SimilarHospital Playlist Itaewon Class, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Three Days of Christmas,
A quick look at the best in short features at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
With 50 short films at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the programming represented a wide breadth of filmmakers, styles, and world regions. Comprising four shorts programs, two documentary sections, and an animation spotlight, these 50 films display the variability of style and substance in up-and-coming filmmakers in 2021. A few stood above the rest, though, defining the festival as a mixture of heavy topics, comic relief, and an inordinate amount of personal, affected storytelling.
The following seven shorts are listed in alphabetical order. Continue Reading →
Night at the Museum
SimilarBorat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005), Ocean's Eleven (1960), Snakes on a Plane (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
StarringOwen Wilson,
Studio20th Century Fox, Ingenious Media,
The thing about guilt is that it can wear you down until you’re more a cluster of exposed nerve endings than a human being. That, at least, is the premise behind The Night, a new psychological horror and debut film from director Kourosh Ahari. Set in Los Angeles and spoken almost entirely in Farsi, The Night is a wonderfully odd mix of being spare and a bit too much all at once. Continue Reading →
幸福还会来敲门
Buoyed by an excellent lead performance, Frida Kempff’s psychological horror is harrowing, but ill-served by a weak ending.
Sure, living in an apartment means you don’t have to worry about mortgages, property taxes or paying for new furnaces, but it also means trading in your privacy, and often being too aware of what your neighbors are doing. My upstairs neighbors seem to have either a small child or a large dog that runs back and forth across the living room floor, although I have not seen visual evidence of either. That’s an improvement over another neighbor, who I could hear cough and burp at all hours, and a third neighbor whose hobby was playing an electronic keyboard off-key. You learn to live with it, because that’s life in a box. Frida Kempff’s Knocking asks an unsettling question: what if the ordinary sounds of apartment living shouldn’t be ignored?
Molly (Cecilia Milocco) is on her own after a long stay at a psychiatric hospital. Other than some vague reference to an “incident,” we don’t know the nature of what brought her to the hospital, but she seems as though she’s forgotten how to interact with the world. Still in mourning over the end of a relationship (or perhaps the death of her partner, it’s never quite clear), Molly is painfully lonely, bereft of any friends or family to comfort and support her. Continue Reading →
Safety
Watch afterThe Flash (2023),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
At first glance, Disney+’s latest sports biopic Safety is a film about a particularly extraordinary individual. It is, after all, about a young man who faces insurmountable odds and comes out on top. But while its subject is a compelling protagonist, the real focus of the movie is an extraordinary community. Continue Reading →
The Letter for the King
Netflix's latest overstuffed fantasy adaptation is a challenge for viewers' time & patience.
Visiting the source material before watching an adaptation can be a difficult decision to make. On the one hand, going into a viewing experience as fresh and free of expectations as possible typically feels like the best-case scenario. On the other hand, some level of awareness can make it easier to follow the early installments of, say, a six-episode Netflix series.
To be a little less opaque, not being familiar with The Letter for the King’s source material -- the Dutch 60’s fantasy novel De brief voor de Koning -- makes the early goings of the Netflix series a bit of a slog. The first episode of newcomer showrunner Will Davies’s effort in particular feels very nearly inert. Too many characters are introduced with little clarity on their back story, and there's too much switching from location to location without giving us a true feel for the world. It's so much setup to achieve so little connection with the audience.
However, as Tiuri (Amir Wilson) begins to undergo the trials of becoming a knight more in earnest in episode 2, the world starts to take shape. More important, the show starts to develop a personality. In addition to finally separating Tiuri out as our lead, the supporting characters snap into relief. We see the mix of nobility, arrogant callousness, and underhandedness of Tiuri’s adopted father and namesake Sir Tiuri the Valiant (David Wenham). Sir Fantumar’s (Omid Djalili) thirst for power and disgust for others starts to reveal itself. Additionally, characters who ultimately do not figure stronger into the narrative become easier to spot. Continue Reading →
Amazing Stories
Apple TV+'s reboot of the Spielberg-created anthology series gets off to a lackluster start.
There’s something really special about an anthology series: it allows show creators to let their imaginations run wild and try different concepts that may not work for a movie or longer series. Apple TV+’s latest series, Amazing Stories, has the fledgling streaming service trying its hand at the format, but the episode available for preview doesn’t live up to the show’s title.
It’s actually kind of odd that Apple is rebooting Amazing Stories. The 1985 original run wasn’t a hit and while reruns played on The Sci-Fi Channel before it became Syfy, it doesn’t seem to have a large cult appeal. Still, the series does boast a producing credit by Steven Spielberg and its showrunners are Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz of Lost fame, so at least Apple has some star power to bolster the lagging nostalgic appeal.
Name recognition can only get you so far, however, and the success of the show will have to rely on its 5 episode run. Apple has only supplied one episode for critics, titled “The Cellar”, which was directed by Chris Long (The Americans). The story follows carpenter Sam Taylor (Dylan O’Brien, Bumblebee), who is restoring an old house with his brother Jack (Michah Stock, The Right Stuff). Continue Reading →
Onward
Pixar gets back to its tear-jerking roots with an emotionally complex modern fantasy about grief, loss, and brotherhood.
Early in Pixar's Onward, lanky, nerdy elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) retreats from a harrowing day of school into his bedroom, sitting at his desk where he's effectively erected a shrine to his father. He never met his dad; the man died of illness before Ian was born. All that's left of him are a collage of photographs, which gaze lovingly at the lens (and, by extension, Ian), but without context. The only recording of his dad's voice is a rambly outtake from a tape recorder, a one-sided conversation Ian pretends to fill in with his own words. When we lose someone, especially someone we never got to have in the first place, we do what we can to emulate that experience as best we can. It may not be real, but it's the best we get. And sometimes, it can blind us to the people who are actually around us.
That's the scene that finally began to unlock Pixar's Onward for me, a film whose kitschy ads and Dreamworks-level character designs made me fear the worst for the acclaimed studio's output. Pixar's long been known for their original tear-jerkers (it's easy to forget that Inside Out and Coco are two of their best films, released only in the last five years), but their continued mining of their existing franchises for whatever narrative meat is left on the bone -- and, let's be real, toy sales -- has diluted the brand somewhat. It's pleasing to say, then, that Onward, while not Pixar's best, will absolutely hit you in those finely-tuned heartstrings.
The premise is somewhere between Zootopia, Frozen and Dungeons & Dragons -- imagine a Tolkien-esque fantasy world where the various races of the realm went all-in on industrialization and abandoned the wonder of magic for the reliability and convenience of electricity, automobiles, and urban development. (The timeline's admittedly a little janky, and the film can't quite settle on how long ago this cultural switch happened, but just go with it.) Enter the Lightfoots, a family of elves living their lives in the suburbs: the painfully anxious Ian, his RPG-loving screwup brother Barley (Chris Pratt), and their overworked mother Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). They're getting by, but the absence of the boys' father clearly weighs on them. Ian's in desperate need of courage, and Barley loses himself in fantasy games (which just so happen to recount the world's real history) to avoid the real responsibility of adulthood. Continue Reading →
The Call of the Wild
Disney continues to shuffle off Fox's remaining output with this limp, awkward adaptation of the Jack London novel.
Jack London started writing The Call of the Wild at the dawn of the 20th century after traveling through Yukon country during the height of the Gold Rush. It was in this period of blind human ambition and greed that he conceived of a story told through a dog’s eyes. The very good dog, Buck, starts as a civilized house pet before being stolen and sold as a sled dog in Alaska. There he gets passed from owner to owner, some much nicer than others, and along the way discovers that his destiny is not with humans but with the beasts of the wilderness, like his ancestors before him.
It’s a beautifully written and visceral adventure about the brutality of man, the overwhelming power of nature, and the freedom we’re capable of when we turn our back on society’s rules. On the other hand, the new film adaptation of The Call of the Wild has all the thematic weight of an Air Bud sequel.
Director Chris Sanders, who is very accomplished in the world of animated film with credits like How to Train Your Dragon and Lilo & Stitch to his name, finds himself in no man’s land in the world of live-action. In order to really dig into the book’s themes and capture the harrowing journey Buck goes through, it’s necessary to make it a brutal animated movie like Watership Down. But that would be too much for any Disney-owned studio. Instead, we get a very saturated version of the novel that relies on a CGI dog that looks like a reject from Marmaduke. Continue Reading →
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. The greatest trick Sonic the Hedgehog ever pulled, on the other hand, was convincing the viewer it was harmlessly mediocre. But while the Devil is outright evil, the feature debut from Jeff Fowler is much more cynical: the kind of empty calories that fattens up the audience before leading them to the slaughter. Continue Reading →