3 Best Movies To Watch After Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
Snow
J.A. Bayona directs a heartbreaking adaptation of a true-life tale of tragedy & miracles. Though we joke about the smallest inconveniences rendering us helpless, in truth the human will to survive cannot be underestimated. When confronted with imminent death, we can and will resort to extreme means to escape it, sometimes in ways that might shock and horrify those who weren’t there. One such story was Aron Ralston, a hiker who was forced to break and cut his own arm off after he was trapped by a fallen boulder, as depicted in 2010’s 127 Hours. Another was a 1972 plane crash in the Andes mountains, after which the survivors, faced with subzero temperatures, no food, and no plant life or animals to be found, eventually resorted to cannibalism to avoid starvation. The Andes plane crash story was adapted for film a number of times, including the trashy, exploitative Survive!, and 1993’s competently made but whitewashed Alive, in which Ethan Hawke was cast as a character named Nando Parrado. Now J.A. Bayona, whose 2012 film The Impossible was also a harrowing tale of survival, takes a turn with Society of the Snow, a gripping, heart-wrenching look at the emotional toll such an unthinkable event takes on those who somehow came out of it alive, if not exactly well. Continue Reading →
Wish
Kids deserve better than yet another dull, going-through-the-motions misfire. The animation world was recently startled by Warner Bros.' announcement that they planned to shelve their recently completed feature Coyote vs Acme for a quick tax write-off, rather than spend money to release it. Not to be outdone, Disney Studios offers up Wish, an animated feature that is the kind of artistic misfire that deserves to be hidden away and never spoken about again. This is a creation so alternately bewildering and banal that it's implausible that at no point during the entire creative process did anyone point out the seemingly obvious fact that virtually none of it works on even the most basic levels. Wish takes place in the kingdom of Rosas, which was founded and is currently ruled by Magnifico (Chris Pine), a seemingly benevolent sorcerer who offers peace and protection for all those who live there. The catch is that they must surrender their deepest wish to Magnifico, who stores them in the lab in his castle in bubbles and once in a great while returns one to the person who made it. Inexplicably, the people of Rosas think this is a good deal, none more so than Asha (Ariana DeBose), a teenager who is all in on both Rosas and Magnifico and is hoping that the latter will present her beloved grandfather (Victor Argo) with his wish to commemorate his upcoming 100th birthday. Continue Reading →
A Field in England
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn't exist. Continue Reading →