For my second piece about one of my top three favorite movies of the year, being Guillermo del Toro’s brilliant The Shape of Water, I took to the pages of The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Vision blog to talk about the element of his work that I find so compelling: His unfailing sense of wonder and awe. No matter the subject, no matter the movie, you understand that del Toro, at 53, looks at monsters and the fantastical through the same curious eyes as a kid would. He can make movies about giant robots beating the shit out of giant monsters, or about sanguine ghosts, or about regular-toned ghosts, or about fauns, or devil-men, and he’ll look at them all with the same loving amazement. It’s inspiring. (Clearly, else I would not have written this piece.)
A Constant Visual Feast 