“Able to Do Anything Post-MCU, Robert Downey Jr. Chooses ‘Dolittle'”

What’s a man do to when he has all the money in the world plus a rehabilitated image as Marvel’s greatest hero? He does little. Very, very little. Continue reading →

Review: The House with a Clock in Its Walls, 2018, dir. Eli Roth

So imagine this: There’s a house, and it’s littered with clocks, but there’s also a clock in its walls and it’s the clock in the walls that everyone’s fussing about. Doesn’t make a ton of real world sense, but it makes plenty of movie world sense, and presto, there you have it, Eli Roth’s The House … Continue reading →

Review: Lu Over the Wall, 2018, dir. Masaaki Yuasa

I struggled to put my thoughts about Masaaki Yuasa’s Lu Over the Wall into words, which is really bad, because putting thoughts into words is sort of my thing. It’s not that I don’t like Lu Over the Wall, but rather that Lu Over the Wall is what I imagine your run of the mill psychedelic drug trip looks like … Continue reading →

“How ‘Wrinkle in Time’ Refuses to Conform”

Recently, I took it upon myself as a journalist, a critic, and a writer to re-read A Wrinkle in Time, the ol’ Madeleine L’Engle book, in preparation for A Wrinkle in Time, the new Ava DuVernay adaptation. (I actually covered the story years back, when Disney hired Jennifer Lee to write it, so I’ve been procrastinating on … Continue reading →

Review: The Book of Henry, 2017, dir. Colin Trevorrow

I’m not sure what else can be said about The Book of Henry after the Internet gave it a straight-up, bewildered drubbing, but that won’t stop me from sharing the review I cobbled together for Paste Magazine. I don’t mind saying that this, Colin Trevorrow’s choice of post-Jurassic World, pre-Jurassic World 2, pre-Star War:s Episode IX work, … Continue reading →

Review: Pete’s Dragon, 2016, dir. David Lowery

Pete’s Dragon worked for me. This is as surprising a development for me as it is for everyone who knows me. Let’s examine the facts: I’m not a huge fan of Lowery’s last film, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, such that I have not bothered to go back and see his other films. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints is … Continue reading →

Review: The Secret Life of Pets, 2016, dir. Chris Renaud & Yarrow Cheney

…man, even thinking of an appropriate intro blurb for linking my review of The Secret Life of Pets feels like as much a chore as writing the review itself. What a nothing of a movie. It isn’t terrible. It isn’t good. It is awkward and oddly structured, and you can see where Chris Renaud and Yarrow … Continue reading →

Review: Zootopia, 2016, dir. Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush

Months ago, if you told me Zootopia would win me over on a cardiovascular level, I probably would have ignored you. Yet here we are today, with my glowing review freshly posted over at Paste Magazine. Zootopia is a delight. Even if it didn’t lean hard on its discrimination allegory, it would still be wonderful; it has a great sense … Continue reading →

Review: Pan, 2015, dir. Joe Wright

“When Joe Wright’s Pan moves its setting away from London and into Neverland, Peter (Levi Miller), not yet the hero we know he becomes, steps out onto the deck of a flying pirate ship to observe a strip mine jammed with filthy children singing a shanty song that sounds an awful lot like “Smells Like … Continue reading →

Review: Rise of the Guardians, 2012, dir. Peter Ramsey

Thinking about Rise of the Guardians, Dreamworks’ latest offering, I can’t say for sure whether Pete Ramsey mixed a heart-warming, energetic childrens’ film with a story of secular subversion or vice versa. Most likely, it’s the former; there’s little doubting that Rise of the Guardians exists first and foremost to entertain and dazzle theaters full … Continue reading →

Review: Hugo, 2011, dir. Martin Scorsese

Another year, another film about films and the spirit of filmmaking itself. Leave it to the legendary Martin Scorsese, though, to take the opportunity to fuse together a picture of that persuasion on a grand, macro scale which spans more than a century instead of honing in on a more intimate examination of the craft. … Continue reading →

Gender In Pixar

Pixar’s 2009 3D animated feature, the truly excellent Up, follows an old man’s bid to see out his deceased wife’s wish of living atop a hidden valley located somewhere in South America; accompanying him on his journey is a Wilderness Scout seven decades his junior.  Eventually, they meet a talking dog, a highly intelligent and … Continue reading →