“Jorge R. Gutierrez wants to teach people about his heritage. He also wants to make colorful, energetic animated films to dazzle a wide audience. With The Book of Life, Gutierrez manages to scratch both itches at once. It’s his first credit as a director and his sixth as an animator; his comfort with the medium … Continue reading
Too many contemporary biopics consciously and repeatedly make the same mistake: they struggle in vain to dilute the whole of their subjects’ lives into two hour chunks of running time, and they often end up scattered, non-cohesive, and aimless as a result. It’s a dual-pronged problem of too much content being stuffed into too narrow … Continue reading
Casa de mi Padre is remarkably difficult to categorize. On the one hand, it’s eighty minutes of bizarre, absurdist, surrealist humor bent on taking potshots at immeasurably melodramatic telenovelas as well as the works of Sam Peckinpah. On the other, there’s still very little cinema to which it has a direct analogue. Take, for example, Friday’s other … Continue reading
A Constant Visual Feast 