Trolls Band Together (2023) - Movie Review

This feels like a step backwards for this franchise. After expanding beyond pop music into all sorts of different genres in Trolls World Tour, going back to just pop music feels like it's making the film's world smaller, which isn't ideal if they're going to even bother making another one to begin with. That they likely did it just so that they could cash in on boy band nostalgia, with star Justin Timberlake’s history with NSYNC being both figuratively and literally invoked in this film, doesn’t help.

But hey, my first interaction with this franchise involved plenty of scepticism, and not only did I like the first film, I liked the second one even more so. Well, while I still had fun with this latest entry, I am definitely starting to wonder if this was all that necessary.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) - Movie Review

After two very solid and quite grounded character pieces, the latest from writer/director Dan Gilroy is a beast of a different palette. Oh, it shows him still in his highly cynical wheelhouse, once again taking inspiration from the Los Angeles cultural landscape to show another story of people who are mainly in it for themselves, but his methodology this time around shows him in new territory.

Ferdinand (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Fighting bull Ferdinand (John Cena) does not want to fight. Having escaped the ranch Casa Del Toro as a calf, and growing up on Nina (Lily Day) and Juan (Juanes)’s flower farm, he would much rather spend his days smelling the roses. However, when a day out on the town goes wrong and he finds himself back at the Casa Del Toro, he is forced to confront what society has deemed as his only purpose. As the calming goat Lupe (Kate McKinnon) and the other bulls Valiente (Bobby Cannavale), Bones (Anthony Anderson), Guapo (Peyton Manning), Machina (Tim Nordquist) and Angus (David Tennant) question why a bull wouldn’t want to fight a matador, Ferdinand plans to escape and, hopefully, spare himself and the others from a terrible fate.

 

Wonder (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: August “Auggie” Pullman (Jacob Tremblay), after being homeschooled by his parents (Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson) up until that point, starts to go to a mainstream school. As he tries to deal with people’s reaction to his rare facial deformity, his interactions with the students and teachers inspire those around him to start thinking differently about the things that they see.