Nimona (2023) - Movie Review

Blue Sky Studios deserved better. I had given them a lot of flak for stuff like the Ice Age series and the Rio series, but their last two features not only showed drastic improvement from that standard, but showed that they had carved out their own niche in the modern animation market. Ferdinand had its growing pains, but still had some solid messaging, and Spies In Disguise only built on them further to make something even better. At long last, they found their (in my opinion) much-needed lane for today's family films with some strong pacifist messaging.

Then Disney bought out Blue Sky’s parent company 21^st Century Fox, repeatedly delayed their next feature, and then outright cancelled it along with Blue Sky Studios as a whole. The company that thinks digging up the graves of their previous successes, and that a new coat of CGI paint will cover the smell of stale corpse that is being paraded in front of audiences for profit, is a sound business strategy, but allowing a studio to continue operation and produce media that, just maybe, people might actually want to watch isn’t.

But out of the ashes of Blue Sky, this film still managed to take flight. Picked up by Annapurna Pictures, with animation by DNEG (who proved their salt as a dedicated animation studio with Ron’s Gone Wrong and Entergalactic), and Spies In Disguise directors Nick Bruno and Troy Quane (who were originally slated for the helm before Blue Sky got shuttered) brought back in. That this whole production exists as a manifestation of hubris and spite against the conglomerate that tried to stop it from being made, quite frankly, has already earned my respect. But hoo boy, did it not stop earning it from there.

No One Will Save You (2023) - Movie Review

This feels like the kind of flex every screenwriter-cum-director wants to make. After making his mark with some incredibly well-scripted efforts with The Babysitter, Love And Monsters, and even his directorial debut with Spontaneous, it looks like Brian Duffield wanted to show that he could tell a great story without even needing dialogue. And indeed, this is a film about a largely-mute protagonist who says all of one line, and the rest of the cast are just as silent. As someone who has been growing to love Duffield’s cinematic work, I was definitely curious about how such a venture would shape out.

Where The Crawdads Sing (2022) - Movie Review

When I first saw the trailer for this film, I had two immediate reactions to it: Feeling like I had seen the whole film already just from the trailer, and that the film was going to be a lot if that was even remotely accurate. It’s a coming-of-age survival story, it’s a romance, it’s a parable on the Other, it’s about prejudice, and it’s also a courtroom murder mystery; even at two hours long, this is already looking overstuffed. And indeed, there’s a lot going on here… but that only makes it even more astounding that it ends up as insubstantial as it does.

Luca (2021) - Movie Review

The year just doesn’t feel complete without looking at what Pixar has to offer. I understand that looking forward to a Disney product nowadays is like looking forward to a sunset (it’s difficult to get too excited about something that happens with clockwork regularity), but outside of the first two Cars movies, Pixar has never really steered me wrong as an animation studio. And with their latest, they’ve offered one of their most uncomplicated stories of the last several years, which itself is part of what makes this work.

Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Lonely and overworked, Dracula (Adam Sandler) needs to take a break. Luckily, his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) gets tickets for them and the rest of the Drac Pack to go on a luxury cruise just for monsters. As they indulge in some down time, it seems that Dracula may have found what he's looking for in the ship's captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). However, it seems that this cruise isn't all that it seems, and Dracula's old adversary Dr. Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) lays in wait to wreak his revenge on all monsters.