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.

Titane (2021) - Movie Review

I went into this as blind as I possibly could. All I knew about it going in was that it was a French film, a lot of critics I follow have brought it up as one of, if not the, craziest film of the year, and it was written and directed by Julia Ducournau, who also made Raw, which is one of my favourite films from 2017 (and it would’ve ranked pretty damn high had I actually written a best-of list for that year). Beyond that, I knew nothing about the plot or any potential inklings of theme, and quite frankly, I couldn’t have picked a better film to try this approach with this year. Partly because it helped make the specifics of the plot that much more bizarre (and this is pretty frickin’ weird as is), but mainly because figuring out what this whole mess is about is going to be that much more fun for me. So! Let’s dig in.

Alita: Battle Angel (2019) - Movie Review

 

Well, this is one hell of an unexpected team-up. On one hand, you’ve got director Robert Rodriguez, one-man film crew, vanguard of modern exploitation and the guy behind the film that got into cinema in the first place. And on the other, you have co-writer James Cameron, a filmmaker responsible for some of the greatest 90’s action flicks and the guy behind the two highest-grossing films of all time. Of course, since Rodriguez hasn’t been in the director’s chair for a few years now (and his last couple of offerings were quite inconsistent) and Cameron is apparently dedicating himself solely to building an empire of unnecessary backwash off the back of Avatar, this could easily turn sour. But man oh man, am I glad that this film is as entertaining as it is.

The Danish Girl (2016) - Movie Review

After looking at Tangerine last month, I think that my cinematic perspective on transgenderism has been forever altered as a result. It is also going to serve as an interesting contrast to how the more mainstream film scene treats similar subject matter. Now, since I don’t go too far out of my way when it comes to what films get watched/reviewed around here, I don’t want to take any hoity-toity position when it comes to more independent cinema. That said, I can’t help but feel like subject matter such as transgenderism is better suited for the indie scene; the amount of sensitivity required to make a portrayal of such things work shouldn’t be hindered by any kind of company oversight. Then again, if Any Day Now proved anything, it’s that the indies are just capable of screwing up as the Hollywood system, so this could really go either way.