RRR (2022) - Movie Review

It has been way, way, way too long since I reviewed a Indian film. Over five years, from what I can tell, from a time when I used to look at them fairly frequently. I don’t really have a reason for why, as my local cinema shows plenty of Hindi-, Tamil-, and Telugu-language cinema; I guess I have just taken to prioritising English-language cinema. And as much as I could fluff a reason for why that is, to do with difficulties in reading other people’s emotions and language barriers and other such things… yeah. Maybe I just need to reintroduce them back into my regular media diet. Especially if the region is capable of something like this.

Lightyear (2022) - Movie Review

On the surface, the idea behind this particular Pixar film makes a lot of sense. It’s an origin story for Buzz Lightyear, not the toy, but the film and TV character that the toy was based on in-universe. Toy Story 2 did the same thing with Woody and the Woody’s Roundup show, and Disney at large has been doing a lot of postmodern media exercises over the last several years; if nothing else, this should be more interesting than just the standard live-action remake. And yeah, it is interesting… but not in the way they intended.

Turning Red (2022) - Movie Review

There are quite a few things that are considered good sport to make fun of. Boy bands like One Direction, twee romance novels like Twilight, any number of chick flicks. And not only has it been openly acceptable to mock such things, their audiences are regularly caught in the cross-hairs. Not many people tend to take a step back and considering why it’s okay to mock the things that young girls and woman are interested in; it’s just… part of ‘the culture’.

And before this sounds like I’m getting all holier-than-thou, I did my fair share of this shit too. ‘Boy bands are gay’, ‘chick flicks are stupid’, ‘what kind of damaged freak could possibly enjoy Twilight?’; teenaged me was way more judgemental than the me that decided to make a career out of judging media. I can’t say that I don’t hold onto at least some of those opinions today, but the notion that it’s perfectly cool to mock people just because they find joy in something? Yeah, that’s unbelievably not okay.

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) - Movie Review

My original intention with making today a Pinocchio double feature was that I would look at a film I was fairly certain wouldn’t work out (and then it did, at least in my opinion) with the Zemeckis version, and then I’d look at this Guillermo Del Toro-directed version to see it done right. Well, that would imply that the two are comparable, even in regard to their shared source material, but this really is an entirely different beast. It’s also, as much as I will go to bat for the Zemeckis film, even better.

Pinocchio (2022) - Movie Review

While Snow White And The Seven Dwarves may have been where Disney’s animated film history started, along with their canon of Disney Princesses, their 1940 film version of Pinocchio is arguably where Disney as an artistic aesthetic began. The iconic soundtrack, to the point where When You Wish Upon A Star has essentially become the official anthem for Disney, the elegant use of metaphor in its depiction of a child self-actualising, the timeless animation, that horrifying donkey transformation scene (which likely gave birth to an entire generation of Cronenberg fans); it’s a well-deserved classic.

And it is also the latest film to get pulped and sifted in the modern Disney remake machine, and between the icy reception it’s garnered already and me losing all hope in these things being good anymore after Aladdin and The Lion King, I was fully expecting to hate this. Guess I’ve found my big dissenting opinion for the year, because I actually quite liked this.

Slumberland (2022) - Movie Review

I’ve really come to appreciate the films of director Francis Lawrence. Sure, his work on the Hunger Games sequels represents the best of the 3^rd wave of YA adaptations (not to mention what might be my favourite scene in any movie with the Hanging Tree sequence in Mockingjay Part 1), but there’s also I Am Legend and Constantine as well. Legend has an understanding of the effect of social isolation that has properly stuck with me since watching it, and while Constantine is one of the best examples of the Vertigo comics aesthetic on film, even if it’s not necessarily the best example of Hellblazer specifically. And now, he appears to be aiming for something more family-friendly than he’s used to, with a reimagining of Little Nemo In Slumberland. And I gotta say, it’s pretty good.

The School For Good And Evil (2022) - Movie Review

Y’know, I’m starting to think that Paul Feig is just a hack. After his take on Ghostbusters failed to please (and honestly, whatever defences I had for it just grow fainter in my memory in the years since I watched it), he seems to be trying to do anything except for the raunchy comedy that he showed skill at with Bridesmaids, The Heat, and even Spy. A Simple Favor had him put on his best French affectation, and yeah, it was pretty good, but that was mainly from the borrowed aesthetics rather than anything identifiably him. Then there was his attempt at a British rom-com with Last Christmas, which is still one of the most laughable misfires I’ve ever covered on here for how it mangled the songs of George Michael. And now, he’s trying to make a high fantasy school setting, some proper 1^st wave YA material, and… yikes.