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This review may contain spoilers.

I’m gonna be a little mean to this movie, so before I am, I wanna say that this movie has fucking magic in it. Visually unbelievable, so many well composed action sequences. Such well written character interactions that feel so honest. The energy is this movie is just, forgive the usage, Incredible. Brad Bird is one of the best filmmakers to ever do it. 

With all that said, this script bothers me. It has so many ideas that do not go together in a coherent way. It wants to be about gender roles in the average nuclear family. It also wants to be how public perception can be altered and manipulated. And don’t forget that it wants to be about whether or not Superheroes are truly a net positive for society. Add in some overtly political dialouge (“Politicians don't understand people who do good simply because it's right,” is a great early line in this movie), and you have a smorgasbord of interesting ideas. But the movie never ties them together. The main antagonist of this movie is a delight, another entry in the iconic line of queer coded villains in Disney cinema. I know queer people being villains is bad, but god she eats up the screen in this movie. And yet, the film refuses to really take her and her ideas seriously. She brings to the film a salient critique, that over reliance on people in costumes instead of things that make us tangibly safer is a mistake. But the film never counters this idea, just asks you to disagree because of course you disagree. You love super heroes right? That problems extends to every theme in this film. Nobody every questions the power dynamic presented by the manipulation of public perception. Bob never its to his wife that being a stay at home dad is harder than he thought. There’s no thematic inverse, nothing to meaningfully argue against. And it hurts, because with all these loose strings, it’s so easy to see how the strings could be tied together. 

Imagine a version of this film where at the end, screenslaver was never meant to win. Where screenslaver was a manipulation, putting lives at risk to give Elastigirl a nemesis, because heroes need a nemesis, that’s the story they want to sell. Helen and Bob would have to grapple with risking heroes staying illegal in order to save lives. Wouldn’t that be a more meaningful choice? 

I loved this movie. I could watch it a million times, and love it every time. I’m giving it 4.5 stars, because when it works it’s magic, you forget all the problems. But I just can’t give it that last half star. I want to, but I can’t.

I love dumb jokes. This movies gottem. 

This movie totally nails being a film sequel to a tv show. It’s got heart, a fun soundtrack, a big story, payoffs for show plot lines, it’s everything you could really want out of a movie like this. And the jokes are really funny, which you’d expect from a show as funny as this one. I found myself wishing in the first half that it was more visually ambitious. I get why, there’s really only one sequence that feels big and ambitions, and it overshoots its ability even then, but I love that scene. I like when I feel like limits are pushed. Probably being too picky though, this is great.

Anyway none of that matters because it’s 2025 and we need to talk about Carl doing an impression of a black woman while wearing blackface, we gotta cancel his ass.

Idk how to explain it but there’s something so genuinely refreshing about a comedian who might die alone. Like hell yeah girl, get your bag.

This film is a strange series of contradictions, and in my own contradiction, I love and hate that about it. It simultaneously wants to be a celebration of the fashion industry, and wants to be a take down of the vapidness of loving clothes too much. It wants to be a feminist text about how women in power are perceived, and also completely agrees with the boyfriend character who is upset his girlfriend cares about how she looks. And at the centre of it all is Miranda, a character who is simultaneously a tragic victim, and a horrible bully, and the only person in the world who can do what she does. The best creative choice in the movie is to have her be simultaneously insufferable, and insatiably watchable. These contradictions make the film, to be frank, thematically incoherent. But they also make it so much more interesting to dig your teeth into. And to me, that’s worth a hell of a lot more than stars.

What a miracle Toy Story is. A brilliantly simple story about friendship and identity, that may be for families, but never feels like it’s talking just to the kids. It’s aged, but like a fine wine, just as brilliant as the day it first released. It’s a movie that could have easily been a simple tech demo for Steve Jobs new computes, but because the people who made it cared, it gets to be so much more. The reason this film changed animation forever is the same reason that 30 years after its original release, it’s still capturing imaginations. Because I’m every moment, you can feel that it’s a film that people cared enough to make this good. What a miracle that is.

This review may contain spoilers.

This is the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen and I loved every second of it. Its mostly just Scarlett Johansen and Morgan Freeman saying sentenced that don’t really mean anything while Scar Jo unlocks super powers by taking drugs made from energy for babies. There’s so many dumb lines (“I the taste of your milk in my mouth”), so many incomprehensible moments (Scar Jo puts all the secrets to understanding the universe on the USB of the future), and so much very obviously fake science (Morgan Freeman claims Dolphins can echo locate because they have more access to their brains than we do). It’s impossible to tell if the movie thinks it’s smart, or knows it’s dumb, but I also don’t really care, because the end result is the same, an insanely fun time, with a lot of legitimately great visuals (Scar Jo flies around a square room in an impressive practical effect), and really funny jokes (every time someone has to react to Scar Jo’s super powers it’s absolutely hilarious). And it takes itself just seriously enough that I think it’s themed are worth engaging with. The plot is dumb, but the ideas that plot is communicating are worth some consideration. How much more could I want really?

Hard to think of a movie that benefits more from perfect direction. John Carpenter knew exactly what he was doing, as did Dean Cundey, the films DOP. The use of shadow in this movie is insane. Every image is constructed so well. Even having seen this film before, I found myself constantly wondering where Micheal Myers was hiding. But I was also struck this time around by how little hiding Micheal truly does. Something so creepy about the way Micheal simply exists in the world. Middle of the day, he’s driving around, chilling in backyards, always on his way, always unchallenged. Can’t think of a better walker in movies. It helps that the score accompanying him might be the best score in film. It has 2 songs it plays a lot throughout the whole thing, but they’re two of the best songs ever, so it doesn’t matter, they never grow tiring. There are plenty of ways this thing has aged, but by god, when it works its magic, I’m reminded that all the imitations over the years have been just that, imitations of the real thing.

This movie is cute! I really enjoying this movie as a kid, in part because the obvious parody of animated Disney films felt really fresh to me. As an adult, I’ve seen so many of these parodies, the magic has work off (ironic), and I crave the sincerity of classic Disney, rather than observations about how silly it all is. But luckily, this film isn’t afraid to be earnest when it counts. It starts looking like it’ll be a movie about learning to accept reality, but quickly becomes about letting a little fantasy into your life, and that’s a great heart for it to have. Toss in some silly, - if predictable - jokes, and some genuinely stellar song sequences, and you’ve got a fun kids flick! Worth a revisit I think.

They just let you log anything on here. Anyway this thing is wild, for better or worse. Liked it when a kid got flung out a window. Didn’t like it when a 30 year old Spencer expressed attraction to a 17 year old Tori. Was just baffled when the puppet did an entire freestyle rap that was just misogyny. Loved that Kenan was here. Thought the mashup was cute! The panda stalker was baffling. I guess that’s my review.

Really appreciate how effortlessly this walks the line between dreadfully dystopian and endlessly optimistic about the power of love, right up to the twist ending. But also, even without any of that, this is an insanely endearing rom-com, I was fully lost in the sauce this entire time, what a class act of a story.

I’m not exaggerating even a little when I say that Brennan Lee Mulligan is one of the greatest performers alive right now. There’s a reason he became the face of college humour so soon after being hired. There’s a reason his DND show is the one playing Madison Square Garden (no hate to The Adventure Zone or Critical Role). The man is a master at what he does, and this live show is him at his best, from his control over the crowd, to his incredible ability to leave it all on the table (it truly feels like not a single idea goes unused). The entire cast and crew of Dimension 20 is unbelievably talented. But come on. We all know who we’re here for.

If John Wick 1 is the ideal dad-core movie, this is the ideal dad-core sequel. The simple question this movie hinges on, whether John Wick can truly leave this life behind, and if he truly wants to, is as expected as it is engaging. Was truly shocked how many of my favourite moments in this weren’t the big moments. John having a drink with someone he was just trying to kill, John awkwardly filling his murder floor back in with cement, the hotel concierge taking care of his dog, the little moments here rule. Don’t get me wrong though, the big moments can also rock. I found the first half frustratingly slow, but it’s worth it to see all the dominos they set up fall in the second half.

I know I sound crazy but this almost made me cry

This review may contain spoilers.

There’s a now thought experiment in film about how Indiana Jones would be no different if you remove Indiana Jones. The idea is that the Nazis would find the arc of the covenant and burn alive no matter how Indy intervened, so he doesn’t actually impact the conclusion of the story. It’s obviously an over simplification, but I’ve always loved the way this line of thinking challenges our perception of the concept of protagonist. One of the key rules of writing is that your protagonists choices should be really important to the story. But what about when that isn’t the case?

The Hunger Games series is, in many ways, about choice. Katniss makes a lot of decisions, but she rarely has a choice in those decisions. When presented with the choice to kill or be killed, it’s not much of a choice at all. The first movie is absolutely defined by the only two true choices she makes. The choice to volunteer as tribute, and the choice to refuse to give the capital a single victor. These choices are hugely impactful, and nobody could have predicted her making them. They rock the entire world of Panem. 

By the time you get to Catching Fire, things are a lot more complicated, because of it’s no longer just the capital manipulating Katniss, it’s also the rebellion. We come to learn that the entire second film, Katniss is being manipulated as a part of a conspiracy that everyone is in on except for her and Peeta. She perceives the capital as the “bad guys” but then the “good guys” trick and lie to her so get her into a position where she’s useful to their cause. 

In the Mockingjay Duology, Katniss has made a seamless transition from puppet of the capital to puppet of the rebellion. Sure, her true feelings are what inspires, but the circumstances to inspire her are all manufactured, and she’s only here because they need her, not even because they want her. Even when she tries to make a real choice, it often backfires, or worse, is undermined. She decides to fight back in district 11, and shoots a plane down, only for it to crash into a hospital. She demands they save Peeta, and then Peeta tries to kill her. She makes an announcement to the world to fight back against Snow, and is shot. She does not get to be a woman who makes choices.

This all culminates in the middle hour of Mockingjay part 2. Katniss, believing that the source of their society’s corruption is Snow, decides to sneak out, go to the frontlines lines, and assassinate him. It is pretty obviously not a great plan, but it is unambiguously hers. Of course, it takes mere minutes after her arrival to the front lines for this decision to be undermined when shes placed in a unit whose purpose is to shoot further propaganda. This unit carried her across the city, towards Snow. Many people die, Katniss’s fellow tribute Finnick sacrifices himself, all so she can get to snow. And then she doesn’t. She arrives at his mansion, and before she can even get in the gates, the rebellion attacks the mansion, and bombs are dropped, killing the dozens of children there, including Katniss’s sister, and knocking Katniss unconscious. It’s truly demoralizing, that so many people die so Katniss can achieve this goal, and then she doesn’t. 

In the end, Katniss is able to finally reclaim her agency, but only by realizing who the true enemy is. She meets Snow after he’s been arrested, and is forced to confront who he really is. He’s a sad old man, dying. He’s supposed to be a final boss, and instead, he’s weak. This is not the man Katniss pictures when she said she wanted to assassinate Snow. On the other hand, Snow is more than happy to share with Katniss that the leader of the rebellion bombed those kids, not him. That same leader goes on to propose a new hunger games, this time for the children in the capital. Everything Katniss fought for was so things could stay exactly the same. This is the realization that matters most. That the games were not a uniquely evil invention by a brilliantly awful man. They were a symptom, a symptom of the corruption of power, and of the poisonous need for revenge. At the end of the story, Katniss is able to reclaim some sense of agency by killing the president, like she’d always planned. But this time it works, because she has a whole new reason for doing it. For the first time since winning the 74th Hunger Games, nobody expects her next move, nobody wants her next move, and she is finally able to confront the reason she hasn’t had choices. Not Snow, but corruption. And in doing so, Katniss is finally the one who reshapes the world. So much of this story would have happened all the same without her, and it’s cathartic to see her make one last choice that truly does change everything.

Anyway 3.5/5 stars I liked it less than Catching Fire.

I’m so glad this movie exists. It’s loving adaptation of Nate Stevensons breakout masterpiece, that was cancelled by Disney, before being revived for Netflix, fighting for its right to exist. It’s a story about how society enforces roles through social pressure, about how being lawful is not the same as being moral, about how people with agendas rewrite your history for you, and perhaps most of all, about how your “true self” isn’t inherently how you were born. It’s a deeply caring, deeply queer movie, and I’m so glad it won the fight to exist. It was a movie worth fighting for.

Are queer people just better at making art? Or do I have some self reflecting to do?

This is the fucking best.

I hated this movie as a teenager. I was a contrarian who liked the Nostalgia Critic and thought hating was funny. As an adult revisiting this movie for the first time, I’m reminded how stupid that kid was. Not to say this is a masterpiece, but it’s far more interesting than a young me would have ever given it credit for. I find myself so fascinated by this stories choice to focus on the politics of revolution rather than the acts. Katniss doesn’t do a ton of revolution fighting in this story, for the first time in this series, she never feels like a hero. She films commercials, and sings songs, in the name of inspiration. The only meaningful attempt at heroism she had is shooting down a plane that crashes into a hospital. But because of who she’s been up until this point, she’s the unwitting face of the revolution. She doesn’t want this, and to that end, the people using her as a symbol don’t want her. But that’s the hand they’ve been dealt, and they have to use it if they want to win. I like it when stories about a regular person becoming super important frame being important as a bad thing, a curse. There’s a tragedy to it, that really works.

It helps that Jennifer Lawrence can fucking act. She’s the second youngest woman to win a best actress award at the Oscars, and it’s very easy to see why, she brings so much life and vulnerability to Katniss, her performance elevates this movie so much. 

Unfortunately, I do fear this movie loses some of the visual charm of catching fire. So many memorable images in that movie. The capitol is evil, but it’s also visually interesting and memorable. Not nearly as many memorable images from this movie, it’s mostly set in a pretty dull looking military base. I understand that’s the story they were given from the book, but after seeing what they could do with IMAX cameras in Catching Fire, it feels like they could have done more to spruce up these sets.

My biggest shock with this movie is that I like the first Hunger Games less now, because I’ve seen what an elevated Hunger Games looks like. I the highlight is the visuals, this film takes the fairly average visual style of the first film and elevates it immensely. The choice to film only the arena scenes in IMAX was inspired. But I also really loved how this film elevated the themes. With about 20 extra minutes, and no need to waste time on set up, this movie can immediately start exploring the ideas it wants to explore, and it’s aged real well. It occurred to me on this watch that the capitols plan, to turn Katniss from revolution symbol to a symbol of romance, is very similar to what’s happening to Luigi Mangione in the media right now. 

Broadly, this movie just has rad vibes. My only wish is that there was more time spent with the crunchiness of the setting. The games themselves are such an important part of this equation, and the games are significantly more horrifying than the first movie, which I appreciated. But it feels like by focusing on threats like fog and monkeys, we’re failing to take the concept seriously. It’s already great, it doesn’t need that high concept shit to feel great, it ends up distracting me from the best stuff here. But in the end that feels small in comparison to how big this movie is.

Also, I don’t have a good place to put this, but Jennifer Lawrence could have won an Oscar for this movie and nobody could have disagreed with you, she’s brilliant.

Can’t overstate how special this special is to me. What a strangely resonant story for a preschool show about a dog family. In a world so full of cocomelons and Minecraft movies, it’s insane to see something for kids that feels crafted with this much love, with a surprisingly nuanced theme. Bluey is everything you want to see out of a kids cartoon, and I have no shame watching it as an adult.

I watched this movie drunk, and as such, don’t feel good giving it a star, it seems unfair. But if I had to… 4 out of 5 I think? Some excellent stuff in here, genuinely. Elevated by the crunchiness of its setting. I love the focus on survival in this movie, rather than just violence. The way they play the game in the first half, it’s so good. Mostly held back by being a book adaptation with a lot to get through. Some story bears are moved past so fast you barely them. But overall I think it’s an awesome, interesting time:

This movie really sets out to be bigger than its predecessor in every way, and I think it succeeds, but I think that goal bites it in the ass more than I expected. Take the setting for example. Despite being titled “Rugrats in Paris” the films main cultural reference point is not , but Japan. The idea of setting the film in a Japanese theme park in Paris is a pretty funny parody of Euro Disneyland on paper, but in execution, is a pretty perfect example of a hat on a hat. The ideas never mesh, I think there’s no crossover between the cultures. There’s no influence of Paris on the park, or vice versa, and it makes the big idea setting feel at odds with itself. 

The other best example is the climax, a Kaiju battle in the streets of Paris. The Rugrats do an amount of terrorism in the last 20 minutes that in real life would fundamentally change how engaged with the rest of the world. That’s not inherently a bad thing, I normally love it when animated movies go crazy and stupid like that. I don’t need the talking babies movie to be realistic per se. But in the first Rugrats movie, I found the grounded story gripping enough to overlook some of the lame poop jokes and more boring scenes. Here, with a story much less grounded, stakes that felt so much less real, I found the bad jokes sticking out so much more. Truly I don’t know how much different this film is than the first. It probably has the same good to bad joke ratio, I’m pretty confident it has just as many pop culture references, etc etc. But I wasn’t pulled into it, and that goes a long way.

It’s truly a shame to me that this film tried so hard to be bigger, because it’s best moments are when it makes an effort to feel smaller and more intimate than the first film. The focus here is on Chuckie, bringing into the limelight his desire for a new mom, and his need to be more confident. When the film is about this, it’s emotional and interesting and I like it a lot. The scene of Chuckie watching the mom and kid dance that he can’t be apart of? His dad coming over to comfort him? The way they both feel so alone on the plane to Paris? It hits. And it’s full of little scenes like that. I love how Kimi isn’t scared of giant Reptar, I love Angelica apologizing to the babies and realizing she’s gone too far, I love Chuckie being too scared to ask the princess to be his mom at the beginning, and overcoming that fear to save his dad from a sham marriage, saying “No” as his first word. It’s so sweet. Those smaller moments are great, I wish there was more stuff like that in this movie. As is, and I didn’t think I’d be saying this, it’s a bit too theatrical for me.

I never really got Rugrats. They were just before my time, so I hadn’t seen a ton of it, and it seemed like just another kids show. But I also knew the cultural cache for Rugrats was deep. I feel like culturally, we’ve forgotten that these characters were such a huge deal. They had 3 theatrically released films! In contrast, it took Spongebob 20 years to achieve the same feat. I had no idea why kids had Rugrats fever. Now that I’ve finally seen this film, I absolutely get it. What a delight. If I had seen this as a kid I would have begged for it on DVD and watched it a million times.

This movie is distinctly for kids, but it also does my favourite kids movie thing, being scary. It’s hard to remove yourself from the horror of the situation. A group of babies lost in the wilderness, hunted by a wild animal. They play it straight, the stakes feel so real. And it’s full of these great little moments that make it feel that much more mature. Not adult per se, but interested in adult ideas. An early scene features an argument between following your dreams, and taking a job with benefits to keep feeding your kids. One of the final moments has Angelica’s mom throwing her phone away to focus on her kid, a blink and you miss it moment that almost made me cry. And of course there’s the iconic scene where Tommy attempts to kill his brother Dill in a direct parallel to the biblical story of Isaac and Abraham. I knew that scene happened, but it can’t be understated how nuts it feels in the moment.

It helps that I love tv animation given a feature film budget, and this a primo example of it. The Klasky Csupo style is so unique and special, and I appreciated that they kept its rough edges and bizarre designs, while still going the extra mile to make it feel cinematic, like it belonged on the big screen.

I don’t want to overstate how adult this movie is. It is a Nicktoons movie about babies, you’re getting what it says on the tin. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I watched this film in the “widescreen format” on dvd on my big tv, which meant the film was squished, black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. At first this bothered me, but then it kind of became apart of my experience. It reminded me of being a kid, seeing something on a small screen that felt bigger than I was. It’s a uniquely childhood experience, one that I was pleasantly surprised to see bottled up in this way. I was given the chance to feel something I hadn’t truly felt in 15 years, and that wasn’t what I was expecting from Rugrats. So, yeah, I think I get it now.

Saw this as a part of a collection of Saturday Morning Cartoons at my local indie theatre, and I absolutely loved it. Such a fun style, such great gags, and a legit great style. I absolutely never would have found this on my own, so glad I had someone share it with me, what a delight.

Watched this in the theatre, kid behind me saw Betty Boop and said “Oh cool, it’s that person!” And honestly kid same. Cool is also how I describe Betty Boop. Absolute queen.

I watched this in a movie theatre and when Barbie revealed her bright pink spaceship the entire theatre burst into applause. 

1000/10 experience, thank you Barbie for world peace

The platonic ideal of a dad-core movie. Pretty standard and solid, but significantly elevated to greatness by some enthralling world building. The world of assassins in this film is so well built, it makes the trope of “killing machine comes out of retirement” feel fresh and exciting. This world has existed for years without John, changed. And yet, it feels like it’s been desperately waiting for his return. It’s awesome. Only thing keeping it from 4 and a half stars is that the film peaks at the halfway point with the club sequence, and after that, the grand climax feels underwhelming in comparison. Nonetheless, can’t deny a kickass film when I see it.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Win or Lose. What a unique, moving experiment of a show. Pixar’s first, and most likely last foray into the television format. It’s so creative, with this crazy visual energy. And it’s so personal, the stories all feel so grounded and real, yet also elevated by the evocativeness of the art style. I’m so happy this show exists. It isn’t always my favourite show, but that’s fine, I want things that aren’t my favourite to exist too. That’s the beauty of art, that it’ll be someone’s favourite.

Worst Bo Burnham special is still one of the greatest comedy specials I’ve ever experienced, who would have guessed.

This review may contain spoilers.

There was a guy behind me watching this movie so excited. When the films post credits scene came to a stop, he told his parents, full of anticipation, that it was teasing Secret Wars. In that moment, I felt jealous of him. Because I walking out of Marvel movies feeling like that. I walking out of Spider-Man Far From Home pumped for the future of the MCU. I don’t feel pumped anymore.

This movie is saddled with impossible baggage. The MCU has been working on a broken foundation for a long time, but it crumbles under its own weight hard in this one. This movie, despite its total, is not a sequel to the Captain America films, not really. It’s sort of a sequel to Falcon and The Winter Soldier. It’s also kind of a sequel to the Eternals. But mostly, it’s a sequel to 2008s The Incredible Hulk. The villain is from The Incredible Hulk. Harrison Ford is a recast character from The Incredible Hulk. The movie starts with boring exposition recapping the events of 2008s The Incredible Hulk. It’s insane, and being mostly about things I don’t find interesting, makes this movie not very interesting.

Of course, even if this was a sequel to movies I actually liked, I still think it would be boring. The CG is unbelievably atrocious, it looks like a Fortnite cutscene most of the time. The script is all over the place, poorly paced with nothing to say. And the new characters it introduces to the MCU are all boring. It’s clear that the new Falcon and the new Israeli hero are meant to replace Sam and Natasha in Winter Soldier. But they lack personalities or motivations, they just kind of follow Captain America as he goes places to move the plot forward. 

This movie wants to be a fresh start for the MCU. It has Sam Wilson considering starting a new Avengers team, a new era. But what era is this then? Wanda vision was a new era. Eternals was a new era. Ant Man 3 was a new era. How many fresh starts can this franchise get? And the more times it starts to start fresh, the more it gets bogged down by baggage that it needs to cut loose if it wants to gain back everything it’s lost.

This film is basically about how awesome it is to have divorced gay dads and that rules.

This is a fun time, very cute animation and some solid jokes. Although even I, a guy who is basically a child, think it’s aimed a little young for me. Which is fine, I don’t need movies to be aimed at me to like them. I bet kids are gonna be talking about this film over the next lifetime, and in 15 years, we’re gonna see a whole lotta think peices about the secret depth of the Dog Man movie (just like we’re seeing for the books right now). I found the emotional beats were often oddly placed, the balance between total absurdity and scenes that require emotional investment was out of wack, but again, that might land better for kids watching than for me, I don’t know. Either way I’m glad I saw it. It’s cute!

It’s got the juice

Is it fair at this point to call Oppenheimer an early contender for film of the decade? A year and an half out from release, and it’s just as impressive, and somehow, perhaps even more timely. Much ado was made by the film lovers when it released that it was largely a legal drama, where men talk about science in rooms, and it made almost a billion dollars. I think not enough ado was made about the fact that this film, despite its legal focus, has the blood of a blockbuster. It name drops JFK like a comic book reference, it gives Oppenheimer a suit up sequence, it’s got corny one liners (“The chances are near Zero” “Near Zero?” “What do you want from theory some?” “Zero would be nice.”) The energy of the film is kinetic, using swelling montages it’s hard to not get swept up in. I truly think anyone can watch this film and enjoy it. Which is good, because I think it’s an important film to see. A film about American individualism, about how history is written, about the absurd nature of the arms race. All centred around Oppie, a man the film simultaneously mythologizes, and dresses down (literally). He is referred to as American Prometheus, understood even by his greatest enemies to be one of the greatest minds of his time. And yet, he’s so completely pathetic. A man so willing to be beaten down, he shakes the hand of the man who does it. Oppie has so many opportunities to stand up and believe in something, and he never does. It calls him Oppie for Christ sakes. It reminds us that the people who do the most evil in the world are, often, pathetic, and that fact is not a coincidence, but what enables evil. And in this moment in time, has America ever been led by more pathetic, individualistic men? The film hates Oppie not because he built the bomb, but because he couldn’t not. And whats more pathetic than that?

This review may contain spoilers.

There’s a scene right near the end of Moana 2 where Moana turns to her crew and says “this will be our greatest challenge yet” and it’s completely baffling, because at this point in the story, this is only the 2nd or 3rd thing they’ve actually done together. It’s a confusing vibe, but it’s probably the most noteworthy scene to me, because it captures in 1 scene the vibe of the whole movie. It feels like scenes are missing. Characters enter and leave the plot without really serving much purpose at all. And the movie is so afraid of itself, and its own identity, that it feels the need to remind you of the first film at every turn, in increasingly lame ways (I lost count of how many times people said “how far we’ll go” in this movie). It’s not bad. The animation will look fine on a demo reel. The songs will fit in decent on a Disney playlist, sandwiched between more memorable numbers. It’s probably gonna entertain a bunch of kids on Disney* for years to come. I just wish it aimed to do more than that.

This review may contain spoilers.

I can’t stop thinking about the title of this movie. The NeverEnding Story. It’s fair to say, this story doesn’t end. The film only adapts half the book it’s based on, and ends with narration saying there’s more story to tell. The movie doesn’t conclude, so much as it just stops. But the book in the movie is also titled The NeverEnding Story. This is because the story won’t end. The reader, our protagonist, is able to keep the story going forever, all he has to do is imagine it, make wishes for what he wants to be true. He brings his own life to the story. His own fears and insecurities, his trauma, his grief, it informs his version of the text, the text that continues when he imagines it continuing. Bringing himself to the story makes it so it never truly ends.

But it goes another layer deeper. Of course the protagonist is a part of The NeverEnding Story. He’s literally the main character of the film. But the film also draws attention to the fact that it’s a film. It insinuates that we too are apart of the story. We are also engaging with it, allowing it to tickle our imagination. We, the viewer, are also, in some way, characters, in The NeverEnding Story. By talking about it, we keep it alive. So where does it end? Is every peice of writing, every analysis, one big extension of the story? It is perhaps true then, that by reading this very Letterboxd review, you too have become another character in The NeverEnding Story?

Anyway 8/10 I like the puppets

Ignoring for a second whether I think it’s a Christmas movie, I think the real reason people want it to be a Christmas movie, is because it’s the perfect movie, and we deserve a culturally acceptable excuse to put it back in theatres every single year. Is anyone going to disagree if I say this is a perfect movie? I doubt it.

This film is obsessed with the question of why anyone does art to begin with. It makes you miserable, a loner, anti social. It doesn’t provide a direct answer. It simply assures you. You will make art. And it will be something special. And it will have a profound impact, an impact you might never see. And you’ll keep making it. And when you show your best friend, and they smile. It’ll all have been worth it.

This movie has such interesting cultural baggage, from its status as a bomb, to its status as a successor to Juno, to its status as a cult classic. Do yourself a favor, forget all of that. This is a movie that has to be met on its own . And I think, if you’re willing to engage with the film, from the impossibly corny dialouge, to the exploration of female friendship, you’ll find gold. Step one is realizing it’s all intentional. Step two is to realize Diablo Cody is bisexual as hell. The rest comes naturally.

It’s ironic in a tragic way that Dreamworks laid off most of their in house animation department when this movie was finished, because this feels like a culmination of everything that the people behind it have learned from the past 20 years making movies. It is one of the most stunningly shot animated movies I’ve ever seen, any random shot so beautiful and well constructed, I was constantly in awe. The character designs are amazing. It makes sense this movie came from a director of Lilo and Stitch and HTTYD, because the love and care put into those pet characters, the love that made them merchandisable icons, is put into every character in this movie, from the smallest animal to the biggest robot. And god, this movie has an absurdly tight screenplay. It’s 1 hour and 42 minutes, but if you told me it was just 1 hour, I’d probably believe you, it’s a breakneck pace, that establishes so much so quickly, gets you invested in the characters with such incredible efficiency, it’s to be ired. But it never moves too fast. For a film so fast paced, it’s shocking how much time it takes to breath, enjoy the little moments of life between the characters. And what wonderful characters they are. The bond between Ros and her goose son is obviously the heart of the movie, and basically every scene they had together past the midpoint moved me to near tears. But I found myself just as moved by the relationship the titular Wild Robot formed with all the animals of the forest. The growth not just of individual characters, but of their community, was really meaningful to me. It serves as a great reminder that we are gifted with the ability to overcome our perceived nature, and that’s really beautiful. 

I was moved to near tears multiple times, and while I have to sit on it for a bit, I feel like it’s fair to say Dreamworld raised the bar. If this is the end of the Dreamworks we knew, it’s a stunning final bow. However, I truly hope this isn’t the end for The Wild Robot. The pretty spectacular ending, while bittersweet, has me absolutely begging for more. Chris Sanders, develop a sequel, and my soul is yours.

This is by far the most funny Twilight movie to me, it’s so full of buckwild choices. It still has all the same stuff that feels awkward in the other 4 movies, but I like it the most here, I think because it’s all so cohesive. Most Twilights love throwing in stuff that is disconnected from the rest of what’s going on (New Moon throwing in the Vulturi at the last minute, Breaking Dawn suddenly flipping from being about sex to being about war) but I think Eclipse is pretty cohesive in of being about 2 things the entire time. Was a fun time!

This movie is visually stunning, one of the best looking movies ever maybe. Unfortunately it doesn’t do nearly as much new as the previous movie did. HTTYD2 reinvented itself. This one reuses all its which makes it great, but is held back by feeling like the story is repeating itself. Shame, because there’s plenty in this movie that hits.

Improves on the first in every way. People often say franchises grow up with their audience, but this is one of the rare cases where it’s true in every sense of the word, this movie raises the stakes so exceptionally. It’s better looking, more creative, more emotional, in every way possible, it’s more. Exactly what I didn’t know I wanted.

An impeccably tight script. It feels incredibly quaint, not shooting to be something you haven’t seen before, but striving to be the best version of what it is it can be. Have to respect that.