Review: "Collateral Beauty"

by Chris Feil

When the aliens discover Earth, long after the ice caps have melted, I hope we leave a time capsule that includes Collateral Beauty to explain ourselves. No seriously: there's something to the film's off-handed cruelty and blasé emotional platitudes that shows how dunderheaded we humans can be. However this is only one of the film's many accidents, coming from its lack of self-awareness rather than its content. Collateral Beauty thinks itself holistic and clever, but its actually deeply, fundamentally stupid.

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Doc Corner: 'Life, Animated' Lacks Complexities of Modern Disney

Roger Ross Williams’ Life, Animated is an emotional 90 minutes of a heart-warming story that will likely give your tear ducts a good workout. It’s also not a particularly good movie. This is a frustratingly directed film that details the life of Owen Suskind, a young man whose early predilection for Disney animated movies allowed him to revert out of his shell and prosper into young adulthood. Williams has adapted the non-fiction book by Owen’s father, Ron – a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist – who, alongside his wife Cornelia, feature prominently throughout telling in wondrous detail of the miracles that have come their way since discovering Owen’s passion with a viewing of The Little Mermaid...

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Doc Corner: China Comes Into Focus in Documentaries

by Glenn Dunks

Two weeks ago (I had to take a week off to help put on an award show!) when discussing Zhang Zanbo’s The Road, I mentioned the rise of documentaries not just by Chinese filmmakers, but about China in general. A fascinating convergence in the rise of China as a global and controversial super-power with the rise of documentary filmmaking as a populist artform. It seems appropriate then to look at a recent trio of documentaries that focus on China and that each tackle a compelling and important subject: women’s sexual rights, animal poaching, and the destruction of the Earth...

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Five Teensy Reviews: Moana, Miss Sloane, Rules Don't Apply, Etc...

by Nathaniel R

Presented to assuage Nathaniel's guilt from not having properly reviewed them -- all five are now playing in theaters.

Moana (Clements, Hall, Musker & Williams)
Story: A chieftain's daughter sails the ocean to right an ancient wrong and save her people
Review: The episodic plot is ungainly and repetitive but the rest, from animal sidekick, to magical animation, to the heroine's self awakening and theme song ("How Far I'll Go") sure is dazzling. Disney's most resonant and hypnotic climax in forever and ever. "This is not who you are..."
Grade: B/B+
Oscar Chances: A nomination seems certain but Zootopia will be a tough film to dismount from this year's throne. It's worth noting that composer Lin-Manuel Miranda will complete his EGOT if he wins the Oscar.

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Review: Allied's Old School Beauty

by Eric Blume

The lovely opening image of Robert Zemeckis’ new film Allied has Brad Pitt falling slowly and soundlessly into the North African desert via parachute.  As he walks across the spine of an endlessly long sand dune, the film evokes the luxurious opening of The English Patient and of course the granddaddy of desert films, Lawrence of Arabia.  And Pitt’s arrival into Casablanca, Morocco tees up memories of the Bogart-Bergman classic.  Zemeckis positions us exactly where he wants us to be:  open to the possibility of the pleasures of those highly-romantic, old-school pictures that we truly don’t see anymore...

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