Review: “Wildwood” is the stop-motion fantasy epic LAIKA has been working toward all along

by Cláudio Alves

The history of Laika is one of classic nepotism by way of Maecenas-like patronage to the arts. It’s the story of how Nike’s owner, Phil Knight, took the Will Vinton Studios from their namesake and presented it to his son, Travis, who was originally one of Vinton’s animators. Some see this as a coup, others as the way studios are always formed in good ol’ Tinsel Town. Not that Laika has its headquarters anywhere near Hollywood. Instead, they’re up in Oregon, in the Portland metropolitan area, pushing out some of the most mind-boggling works of stop-motion feature animation the world has seen for the best part of the last twenty years. There’s a lot of creative freedom and technical innovation when profit isn’t a chief concern for the studio head.

It started with Selick’s Coraline, an early magnum opus, and then came the terrific ParaNorman by Fell and Butler. Annable and Stacchi’s The Boxtrolls felt, in some ways, like a step back, but, looking back, it was more like the studio taking a deep breath before releasing their most ambitious project yet into the world. With Kubo and the Two Strings, Travis Knight became a feature director in his own right, delivering a Japanese folklore-inspired fantasy adventure whose ideas on storytelling are still some of the studio’s most complex conceptual gambits. Missing Link saw Butler return and a more modest play, because, once more, a greater epic was on the horizon, more than a decade in the making. In some ways, it has all led to this, to Wildwood…

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TIFF 51: “Hope” delivers a blast of Midnight Madness

by Cláudio Alves

Though the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (and Market, the organizers would like to remind you) opens officially tomorrow, a special screening kicked off the festivities tonight. Coinciding with its stateside release, the widest for any Korean film since Parasite, Na Hong-jin’s Hope was shown as an honorary part of this year’s Midnight Madness selection. The NEON blockbuster wannabe caused quite the stir at Cannes, the rare genre movie to play in competition. Back at the Croisette, our own Elisa Giudici was impressed by the boldness of Na’s direction despite finding many faults in Hope. That’s something that the jury, presided by Park Chan-wook, might have felt, too, considering the production left Cannes empty-handed - no awards for Na. 

Alas, I am much more enamored of the director’s vision and overall film than our Italian correspondent, and think it's a perfect fit for TIFF’s Midnight Madness crowd. There’s no shortage of madness on display, that’s for sure...

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Best of 2025: Bi Gan dreams the death and “Resurrection” of cinema

by Cláudio Alves

Before dropping my top ten of 2025, sometime near the end of the season, there are a bunch of excellent films that have gone unreviewed at TFE. Let’s fix that…

With Warner Bros. for sale and Netflix as its most likely buyer, cinephiles worldwide are despairing over the future of the theatrical experience. As monopolies keep forming stateside, Hollywood seems bound to reach a breaking point any time soon, and the effects are already being felt beyond borders. And then there’s AI and a rising devaluing of human artistry, the production of content above all else. That said, to speak of the end feels premature, foolish even. Even if the mainstream American movie industry as we know it ceases to be, cinema is bigger than that. Indeed, it’s an art form still in its infancy, still transforming and coming into itself. If death is coming, it manifests as transformation and, in metamorphosis, there’s longevity that beckons hope. So, stop doomscrolling and hold tight to what you love, be it the medium itself or the communion of sitting in a dark room with others, facing the collective dream projected on a bright wall.

There’s a way to accept the pain of change without giving in to despair, to believe, to honor, to delight in the miracle of the moving image without falling into grief. Chinese wunderkind Bi Gan's latest, Resurrection, embodies such notions in ways few films have done. As it regards the past, it speaks to the present and the mystery of a future none of us can yet grasp. With equal parts adoration and sorrow, intellect and earnestness, sadness and a strange strain of fatalistic optimism, this multi-chaptered odyssey through the human senses whispers and screams: Cinema is dead. Long live cinema…

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Franchise fever continues to dominate the Saturn Awards

By Nathaniel R

BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE © Warner Bros

The 52nd annual Saturn Awards are taking place this year on February 2nd and voting is happening right now (until the 15th). Dune Part Two (14 nominations) and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (13 noms) are in the lead this time around while Deadpool & Wolverine is lagging a bit behind in third with 10 noms. Those aren't the only franchises in play and we'll discuss how long some of these franchises that are up for prizes have been running (once since the 1950s!)...

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Almost There: Judy Garland in "The Wizard of Oz"

by Cláudio Alves

On a stressful day such as this, cinema can be a comfort. The movies are often prized for their escapist properties, so why not escape into their celluloid dreams once one's civil duty's done? I propose a trip to Oz before the first Wicked movie redefines what future generations will picture when they think of that magical land with emerald cities and yellow brick roads. But we're not here to talk fairytale architecture, good or bad witches. Instead, our focus shall be on the little girl who adventures into that world, swept by a Kansas tornado, from sepia-toned monochrome into three-strip Technicolor. It's time to talk about Judy Garland's Dorothy, a performance on the cusp of an Oscar nomination once upon a time. She was almost there…

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