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Film Review - Isle of Dogs

I am a fan of Wes Anderson, so this review may be biased. I love the way his films are put together and Isle of Dogs is a return to stop-motion animation for the director, having made Fantastic Mr. Fox previously, which I adored. Even though Isle of Dogs isn’t quite as much fun, it’s still a very rich family movie. The setting is somewhere in Japan where the mayor of the city of Megasaki has banned dogs and exiled every one of them to a garbage island to fend for themselves. As a result of this decree, his own son’s loyal bodyguard-dog Spots (voiced by Live Schreiber) is sent to the island, but the plucky kid comes looking for him and befriends a pack of dogs who help him out. Meanwhile, the anti-dog sentiment in Megasaki has reached genocidal levels and a team of dog-loving students led by American exchange student Tracy Walker (Greta Gerwig) is on a mission to expose the government corruption and liberate man’s best friend. The cast is excellent, which is par for a Wes Ander...

Film Review - A Quiet Place

John Krasinski directs and stars with his wife Emily Blunt in this exceptional horror movie about a family trying to survive against predatory monsters who hunt by sound. The film is a terrific example of visual storytelling as the dialogue is suppressed to a minimum by the danger it represents to the survivors. It is also one of the most effective and high-tension suspense movies I’ve ever seen, with more intelligence and emotional power than are typical of the genre. The story begins several months after some sort of invasion by ill-defined, poorly understood but immensely superior predators which have effectively wiped out the human race. Those who have managed to survive have had to adapt to a virtually silent mode of living, walking barefoot everywhere, for example, or communicating by sign language. The eldest daughter, played by Millicent Simmonds, is indeed deaf herself, and the film uses its sound design very effectively to convey point of view of characters according to...

Review - Ready Player One

The latest from Steven Spielberg is a sci-fi film based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline. I thought it was spectacular by unsatisfying, with an overabundance of 80’s nostalgia to distract from the weak characterizations and story which all gets a bit boring after a while, though the early parts are a lot of fun. I’d say your enjoyment of it will depend greatly on your familiarity with 80’s pop culture. By the mid-21 st century, virtual reality sophistication has grown so great that people can escape their mundane reality for the limitless glamour of these digital realms. The biggest and most popular is the Oasis and upon the death of its creator a treasure hunt is launched for the keys to the kingdom: the winner becomes the majority shareholder of the company stock. It’s Willy Wonka by way of The Matrix . Tye Sheridan plays Wade, a standard everyman/nobody/unlikely hero, and Ben Mendelsohn is Sorrento, the corporate shark out to win at any cost, employing hundr...

Retro Review - Paris, Texas (1984)

As a preteen I was obsessed with ALIEN and always took note of everyone involved, including the actors. Harry Dean Stanton’s most oft-mentioned film credits were always either ALIEN or Paris, Texas , so when he died last year I made a point of finally hunting down the latter which had been on my radar as long as my obsession with the former. I knew very little about the film, so when the opening credits said “written by Sam Shepard” I immediately became more interested. Then “directed by Wim Wenders” came up on screen and I was even more interested. I was pretty confident I was going to have a very good film experience. I was wrong only in that it exceeded my expectations. Paris, Texas is, in my opinion, beautiful, authentic, heart-felt, compassionate, moving and very mature: a great movie, in other words. The movie opens with Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) walking aimlessly through the deserts of Texas, apparently in some kind of mute daze. A local doctor finds him and a bus...

Film Review - Tomb Raider

Alicia Vikander is the best and possibly only reason to see this movie. I’m not expecting Shakespeare from a film based on a video game, but I am expecting more action than dialogue. I liked the action sequences alright, but I don’t think there were enough of them, and the stuff between them I felt was kind of boring. Still, I did like seeing Alicia Vikander running and jumping and doing action-stuff, so the movie wasn’t a complete loss. I just wouldn’t recommend it. The film sets out to be an origin story for Lara Croft and a search for her lost father which is bound up in a lame Raiders of the Lost Ark –type race for a powerful magical maguffin. I really don’t mind the predictability of the plot, and there is an argument to be made that these kinds of movies are all about delivering what the audience expects, but I don’t want to put up with long, melodramatic scenes or boring expository speeches. I want to see Lara Croft raiding tombs. Alicia Vikander does a superb job wit...

Oscars

For the first time that I can remember, I have seen all but one of the nominees for the Oscars, which were held last week. At the time, I had seen all of them except for The Post and The Shape of Water , which I finally saw after it won best picture. My thoughts on it and the rest of the nominees: The Shape of Water is essentially Splash re-imagined with the Creature from the Black Lagoon instead of a mermaid, but nowhere near as good. I was impressed by the creature design, certainly, but the rest of the movie felt frustratingly underdone. It was a very typical Guillermo del Toro film, in that sense: I think he’s a gifted visualist, but his stories and characters leave a lot to be desired. Get Out is actually my third favourite movie of 2018, behind mother! and Blade Runner 2049 , so if I had been an Academy voter, this is the one I personally would have chosen for best picture. It’s very smart, very funny and very poignant without being preachy. It’s really brilliant,...