Documentaries on fandom often end up excessive celebration without any of the self-reflection that the genre usually provides. A LEGO Brickumentary is fun, but it may not appeal to anyone who isn’t already familiar with the brand. LEGO fans are a passionate bunch, and not just kids anymore. AFOLs (Adult fan of LEGO) are taking the bricks and creating a movement for themselves.
Get ready for more Spidey — but in animated form. During a panel at CinemaCon today, new Sony chairman Tim Rothman revealed that the studio would be releasing an animated Spider-Man film with The LEGO Movie and 22 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller attached to write the treatment and produce. There is …
In an Oscar column in the New York Times several weeks back, A.O. Scott noticed that the Academy loves to champion three different types of narrative: those that affirm the industry’s political values and virtues, those that represent popular success, and those that feel like “auto-cinephilia”. “Three of the last five Best Picture winners were …
Astro Boy is becoming a real boy very soon. The Hollywood Reporter reported on Wednesday that the Japanese manga character will be getting the live action treatment from Australia’s Animal Logic Entertainment and Japan’s Tezuka Productions. Animal Logic has most recently worked with animation on Avengers: Age of Ultron and The LEGO Movie. Astro (Boy) …
15. The Immigrant – If one were to rank the films of 2014 based solely on innovation, The Immigrant would probably end up near the bottom. Writer-director James Gray’s languid melodrama tells the tumultuous story of a resilient Polish woman looking to find a slice of the American Dream, without much in the way of …
40. Night Moves Since 2006, Kelly Reichardt has found a way to reach inside of the hearts of her audiences, plucking out strings one by one with desolate re-imaginations of the American Pacific Northwest, seen through the eyes of people not so different than ourselves. With Meek’s Cutoff, she departed from her typical genre and moved …
There exists a myriad of reasons why it often feels so terribly easy to aim criticisms at these so-called motion picture events. Some of them are related to the perceived quality, others have to do what certain cinephiles with attuned tastes expect from their movie going experiences as patrons. Movies for which so much money and effort are necessitated in order to produce demand, for perfectly legitimate reasons, important dividends in the form of paid tickets at the theatre and subsequently profits via home viewing platforms.
This column is a few days late this week, but then this was a particularly busy few days. The first three of the actual awards precursors finally arrived this week, including the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review and the Gotham Independent Film Awards. What’s the verdict? This is still anyone’s …
Warner Bros. held a shareholder meeting Wednesday morning in which they revealed their lineup of tentpole, franchise films up through the year 2020, including DC Comics adaptations of The Flash, Aquaman and Wonder Woman, several previously announced Lego movies and “at least” a trilogy of movies based on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter spinoff novel, “Fantastic …
The success of The Lego Movie came as a surprise to everyone, and yet the only property that seems consistently cooler and more awesome than Lego is Batman. Will Arnett’s Lego Batman was so good in The Lego Movie you kind of wished they’d cast him instead of Ben Affleck in that Superman sequel. Now …
15. Stranger by the Lake Directed by Alain Guiraudie Written by Alain Guiraudie France Though Stranger by the Lake premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival (and appeared on Sound On Sight’s best of 2013 list), it finally reached North American audiences in January of this year. Alain Guiraudie’s stunning noir-tinged thriller is …
Picking the best movies that come out in any given year is no easy feat. For film fans, a quality feature can come out at any time, from any one, and discovering an enjoyable and well-crafted feature is truly a pleasure. As we reach the halfway point of the year, many excellent films have already …
A decade ago, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were unheard of in Hollywood. Their beloved but short lived cult classic animated series Clone High had been canceled a year earlier, and their next directing gig wouldn’t come until 2009’s Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Now, in 2014, they have become magicians of sorts, turning …
It is hardly a novel concept to bring up realism when talking about animated films. From noting the “fingerprints” on the toy-based characters of The Lego Movie (2014) to remarking upon Pixar’s advancements in replicating hair and clothing, popular criticism of computer animated movies are as apt to discuss advancements in realistic CGI as they …
In lesser hands, the overtly meta nature of 22 Jump Street could easily have become insufferably smug. Directing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, though, have been proving themselves to be kings of manic, self-aware comedy, and their more consistently strong follow-up to 2012’s 21 Jump Street might be the best comedy sequel since Joe Dante’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
Non-Stop Written by John W. Richardson, Chris Roach, and Ryan Engle Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra USA, 2014 Liam Neeson’s face has become a world-weary, pock-marked road map over the years, detailing a wholesome leading man’s travails into cinematic battle. In the last 6 years, he’s revitalized himself as a no-nonsense action hero, an unstoppably tough …
The LEGO Movie Written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller USA, 2014 The opening moments of Pixar’s last great film to date, Toy Story 3, depict an intentionally, increasingly goofy and outlandish fantasy scenario in which all of the toys in Andy’s bedroom play a part. There are the heroic Sheriff Woody and …