My Own Little World

Aw man. Before it came out, I was really rooting for A Wrinkle in Time . I liked the only other film by its director Ava DuVernay that I have seen (it was Selma ), and I thought she could do a good job with material like this that needed a stylistic, visionary mind. I also liked some of the cast, and the first time I saw the trailer I was actually quite excited for it. Yeah, that visionary film I was expecting wasn’t the final product we got. A Wrinkle in Time is a mess. It doesn’t make any profound points, even though it spends every second trying. It also doesn’t tell a coherent story, even though it is from one of the most acclaimed children’s science fiction novels of the past century. It doesn’t even do the one thing I thought it could for sure achieve: be a visually astonishing film. I don’t think this film looks bad, to be sure, but some of the shot-to-shot editing seems really choppy, especially in dialogue scenes. DuVernay uses a lot of solo close-up shots of a...

Weird, quirky movies are my jam sometimes. There’s something about them that just get to me. Maybe it’s because I find them to have a little extra creativity required, or maybe it’s because I identify with their outlying nature compared to the mainstream – whatever it is, I like them. Guillermo del Toro’s latest, The Shape of Water , definitely falls into that category. It’s got a fish man, a mute woman, and a romance between the two. As if that weren’t enough, the film also takes place during the Cold War, a setting that amplifies its themes quite a bit. Basically, it is the definition of strange, and it’s also an incredibly rich theatrical experience. I’m not terribly familiar with del Toro’s previous work (I’ve watched maybe a third of Crimson Peak ), but I feel like that doesn’t disqualify me for being absolutely enthralled with his direction of this film. Every visual aspect of this fits together marvelously, especially the set and creature design and the color palette....

One of the more puzzling movies for me to look at is the 1991 Disney adaptation of Beauty and the Beast . Being so beloved by so many, I feel like I have almost a responsibility to like it, which I do. The music is catchy and some of Disney's best, while the animation is top-notch and holds its own against the spectacular hand-drawn animation of The Lion King  and The Prince of Egypt . That being said, I've always felt that the story was a little lacking in character development. Enter Disney's "live action renaissance," the period of the past few years in which Disney has gone all in with remaking some of their animated classics in live-action form. So far, they've had middling to positive success in doing so with Alice in Wonderland , Maleficent , Cinderella , The Jungle Book , and Pete's Dragon ; and if you look at Disney's calendar of upcoming events, you can pretty much guarantee that your Disney classic of choice will be getting the same trea...

Many films have great concepts. In fact, most films thrive on them, especially in their marketing, and especially if they’re not already part of a franchise. A good concept is the first step to making a good film. A good concept on its own, however, does not a good movie make. There has not been a film recently that shows this more than Bright , Netflix’s latest big film project. Directed by David Ayer ( Suicide Squad , Fury , and End of Watch ) and starring Will Smith and Joel Edgerton, it has a great concept – a cop action thriller in a world of both human and mythical creatures – but unfortunately can’t seem to make the pieces work. A huge part of this is the script. Max Landis wrote the original script that underwent a rewrite by Ayer, and it just doesn’t work. It’s extremely vulgar, which is not a critique on its own, except that it seems like the profanity is only there to remind you of the film’s rating. I’ve seen plenty of films that use very poor language but do so ...

Harry Potter is something that is very near and dear to my heart. I grew up reading the books and watching the movies, loving every second of it. In my freshman year of high school, a few of my friends and I actually watched all eight films in one sitting.  So, naturally, when I heard that a spin-off was in the works, I got really nervous and really excited at the same time. On one hand, I really like the world that J.K. Rowling has created and wanted more from it; on the other hand, I was nervous that this new chapter might spoil my memories with the wizarding world. Harry Potter is just one of those things that seemed so self-contained and so complete on its own that anything else additional ran the risk of bringing my opinion of it down in my own mind.  That being said, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is absolutely the right next step for the Harry Potter universe. It recaptures all the magic of the original franchise but doesn't come from any of the sam...