My Own Little World

There is something about Wes Anderson’s filmmaking that ensnares me. I cannot say if it is his meticulous method, his whimsical and dry humor, or his ability to tell parable-like stories about human nature; whatever the case, his unique technique makes me love every single one of his films – even the lesser ones are still highly enjoyable.  Isle of Dogs is no different in that respect; the film's style has the same overtly charming effect on me as all of Anderson's other works. I reveled in the experience of seeing one of his films in a theater for the first time. My question going into the film was what Isle of Dogs would do to make itself different from the other films in Anderson's catalog and whether those differences would benefit or hinder the   final product. The biggest difference is the setting; Anderson has not set any of his films in the Far East yet, the closest being The Darjeeling Limited in India. Placing the story in Japan with many Japanese char...

One of the hardest things for any film to do is to be human. True humanity is extremely hard to capture in the pre-planned conversations of a script or in the often-visionary lens of a director’s camera. Even going to such lengths as filming the same cast over twelve years (looking at you, Boyhood ) does not guarantee that a movie can be a true slice of life. Somehow, some way, Greta Gerwig, in her first film in the director’s chair no less, has made one of the most genuinely human films I have ever seen. Lady Bird is an organic piece of cinematic art that doesn’t try to be terribly artistically original or innovative; it simply tells a human coming-of-age story, and it does it better than nearly any other film I have seen. As much as I’d love to claim that there is no one aspect of the film that helps this, ultimately the film rests on the shoulders of its cast. Without the amazing performances from Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, and everyone else involved, t...