My Own Little World

Movies about the making of other movies are often really tricky to get right. The most notable examples of this struggle in my mind are Hitchcock , about the making of Psycho , and Saving Mr. Banks , about the making of Mary Poppins . Both are perfectly enjoyable films, but they struggle with a balance between summarizing the film’s existing Wikipedia article and giving us a new take on an already somewhat known story. Neither of these films succeeds at walking that line. In comes The Disaster Artist , James Franco’s look into the production of one of the best worst movies of all time. It does what no film about a film has done for me before: it separates itself from the film it is about enough to stand on its own as a great film. That being said, I do not think that it would be a smart move to watch The Disaster Artist without seeing The Room . There’s so many things in this film that are made that much funnier if you’ve already seen The Room – especially James Franco’s a...

In closing the door on 2016, I realize that there are a lot of films that I have seen that unfortunately I was unable to review for one reason or another. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't want you guys to know what I think of most of these films, so just like the last couple of years I will be doing a few posts over the next month or so wrapping up all of the films I got a chance to see from this past year. This time, I've got an animated Disney film that packs a punch, Woody Allen's latest film, and a Western featuring Chris Pine and Jeff Bridges... Zootopia  - Buy it.  This is one of the most insightful and timely animated movies ever made. Zootopia is a little too on-the-nose about its contemporary themes at times (and there might be too many moral lessons to keep track of), but otherwise their execution is perfect. The voice acting is top notch, and the animation of the animals is incredibly detailed and lush. The story is different for a Disney film ...

There are times when I sit down to watch a movie, expecting the world, and I get something that underwhelms me. I really don't like that feeling of being disappointed by films I really look forward to. On the other hand, there are times where I'll sit down with no specific expectations besides a film being good and get absolutely blown away. La La Land  is definitely one of the latter. I didn't have any idea what to expect from this movie. I loved director Damien Chazelle's last film Whiplash  because of its editing and incredibly tight pace, and I have really enjoyed what I have seen from Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone recently; however, I still had no idea what I was getting into with this film, aside from the fact that it would be good. From the opening frames, my jaw dropped. La La Land  is a film from a bygone era and harkens back to the musicals from the 1950s such as Singin' in the Rain . This is seen so easily through the direction of the musical number...