Tag: highly recommended

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The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot (review)

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There’s something different about The Wild Robot.  There’s a vibrancy to the movie that’s  noticeable.  You can almost feel the excitement everyone involved had while bringing this story to the screen.  Every aspect of this movie–the visuals, the voice acting, the dialog–is executed to perfection.  The movie doesn’t have a single false note to it.  Yes, it is that good.  There are aspects to it that will be familiar.  The story features a futuristic robot doing amazing things (Wall-E), migrating birds (Migration) and animals that teach us life-lessons (The Jungle Book, Finding Nemo).  The brilliance of The Wild Robot is in how it incorporates themes that we’re already familiar with and breathes new life into them.  It accomplishes this by having us experience them through the adventures of the wild robot the movie is named after.

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The Wild Robot

The Wild Robot (analysis)

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As I mentioned above, The Wild Robot is an exceptional film in every way.  Since calling a movie excellent in every way isn’t really criticism, I settled on one aspect that elevates it above other animated films that I also liked.  Its maturity.  The movie never panders to a particular segment of the audience.  Although the movie is one that will appeal to children, it doesn’t contain any jokes just for them.  There are no fart jokes or other examples of simplistic “kiddie humor” designed to make children laugh.  While the movie does have its silly moments, those moments happen within a more insightful context.

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Deadpool & Wolverine

Deadpool & Wolverine (review)

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One movie?  That’s all that Kevin f****** Feige is giving me in 2024?  This hardly seems fair, considering how I’ve been among the party faithful from the beginning.  I paid to see the very mediocre Black Widow, The Eternals, Thor: Love & Thunder and Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania.  I’m one of the biggest defenders of Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, for crying out loud.  I did punk out on The Marvels, but that’s no reason to force me to go cold turkey, Feige.

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Inside Out 2

Inside Out 2

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Would it surprise you to know that even after writing well over two hundred reviews, I still feel anxious whenever I start a new one?  I always ask myself the same questions.  What if I don’t have anything interesting to say?  What if nobody reads it?  What if I say something dumb and lose what little credibility I have?  What if I miss my self-imposed Tuesday morning publication date?  Fortunately, after seeing Inside Out 2, I now know that all of these expressions of anxiety emanate from an orange, bug-eyed Muppet who has usurped control of my mind.

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A Quiet Place: Day One

A Quiet Place: Day One

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Here’s a trick question:  How do the aliens in the A Quiet Place franchise arrive on Earth?  The answer is…we don’t know.  In the sequel and this prequel, all we are shown is streaks of light tearing across the sky.  The assumption is that they arrive in space ships, but neither film gives us any indication of what those look like.  For a typical alien invasion movie, seeing the alien spaceship(s) is the money shot–think Independence Day, War of the Worlds and The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Amazingly, three movies into this franchise, the alien’s mode of transport is still a mystery.

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Evil Does Not Exist

Evil Does Not Exist

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Of all the reasons people use to justify developing previously untouched land, creating a glamping site has to be right up there.  I was unfamiliar with the term before seeing Evil Does Not Exist, and after two characters explained what it meant I was appalled.  The thought of bulldozing trees and smoothing a natural landscape so that rich people can have a glamorous camping experience is silly, but I fully understood why people would pay for it.  Unlike a public camping site, glamping offers amenities and resort-style services.  There’s no need to “rough it” when you can relax in the equivalent of a hotel room nestled amongst trees.  (This begs the question as to whether an activity can even be called camping if there are no inconveniences involved.)  Second, glamping is all about exclusivity.  There’s no need to worry about camping around normal, everyday people when you can use your money to pitch your yurt next to other rich people like yourself.

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Civil War

Civil War

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When I first saw the trailer for Civil War, I was underwhelmed.  It looked like a standard action movie, so much so that I wondered when Gerard Butler (star of the “Has Fallen” franchise) would show up to save the country from itself.  The combat footage didn’t look special, and the plot of the movie appeared to be entirely about how “America is fighting with itself”.  It wasn’t until people that I follow on social media explained the movie that I reconsidered seeing it.  While Civil War may be a nightmare scenario inspired by the Trump presidency, the movie isn’t about that at all.  For example, the movie’s Trump surrogate (a perfectly cast Nick Offerman) is barely shown in the movie.  (Not that I needed more than I got.)  And while Civil War may look like a traditional war movie at times, its primary focus is on how wars are represented by the media, specifically journalists.

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Lord of the Flies (novel)

Lord of the Flies (novel)

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I was familiar with the premise of Lord of the Flies long before I read the book.  The book has had a continual presence in Western culture since it was released in 1954, to the point where the title has become a established metaphor for describing a group of unruly children.  My impetus for reading Golding’s novel now was the Showtime series Yellowjackets.  I’d read that the series was originally conceived as an all-female adaptation of the book, but that the writers behind the show decided instead to use the story as the basis for an examination of teenage hierarchy.  Even though I’d read that Yellowjackets diverged widely from the book after the setup, knowing that Flies was one of the sources of its inspiration finally motivated me to read it.

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