Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts (89th Academy Awards) review
My pick: “Pearl,” blending new VR tech with old-fashioned characters and emotions, demonstrating storytelling possibilities that are beginning to open up.
adventure
The Great Wall movie review: not to be torn down
Plain pure fun. At its best, it’s Lord of the Rings meets Aliens, with incredible imaginative grandeur and genuinely breathtaking 3D depth.
Gold movie review: this mine is tapped out
Not a terrible excuse for entertainment, just very, very familiar, all paradigms that desperately require a shift, in Hollywood and in the real world.
Monster Trucks movie review: what a car-tastrophe
What if “monster trucks” actually meant — wait for it — that there were monsters in the trucks? From an idea by a four-year-old (really), and it shows.
Passengers movie review: lost in sexist space
After a few quick nods to the profoundly unethical act at its core, it shrugs it off and uses it as the basis for its fairy-tale romance. This is not okay.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie review: the high price of hope
There’s genuine fun here, but the humor is cynical, the heroics are tinged with regret, and it’s all delivered with a cold smack of — yes — political relevance.
Moana movie review: the hero with a thousand faces finally has a female one
A wonderful mythology of demons and demigods. A heroine who embodies the bold spirit of her people. Another sweet, funny, exciting triumph from Disney.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movie review: reparo movens ad imaginem
Forget about magical creatures: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them could use some help finding itself, and in figuring out who its protagonist is.
The Eagle Huntress documentary review: badass girl is badass even without embellishments to her story (LFF 2016)
Problems with authenticity don’t detract from the power of a story about a teen girl pursuing a challenging sport amongst beautiful Mongolian landscapes.
Trolls movie review: you can’t stop the cute
Cute and sweet and will put you to sleep, like a diabetic coma, and then it will smack you awake with its relentlessly cheery vivid-pastel optimism.
