AWFJ 2022 EDA Awards winners announced
The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Women Talking tie for the most awards, at four apiece.
Disney
loaded question: does Disney animation belong in the Metropolitan Museum of Art?
And if it is going to appear there, does the museum have an obligation to engage in robust criticism of it (not necessarily negative, just analytical) to avoid it feeling like, as a New York Times critic termed it, “a sponsored content post”?
Cinderella (2021) movie review: from the ashes…
Fairy tale goes jukebox musical with a feminist, gender-fluid spin. Throws irony and sarcasm at heterosexuality, patriarchy, even monarchy. Pretty darn fun, with a sweetly spunky Ella in Cabello.
Jungle Cruise movie review: raiders of the recent swashbucklers
Wonderfully escapist, dripping with magnificently congenial charm thanks to the comic chemistry of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. Plus it’s sure to enrage people who use “woke” as an insult. Yay!
Raya and the Last Dragon movie review: warrior princess
The Disney paradigm is hard at play again here, its familiarity offset by its inspiration in Southeast Asian culture and mythology. Sweepingly told, gorgeously animated, and audaciously optimistic.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm movie review: punching way the hell up
A work of breathtaking audacity. This is as perilous as comedy gets, and it’s very, very funny, often shockingly so. Sacha Baron Cohen’s scathing cultural strikes land like extinction-level asteroids.
Mulan (2020) movie review: girl (and film) at war with the world
Acceptably inoffensive, if less than wholly engaging. At least Liu’s strong, stately Mulan is a wonderful role model for girls who aren’t much interested in conformity and adhering to expectations.
Artemis Fowl movie review: falls foul of itself
A disaster of a kids’ fantasy caper; feels like it’s making up the plot as it goes. A mishmash of manufactured wonder: characters barely sketched, action seemingly setting up future DisneyWorld rides.
Onward movie review: the Pixar road goes ever on
Don’t let the Pixar curve throw you: familiar this quest may be, but it’s full of magic and wonder and humor and melancholy, and set in a fully realized fantasy world. Not a masterpiece but very good.
The Call of the Wild movie review: a very good boi (mostly)
An old-fashioned kiddie adventure, sweetly earnest, equal parts scary, funny, exciting, sad, and happy, with only a bit of uncanny valley in its CGI doggo star. Definitely had something in my eye.
