Movie Review: Kiki’s Delivery Service

Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service is a family film in every sense: it is a bright, friendly, delightful story that is easy enough for children to follow, and it is compelling and mature enough, to the point of being conspicuous, that adults should have no trouble staying interested as well. The movie is a classic, and this beginning-to-end delight deserves not simply to be watched but to be cherished and highly valued.

Movie Review: Seven Samurai

In theory, it seems simple: A peasant village is being driven to desperation by bandits, and the peasants recruit a number of wandering samurai to help protect their home. And it is. And that mastery of many different kinds of simplicity is what gives director Akira Kurosawa’s remarkable Seven Samurai its own sort of profound strength.

Movie Review: Brave (Pixar) (mild spoilers)

Pixar Animation Studios’ most recent release, Brave, is a marked improvement from their 2011 release, Cars 2, in that the movie doesn’t feel like a ripoff of various action franchises and doesn’t seem nearly as inappropriate for children. The story itself, however, unfortunately wavers between being mediocre and being quite good because of poor development, even though the movie maintains the best of intentions from start to finish.