Movie Review: Castle in the Sky (mild spoilers)

This is how you make an action movie that’s smart and exciting while remaining appropriate for older children.

Studio Ghibli’s Castle in the Sky is an epic and dangerous race to find the legendary floating island of Laputa, and it’s a journey defined as much by its remarkable amount of chaos as by its wonderfully established ties of friendship and its somewhat restrained environmental message. This is an amazing film that throws the simpler pacing of Ghibli films like My Neighbor Totoro or Grave of the Fireflies completely out the window and instead opts to almost relentlessly surprise the viewer with new sights and events from start to finish.

Movie Review: Sharknado

This Syfy original movie has a brilliant premise–tornadoes are forming over the ocean, sucking sharks up into the air and flinging them all over, very much alive and very hungry–but it’s the execution that makes this film a thoroughly enjoyable and ridiculous classic. Sharknado is a creature feature that believes in itself almost uncompromisingly from start to finish, and its incredible successes in pacing and action make the movie an unbelievable ride I would have been impressed with even in a theater.