Movie Review: Crimson Peak

Guillermo del Toro’s period romance turned horror tale turned stage drama is an interesting but odd film, whose mixture of genres results in a story that feels barebones but nonetheless offers incredible visuals and atmosphere thanks to its stunning architecture and disturbingly convincing special effects. The writing could use more confidence along the lines of del Toro’s own Pacific Rim or the engrossing genre-blend Pan’s Labyrinth, but this is still a gorgeous movie that would simply benefit from more character depth and quicker pacing to back up its amazing set pieces.

Edith Cushing saw a ghost when she was ten. It was her mother’s, who gave her only a vague warning: Beware of Crimson Peak. Years passed, and Edith seemed happy and doing well for herself, her dress suggesting prestige and grandeur. She’d spent her time constructing a manuscript, using a ghost not as the center of a plot but as a metaphor for the past. Her publisher, not particularly progressive toward women or their narrative tastes, insisted on a love story.

One like this would give him more than he bargained for.

Dedicated Review: Wolf Children

This review is dedicated to my longtime best friend–a lover of wolves, a conservationist, and an anime fan. And, very recently, the birthday girl!

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Director and co-writer Mamoru Hosoda delivers in Wolf Children a gem of an ode to the heartrending challenges and unimaginable joys of parenthood. Hana is a university student who falls in love with a kindhearted man who gives her a daughter and son–and also happens to be a wolf–but is taken from her all too soon. Enduring through her tears, Hana gathers every ounce of her strength and determines to make a life for her unusual family, and to raise her children into wonderful people who would make their father very proud, wherever they may go and whatever they may be.

Movie Review: Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens

Director J.J. Abrams once said that as a youth he enjoyed Star Wars more than the Star Trek franchise he’s dabbled in, and the high-energy antics he brought to the latter franchise find the warmest of welcomes in George Lucas’ time-honored saga.

The Force Awakens feels reverent of its venerable legacy even to an arguable fault, yet thanks to its wide variety of compelling characters, interesting themes, amazing art designs, and epic battles, beyond a shadow of a doubt Star Wars’ latest entry provides a suitable and stunning look at what the renowned original films might have been like if they had been made today.

Movie Review: Sicario

(It feels so good to finally make time to finish a post I’d been too busy to work on for two months.)

After FBI agent Kate Macer gets drawn into a conflict south of the Tex-Mex border, she learns that the war on drugs is much more complicated, and much more tragic, than any one side could have planned for.

The Denis Villeneuve-directed Sicario—hitman–excels as a thriller, as a setting and atmosphere showcase, and most importantly as a message, whose predictable yet unpredictable narrative delivers endless questions but always works to invite empathy among all its horror.

Movie Review: Brokeback Mountain

Happy Valentine’s Day! (?)

Brokeback Mountain is a story of two sheepherders, played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who develop a relationship that endures through decades, marriages, work issues, children, and other “obstacles.” Overflowing with cinematic wonders as well as glaring narrative issues, the movie feels divided against itself and is ultimately more underwhelming than any amount of controversy set against it would really warrant.

Mental Wellness in Movies: Take Shelter

Someone you dearly love has a tremendous burden they can’t bring themselves to tell anyone about. Do you know how to help?

Take Shelter narrates a man’s terrifying visions of a forthcoming storm while showing how his well-meaning but irresponsible “preparations” threaten to tear apart his life and his loving family. It is a difficult movie to watch, but it is every bit as necessary and valuable as it is disturbing.

Movie Review: Princess Mononoke

It’s probably been a decade since I last watched director Hayao Miyazaki’s classic, but the film’s at-long-last release on Blu-ray is more than enough excuse to revisit this grand story. Set in a Japan taking its first violent, polluted, and uncertain steps toward industry, Princess Mononoke is a complex and ambitious story of humans, beasts, and nature that avoids easy answers and straightforward moral dichotomies, making it an important milestone in animation history.

Movie Review: Noah

What better way to end the year than with an ‘end-of-the-world’ film?

The single biggest question I think worth asking about director Darren Aronofsky’s Noah is whether the viewer is willing to appraise the movie in terms of the story it wants to tell, or if its rather wayward treatment of the Biblical inspiration invalidates the whole production out of hand. It’s worked well before. One of the first stories recorded in the ancient text is also one of its most bittersweet, where man and beast alike are wiped from the earth because of the extreme evil filling it, as shown in Genesis 6. The Lord God in his grace is willing to give a few last souls and the animals another chance, but first come the rains …

Mental Wellness in Movies: Saving Mr. Banks

Take a closer look.

Every new day is a chance to remake yourself and the world around you.

This utterly fascinating film tells the story of Walt Disney and author P. L. Travers negotiating over film rights for the latter’s Mary Poppins line of books. (The actual movie turned fifty this year and is in the National Film Registry.)

The movie consists of two or perhaps three stories being told at once (“Pamela” as a young girl, Ms. Travers as an older woman, and to some degree Mary Poppins in itself). All of these stories feel unified and important, leading toward a central purpose that’s more notable for the healing it places in the lives of Disney and Travers than for the famous production they both shared a hand in.

Mental Wellness in Movies: Reign Over Me

Of his films that I’ve watched, I never thought of Adam Sandler as a serious or skilled actor, yet here he is as Charlie Fineman, a man who still grieves years onward from the loss of his family in the September 11 terrorist attacks. Despite some missteps in other areas, the movie treats its setting and context with respect, and there are no jokes made at the expense of this disastrous day’s victims or even of the terrorists, who are simply referred to as monsters–“humans” would be better, but the word choices could have been and sometimes are much worse. Don Cheadle plays Sandler’s former college roommate Alan Johnson, a dentist who spends much of the film helping Charlie emotionally recover. (Adam is “Charlie,” and Cheadle is “Alan.” Don’t get confused.) Their friendship forms much of the core of this film, and on the whole, that story is something of a pleasant surprise.