Screen
Through the looking glass
Lewis Carroll’s immortal story Alice in Wonderland has been brought to the big screen many times, notably 1951’s animated Disney classic. That’s an intimidating challenge, especially for Tim Burton, who generally tackles new stories that can be crafted in his own ...
Looking to illuminate: The DocuWest Film Festival
Documentary film festivals can be a hard sell. You don’t get the star power that goes with fictional films, the impossibly dramatic moments, or the singularly well-crafted denouement that wraps the whole thing up into one resonant piece. The documentary is all about ...
Instagrim: ‘Celeste and Jesse Forever’ is a hipster love tragedy
The degree to which you will enjoy Celeste and Jesse Forever solely depends on how ensorcelled you are by the luminous Rashida Jones. If you love her, this movie is a moderately effective slice-of-life rom-com-dram. If you think she’s just OK (or worse), you’re left ...
Hell is your family
Toni Collette spends nearly the entirety of Hereditary playing an unopposed game of Twister using only her facial features. The film is understandably being...
Bourne to be bored
The Bourne trilogy includes three of the best action thrillers in cinema, with Jason Bourne portrayed by Matt Damon as an everyman who finds he’s been programmed by the CIA to be a deadly assassin. The third film ends with Bourne lured out of hiding by reporter Simon...
Death or psychosis
You have to let go of the living,” says the funeral director played by Liam Neeson to Anna, the dead schoolteacher in the red slip, played by Christina Ricci, in the new thriller After.Life. He sounds like the stage manager in a particularly grim production of Our ...
8-bit-o’-honey
For a generation weaned on more Mario than Mother Goose, Wreck-It Ralph has been a long time coming. An 8-bit fairy tale with a burly bruiser in the role of the misunderstood princess, it skews a tad more prepubescent than Pixar but shares similar DNA. Writers ...
Peter Jackson’s latest: ‘The Lovely Bones’
It won't surprise you that to New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson, heaven, or at least a lovely version of purgatory, looks an awful lot like the forests and valleys of New Zealand...
