The last engaging trait of a good walk-and-talk movie like Crossing a Dawn is the ability to create an approachable and honest experience. While you want to be drawn to the appeal of the combined potential couple in question as they fully speak and recognize that a version of Before Sunrise is happening to them, you, the viewer, want to play your own “what would you do with the chance” mental game.
Read MoreThe movie is unafraid to shift ways to see and feel beauty, even through—and especially through—artificial sources. What makes her happy makes him happy, and not the over-traditional other way around, and that simple stance speaks volumes. Wicker’s lifts given to a woman’s independence and the proper devotion a spouse should give their partner create harmony sorely missing in the world.
Read MoreOne cinematic trait, among a great many, that the fine animation artists at the Portland-based Laika Studios consistently demonstrate is visual sweep. When you see one of their films, it’s like no other filmgoing experience. The precision movement and jaw-dropping detail poured into the production house’s 17-year, six-film catalog, which began with Coraline, is beyond impressive, and with Wildwood, that sense of sweep only gets bigger.
Read MoreThere’s shrewd wisdom in that call, because, like this film’s second lesson, that’s plenty and that’s where the real intrigue is. While the overarching rhetoric is scintillating and probably deserves more time in actual deliberations, The Plea found the right territory to explore in this all-hands-on-deck indie standout.
Read MoreLove of Your Life proves that there’s always room for a good weeper at the movies. We, as the audience, attach ourselves to figures we love quickly, and process the acceleration of missing them when they are taken away. Watching fictional proxies go through recognizable pain can help viewers reflect, consider, prepare, or push through their own, in classic “what would you do?” fashion.
Read MoreIt took receiving a Google Alert set on my name to see that my Rotten Tomatoes blurb for the classic film East of Eden was cited and used for the promotion of upcoming November screenings of the film at the Lumiere Cinema in Christchurch, New Zealand. They didn’t ask for my permission, but I don’t mind. Thanks for the reference and clicks!
Read MoreWhile it takes time and no one is standing out as a future firebrand legend or trophy winner, The Social Reckoning’s scuffed and abrasive path is effective at kicking up smoke and firing up an audience, especially if its recent history remains fresh and unresolved in people’s minds.
Read MoreWith the bared truth of those factors in play, Josh Loeb’s film shines by watching two scared people use their own measures of goodness to find commitment against their challenges and those of their partner with equal acceptance. Rooting for that kind of success becomes as enjoyable as relishing in the cinnamon roll with them.
Read MorePhotography can work in much the same way. It is an idea that appears repeatedly in the work of Antonio Jarosso a photographer working in Italy whose private photography often seems to borrow the visual grammar of cinema without attempting to imitate cinema directly.
Read MoreCasino stories have therefore become useful vehicles for exploring human nature. A wager can reveal confidence, fear, impatience, ambition, or desperation in a matter of seconds. The cards or numbers may determine the immediate result, but the character's decisions before and after the wager are what give the scene its meaning.
Read MoreFew settings in cinema create tension as quickly as a casino. The lights are bright, the decisions are immediate, and every character at the table seems to have something more valuable at stake than money. Whether a film presents gambling as glamorous, dangerous, comic, or deeply personal, the casino often becomes a stage where human behavior is exposed.
Read MoreMovies and video games may seem like very different forms of entertainment, but they share a fundamental ingredient: storytelling. A film guides an audience through a carefully constructed narrative, while a game can allow players to participate directly in one. Both formats can explore ambition, friendship, competition, failure, and the desire to overcome difficult challenges.
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