Throughout Disney’s remake of Beauty and the Beast, Emma Thompson performs the voice of Mrs. Potts in a not-particularly-good impression of Angela Lansbury, and you’re left to wonder why they didn’t just get Angela Lansbury to do the movie. This, unfortunately, is Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast in a nutshell. A film so preoccupied … Continue reading BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Review: A Good Movie Suffocated by a Perfect One
The Walt Disney Studios live action panel at the 2015 D23 Expo was something of a mess. For months Disney has been positioning this panel as a big deal, announcing that Marvel Studios would be abandoning their long-held position of supremacy in Comic-Con’s Hall H and that the Star Wars panel at SDCC would be … Continue reading D23: Excitement, Confusion, and Disappointment from Disney Live Action (With Thoughts on STAR WARS Land)
The past few years have been rough for Pixar. They went from being the studio that was seemingly invincible after 15 years and 11 excellent films to the studio that made Cars 2. In fairness, Pixar has only released three films over the last few years and two of them were pretty okay, but when … Continue reading Movie Review – INSIDE OUT
Note: This article contains SPOILERS Tomorrowland is a movie that has a lot it wants to say. You can tell, because the movie frequently makes time for characters to speechify about its themes practically to the camera. And you know what, I’m totally okay with that. It’s usually preferable for a film to employ more subtlety, … Continue reading How the End of TOMORROWLAND Misunderstands Its Own Themes
Thanks to the spread of information through the Internet, what was once a unique interpretation of a film has grown into a nearly axiomatic statement. Brad Bird’s The Incredibles espouses objectivist ideals, or at least that’s what the prevailing wisdom suggests. Myself, I’m not so sure. The film unquestionably deals with objectivist themes, but it … Continue reading Movie Review – TOMORROWLAND
Well, the third time’s the charm, I suppose. I’ve been very vocal in my disdain for Disney’s latest scheme to mine recognizable brands for new products by taking some of their most beloved animated classics and giving them live action remakes. It plays into the larger, ugly Hollywood trend of remaking old movies not because … Continue reading Movie Review – CINDERELLA
Recently Marvel Studios made a definitive statement declaring that none of their future films will be origin stories, even for characters who are being introduced into the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time. It’s an interesting decision and one that we still have to wait and see how it will play out, but it’s … Continue reading Movie Review – BIG HERO 6
When it comes to bad movies, I tend to have a rather high threshold for pain. Its rare for me to even be tempted to walk out of a movie, and I’ve never actually done so. The last film I was tempted to walk out of was Movie 43 – a hate crime against the … Continue reading Movie Review – MALEFICENT
The original 1979 The Muppet Movie is an indisputable classic. The leap of taking Jim Henson’s Muppet characters from a half-hour television variety show to a feature length motion picture musical must have been a daunting task, but the first time out the gate they did it so well that 35 years and seven films … Continue reading Movie Review – Muppets Most Wanted
Update: I have written a more recent, more comprehensive article covering the entire Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. I recommend reading that one first. “I think it’d be rather exciting to meet a pirate.” Part 1: An Unlikely Phenomenon Pirates of the Caribbean. This is, perhaps, one of the oddest pop culture touchstones we have. … Continue reading Pirates of the Caribbean Retrospective – Part One: The Curse of the Black Pearl
David Daut 