On Friday Dr. Wife and I took a friend to see Saving Mr. Banks, the movie about how Walt Disney convinced P. L. Travers to sell the movie rights to Mary Poppins. I have no idea how true-to-life is the movie's titular conceit, that the character of Mr. Banks is a projection of Travers's own father, and that the thing that tipped the balance was ( Read more... )

I see movies so rarely these days that it's silly not to post when I do. But this time I just forgot. Dr. Wife took me to see Pixar's Brave last weekend.

I suppose all computer-animated movies will be in 3D from here on in -- there's no reason not to, now that render time is so manageable. Once you've done the geometry, lighting, and motion ( Read more... )

I forgot to post on Monday when Dr. Wife took me to see a movie. Mostly, she goes to movies with other people, since I am such a movie wuss, but kids' movies are usually safe, and so when Nick Park's Aardman studio came out with a Christmas movie, she saw her chance.

Arthur Christmas was OK. I would describe it as a cross between The Santa ( Read more... )

Good Thanksgiving season viewing, if you can catch it, is the latest documentary to air on PBS's program Independent Lens. The film is by Anne Makepeace, and is called We Still Live Here: Âs Nutayuneân. It documents the efforts of the Wampanoag people of Massachusetts, the Indians whose ancestors greeted the Pilgrims at Plymouth, to reclaim and ( Read more... )

I finally went to see what everybody is calling "the new Star Trek movie", though apparently its name is just Star Trek. I think my standards were too high, but I found myself obscurely disappointed. I'm not going to be careful about spoilers, so I'll put in a cut. Damn, I'll put in a cut if I can just figure out how ...

( Spoiler warning. )

Dr. Wife and I went to see Happy Feet yesterday afternoon. We showed up a little late and missed the first couple of minutes. I hate it when that happens, and my opinion of the movie might be affected by this minor frustration. That having been said, I don't see what the fuss is about. The animation was good, but not a huge improvement over ( Read more... )

Getting me to go see a movie is hard. The problem is that as I've gotten older, my tolerance for movie stress has disappeared. You may recall my review of Serenity in these pages: I could tell that it was a fine movie, but it was just too violent and tense for me.

Dr. Wife convinced me to accompany her to The Illusionist, and I'm glad she did. ( Read more... )

I'm a big Jane Austen fan, so of course I had to see the just-released new treatment of her most famous novel. I enjoyed it a lot ( Read more... )

Just saw Nick Park's latest claymation last night. Very very very funny. All the humor is visual. Watch it closely, try to read all the labels and things, and watch Gromit's face. See it.

I saw Serenity last weekend. I have three things to say about it ( Read more... )