Reviews of the Bosch

I actually never read William Golding’s seminal novel Lord of the Flies for school -the required readings differed from class to class, so I got books like Flowers for Algernon  and In the Heat of the Night  instead. Nevertheless I was very aware of the story, and its grim themes on human nature -which are perfect to instil in students at a young age lest they enter the adult world with any hope in humanity. Peter Brook’s 1963 movie version I understand is considered an accurate adaptation, particularly of the story’s themes and mood. Certainly it left me with a feeling of dread and hopelessness, meaning the film probably did something right. But it’s quite a fascinating movie apart from that. If you don’t know the story, it’s about two groups of English schoolboys who are the only survivors of a deadly plane crash on a deserted island. Believing they can create and maintain a civil structure until rescue comes, they designate a leader in Ralph (James Aubrey), a boy who...

The Walt Disney Company is pretty frightening in this day and age. They’ve been acquiring companies, intellectual properties, and film studios with such abandon that they’re coming dangerously close to monopolizing the Hollywood industry. The recent acquisition of 20 th  Century Fox, the upcoming Disney+ streaming service, and what seems now to be an inevitable takeover of Hulu are only the latest in a series of shrewd business decisions by the company exploiting the excesses of capitalism. And of course they’re able to do this because they’re making so much money by virtue of the fact the content, specifically movies, they produce generally happens to be really good. Which brings me to Avengers: Endgame , almost certainly what will be the highest grossing movie of 2019. Pumping money into this juggernaut can’t help but feel like abetting Disney’s unstoppable trajectory, and it makes one question the ethics of seeing and promoting these titanic events. It’s easy to be c...

When watching a movie from another country it’s always important to take into account cultural distinctions. Often times the content of a foreign film will include idiosyncrasies and notions that are unusual to us in one part of the world, but are completely normal or commonplace there. That being said, Penguin Highway was an awkward film to sit through, and I don’t think it’s entirely attributable to different cultural sensitivities. Anime fans are well-aware that while it’s a form that can be unbelievably creative, overwhelming, and captivating, it can also be incredibly bizarre; that there are tropes, signatures, and whole genres of Japanese animation that are bewildering to put it mildly, completely alienating and discomforting to put bluntly. Penguin Highway  is undoubtedly a strange film in that weird as hell but endearing way of movies like Ponyo and Pom Poko , but it has some problematic themes, characters, and storytelling in its way. Based on the novel by Tomihik...

I’ll admit that what drew me to  Sir , an Indian movie directed by Rohena Gera that was a hit at Cannes last year, was the resemblance of its plot to Roma . Both are movies focussed on the life of a working-class housekeeper, her relationship with her employer(s), and are pervaded by an undercurrent of social commentary. Sir is more conventionally focussed however, less masterfully executed, more palatable to a mainstream audience (at least one that doesn’t mind reading subtitles), but also more susceptible to arduous drama. Yet it is still charming, nicely directed as well, and is certainly making a statement that has the capacity to resonate even outside of India. It’s the story of Ratna (Tillotama Shome), a young woman from the country working as the live-in servant of a wealthy Bombay property developer Ashwin (Vivek Gomber) to support her study of tailoring and her ambition to be a fashion designer. Steadily, the two grow closer as they relate more their troubles and li...

When I was about nine or ten years old, I watched the original Spider-Man cartoon (I’m not that old but I watched old cartoons) that told its’ title characters’ origin story. I never read comics, so up until that point I’d only really seen Super Friends and the old Batman  cartoon, shows that didn’t really take the idea of being a superhero seriously, and the most impressing superhero movie I had seen at that point had been Batman and Robin . So I was surprised to be watching a story that not only explained where this character came from, but was also uniquely dramatic and meaningful. Peter Parker acquiring his powers wasn’t so special, but the series of events and circumstances that led to him becoming Spider-Man I found exceptionally intriguing and, yes a little inspiring -as have thousands who have encountered that story in some form or another over the decades since it was first written by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1962. When I saw it play out in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Ma...

I’m going to make the controversial statement and declare that Laika is the greatest animation studio in America today. As wonderful as Disney Feature Animation and Pixar are, only Laika is experimenting in stylized expression, artistry, and original storytelling on a level comparable to the likes of Studio Ghibli and Cartoon Saloon. Coraline , ParaNorman , and Kubo and the Two Strings  are modern classics of the art form ( The Boxtrolls is pretty good too), each advancing the technique of stop-motion animation to new levels. And it’s wonderful that their latest feature Missing Link , written and directed by ParaNorman ’s Christ Butler, continues this tradition of high quality animation and storytelling, while also signalling a promising new direction for the studio. An English explorer Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) is desperate to join a society of great adventurers, and when he receives a letter claiming proof of a sasquatch he sees an opportunity to cement his reputatio...

Guillermo del Toro really wanted to make Hellboy 3 ; an end to his planned trilogy of films based off of the popular Dark Horse comic series by Mike Mignola. His fans wanted that too, as his two Hellboy  movies were quite distinct from most of their genre contemporaries: a mix of superhero film with elements of gothic fiction and creature features presented in a fun and charismatic way with a cast of lesser-name actors playing their parts with the utmost dedication. But that sequel fell apart for a number of reasons (mostly del Toro’s budget conditions), so instead, we have a  Hellboy reboot directed by Neil Marshall, admittedly one of the best directors from Game of Thrones . However his skills wouldn’t be apparent from this movie alone, which isn’t just horribly told and excruciatingly excessive, but mind-bogglingly incompetent. After the completely inconsequential death of his former partner, Hellboy (David Harbour), demon agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research ...

So, I guess Comics Kingdom sucks now. The website run by King Features Syndicate hosting a bunch of their licensed comic strips from classics like Beetle Bailey , Blondie , and Dennis the Menace  to great new strips like Retail , The Pajama Diaries , and Edison Lee  (as well as Sherman’s Lagoon , Zits , On the Fastrack , etc.) underwent a major relaunch early last week that is in just about every way a massive downgrade. The problems are numerous. The layout is distracting and cheap, far more space is allocated for ads so the strips themselves are displayed too small, the banner from which you could formerly browse for other strips is gone (meaning you have to go to the homepage to find other comics you like or discover new ones), the comments section is a joke –not refreshing itself daily so that every comment made on an individual strip remains attached to ALL strips, there’s no more blog or special features on individual comics pages which effectively barricades the ...

I really wish that Through Black Spruce  came together better than it does. There’s a genuinely compelling thriller and incredibly thoughtful commentary within this movie adaptation of Joseph Boyden’s 2008 novel. It’s an immensely socially relevant piece too, and powerfully delivers on that in some key regards. But it’s also a little frustrating, incoherent, underwhelming, and perhaps most fatally, distant –never quite escaping the truth it’s another First Nations story told by white people. Following the Bird family of Moosonee, Ontario, the story explores Anna (Tanaya Beatty) and her investigation into the disappearance of her twin sister Suzanne, a fashion model, in Toronto, while gradually coming to terms with her insecurities surrounding her sister along the way. Back home the plot also deals with her uncle Will (Brandon Oakes), his conflict with a gang of drug dealers who believe Suzanne stole a minor fortune from them and the actions their antagonism provokes from him...

Stephen King has said that of all his books, Pet Sematary  is the one he finds the most frightening, which is particularly heavy coming from a man whose horror stories have become a genre unto themselves. Watching the new 2019 film adaptation directed by Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, I can see why. It’s a great Monkey’s Paw kind of story bursting at the seams with creepy ideas and implications connected to real world fears. So why isn’t this movie as fittingly bone-chilling? Doctor Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz), daughter Ellie (Jeté Laurence), toddler son Gage, and the family cat Church from Boston to the town of Ludlow, Maine where he has a job at the state university. In the woods on their vast new premises is an old and unnerving pet cemetery. When Church is hit by a speeding vehicle, the Creeds’ neighbour Jud (John Lithgow) takes Louis deep into the woods to bury him at an ancient burial ground and the next morning the cat ha...