Reviews of the Bosch

          When Toy Story came out in 1995 it was a huge groundbreaker. No animated film had ever been rendered fully in CG and thus none looked closer to reality! And because of the success of Toy Story , and just generally how fantastic a movie it was on its story and characters as well, it became clear it was only a matter of time before CG animation took over (to some slight detriment to the art in my opinion). And while Pixar began to consistently work on CG animated films, it was wondered when and how Disney itself was going to jump on the bandwagon.           The first seven minutes or so of Dinosaur , Disney’s first CG animated movie, are incredible! It depicts a nesting ground of herbivores being attacked by a giant carnotaur and the one surviving egg going on a journey between multiple dinosaurs over land and sea set to epic music! The tracking shots are fantastic, the visuals actually pretty good -looking almost Jurass...

         Okay, this is unusual. A Penny Dreadful episode I didn’t really care for. Don’t get me wrong, there was good stuff in it. Some of the visuals were well done and the performances from Eva Green and Patti LuPone especially were very good. But it feels so disconnected after the last episode, a pointless diversion that may have worked better later in the season. It’s obviously trying to be like “Closer Than Sisters” in how it’s providing a backstory for the events of the season, and more development for Vanessa on top of that. I just don’t think it’s as needed or dramatically fulfilling as that earlier episode was.           Vanessa, only mildly affected by the apparent voodoo from the end of the last episode (then again, Evelyn didn’t seem to have a lock of hair or anything), confides in Chandler more of her hidden backstory. Apparently after meeting Mina but before coming to Sir Malcolm, while wandering the moors looking for...

         Reboots in Hollywood are very popular these days. In a way it makes sense from a studio perspective. Why take a risk on something new when there’s a built-in audience for a particular name and story? 2016 has already repackaged The Jungle Book and Ghostbusters for us and still has Pete’s Dragon , Ben-Hur , and The Magnificent Seven on the menu (though in fairness, The Magnificent Seven was itself a remake of Seven Samurai to begin with). In all of these cases, the original was regarded as a classic. Well, except for Pete’s Dragon . Surely most people don’t want the same thing presented to them again, and if you asked them if they’d be excited for a reboot of one of their favourite movies, they’d reply in the negative. You can never improve upon the original, they’d say.           Only, that’s not true. No film is perfect and as much as some of us would hate to admit, there is always some way a story can be improved up...

           Can I just say we need another Fantasia soon! I love that Disney decided to make a sequel especially considering Walt himself had intended to make semi-regular Fantasia movies. And I think the idea of doing one every few decades to showcase and celebrate how far animation has come is a great idea! It doesn’t have to be too regular, but I think we should get another at least between 2020 and 2025!           Like it’s precursor from 1940, Fantasia 2000 is a chance for the artists at Disney to really go all out and show off all their skill and creativity. It’s a collection of shorts, some narrative, some abstract, set to incredible works of classical music. In my review of the original Fantasia I glorified how brilliantly the film conveyed the marriage of music and animation in grand, sensational ways. How well does it’s sequel do?           Well there’s no mistaking animation has come a l...

          The Vietnam War was the first of its kind so it’s no wonder it inspired a subgenre of movies from the 1970’s on. And one of the earliest and most effective films to touch on this conflict was Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter . Though not as iconic or gritty as Francis Ford Coppolla’s Apocalypse Now that came a year later, it’s still a very decent look at how war can transform people.           The story follows three blue collar workers in small-town America: Mike (Robert De Niro), Steven (John Savage), and Nick (Christopher Walken) who are preparing to ship out to Vietnam. Steven gets married and before they leave they engage in their past-time of deer hunting with another co-worker Stan (John Cazale). Also Mike’s been falling for Nick’s girlfriend Linda (Meryl Streep). Of course despite their anxiety to get there, they eventually discover exactly what kind of hell-hole the Vietnam War is, not only witnessing the horror...

           Like Skyfall four years ago, Star Trek Beyond is tasked with representing a franchise on its fiftieth anniversary. And Star Trek is a mighty enough cultural phenomenon that the heat is really on to do justice. This is a media franchise that has inspired some of the great innovators of science and technology in the last few decades, can Beyond appease them as well as those only familiar with this reboot series begun in 2009?           Three years into their five year mission, the Enterprise is sent on a rescue mission into an uncharted nebula. Once there they are swarmed by a fleet of small ships, attacked badly, and are forced to abandon ship. The leader of these aliens Krall (Idris Elba) captures Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Sulu (John Cho) as well as most of the crew looking for a relic Kirk (Chris Pine) obtained on a previous mission. Kirk and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin) are stranded elsewhere, as...

          Previously on the Twenty Best Star Trek (Spinoff) Episodes , Deep Space Nine prepares for war, the Enterprise puts a stop to the Warden's Cardassian killings, and Voyager meets the 1990’s! Now the conclusion! 10.“Tapestry” -this is a TNG episode with an important theme that’s really stuck with me over the years. When Captain Picard apparently dies on the operating table and meets Q in the “afterlife”, he is given a second chance to fix the mistakes of his past that led to his needing the artificial heart which is now killing him. It’s interesting to learn of Picard’s reckless youth and even see his younger self laughing at a stab wound through the heart. Picard regrets these actions, his former arrogance and his efforts to rectify that give the episode it’s moral. We all have made decisions in our past that we’re embarrassed of or regret, but those actions have been more important than we realize in making us who we are. Picard realizing that ...