Reviews of the Bosch

Contrive enough world-building, and every major franchise will have its corners of untapped storytelling potential. And often those most curious corners are the ones that approach the grandiosity of such stories from a relatable vantage point. It can be fun to wonder about the everyday people living in the margins of superhero movies for example, especially the more extravagant universes like the MCU, which typically doesn’t care much for regular folks (outside of the occasional Spider-Man movie) and would actually be kind of a horrifying place to live the more you think about it. But also kind of a funny place, given that grounded perspective on superhero activities. The same is true of any monoculture franchise -what is it like to be a run-of-the-mill stormtrooper in Star Wars or part of a Bond villain’s army of goons, or a mere duty ensign in Star Trek possibly waiting to be killed on an away mission. Some of these nifty concepts have made it to screen, but perhaps none more direc...

One of the best segments from a mainstream TV interview in recent years has to be when Ethan Hawke showed up on Jimmy Kimmel’s show (incidentally the night after he came back from that brief pull off the air) and spent the majority of his time speaking praises from the heart to Robert Redford, who had passed away a few weeks before. It was a great mix of tribute, personal anecdote, and education on just what kind of a legacy -as an artist and as a human being- that Redford left behind. Hawke clearly was a big fan, as he has expressed in other contexts through the years. And so I know he would take it as a great compliment that his performance in The Weight channels the spirit of Redford more than anything else he has done. Certainly it feels like the kind of movie that might have come out during the era of Redford’s height. Director Padraic McKinley articulates well that flavour of 70s grit through a style and a premise descended from rugged survivalist thrillers like John Boorman’s ...

American studio animation has felt quite safe as of late -DreamWorks movies especially. Consistent and reliable brands are maintained or else original movies that follow very tried and true formulas. It’s not always a bad thing -some really strong and meaningful storytelling came out of the Kung Fu Panda and How to Train Your Dragon sequels. And The Wild Robot did some pretty stellar things within its standard narrative. But there’s not typically the same kinds of ambition or thematic innovation to these movies as you might find in animated works from other countries -and that is true even if the animated work is about another country. Pinpointing a culture and compressing it into a movie is another popular trend of mainstream animation lately -the trope that resulted in Moana , Coco , Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto among others. Good movies (most of them), but always just a little distant and inauthentic. You can feel the narrative, tonal, and thematic strictures upon them...