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The Magic Flute (2022)
Believe in the magic of music.
Filmmaker(s): Florian Sigl

A seventeen year old travels from London to the Austrian Alps to attend the legendary Mozart boarding school. There, he discovers a centuries-old forgotten passageway into the fantastic world of Mozart's "The Magic Flute".

Peril at Vienna End I found everything about this a failure. There’s a lot swirling around. An entire opera more or less. A parallel world with a portal where some shared challenges are met, but it is unclear what those challenges are. Confidence? We end...
Published July 21, 2024
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Despicable Me (2010)
Some call him bad. They call him dad.

Villainous Gru lives up to his reputation as a despicable, deplorable and downright unlikable guy when he hatches a plan to steal the moon from the sky. But he has a tough time staying on task after three orphans land in his care.

Foreground/Background I see that I did not write a comment on this when it came out. I have since had kids and rewatched it recently, and am impressed by a couple key decisions. The first is the quality of the animation and choices made in...
Published July 7, 2024
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Kung Fu Panda 4 (2024)
Filmmaker(s): Mike Mitchell

Po is gearing up to become the spiritual leader of his Valley of Peace, but also needs someone to take his place as Dragon Warrior. As such, he will train a new kung fu practitioner for the spot and will encounter a villain called the Chameleon who conjures villains from the past.

Green Noodle of Wisdom There are three interwoven stories in this edition, which for apparent cost savings does not have the furious five. So this is a one-hero show. The dominant thread is the father-son story. I guess I can understand why this so deeply...
Published July 1, 2024
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Inside Out 2 (2024)
Make room for new emotions.
Filmmaker(s): Kelsey Mann

Teenager Riley's mind headquarters is undergoing a sudden demolition to make room for something entirely unexpected: new Emotions! Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust, who’ve long been running a successful operation by all accounts, aren’t sure how to feel when Anxiety shows up. And it looks like she’s not alone.

Lassiter Layers Decades ago, I had the charter to ‘study Hollywood’, ostensibly as a model for virtual enterprises, but that extended into my now serious study of folding in film narrative. One expression of folding is the play within the play, where you have narratives...
Published June 23, 2024
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Wish Dragon (2021)
Three magical wishes. One life changing adventure.
Filmmaker(s): Chris Appelhans

Determined teen Din is longing to reconnect with his childhood best friend when he meets a wish-granting dragon who shows him the magic of possibilities.

Shallow Well This is not just reminiscent of ‘Aladdin’, it is a copy of hundreds of films that have come before, with no notable deviation or identity. It still has value. It is presented exceptionally well. I’ve become more accepting of repetition as I grow...
Published April 6, 2024
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Elemental
Opposites react.
Filmmaker(s): Peter Sohn

In a city where fire, water, land and air residents live together, a fiery young woman and a go-with-the-flow guy will discover something elemental: how much they have in common.

Spatial Depth I suppose most people will talk about the story. It has the by now standard Father dynamics. The also now standard tension from a systemic (I hesitate to say ‘environmental’) threat rather than a bad guy. And a love story of the typical...
Published February 28, 2024
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Alice Through the Looking Glass (1998)
Lewis Carroll's Classic Fantasy Tale.
Filmmaker(s): John Henderson

A modern adaptation of the classic children's story 'Alice through the Looking Glass', which continued on from the popular 'Alice in Wonderland' story. This time Alice is played by the mother, who falls asleep while reading the the bedtime story to her daughter. Walking through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in Chessland, a magical and fun world. There she meets the Red and White Queens, as well as many other amusing friends on her journey across the chessboard countryside onto become a crowned queen.

Homeopathic Seduction In 1871, A deacon logician at Oxford published a sequel to his surprisingly popular children‘s story. In that original, he had dabbled in the mix of logic and mysticism that he thought respectable. Fortunately for him, it was characterized as the sort of...
Published February 23, 2024
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Tangled (2010)
They're taking adventure to new lengths.
Filmmaker(s): Byron Howard, Nathan Greno

When the kingdom's most wanted-and most charming-bandit Flynn Rider hides out in a mysterious tower, he's taken hostage by Rapunzel, a beautiful and feisty tower-bound teen with 70 feet of magical, golden hair. Flynn's curious captor, who's looking for her ticket out of the tower where she's been locked away for years, strikes a deal with the handsome thief and the unlikely duo sets off on an action-packed escapade, complete with a super-cop horse, an over-protective chameleon and a gruff gang of pub thugs.

Drawing Love Sometimes the inner narrative is clear. The outer narrative is fine enough to sell tickets to parents, thinking this is what their kids want and their kids returning the favour. You’ll have to read elsewhere for how well this is done. What fascinates...
Published February 23, 2024
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Gulliver’s Travels (2010)
Something big is going down.
Filmmaker(s): Rob Letterman

Travel writer Lemuel Gulliver takes an assignment in Bermuda, but ends up on the island of Liliput, where he towers over its tiny citizens.

Action Figures There is something brilliant about this project, something absolutely brilliant. You will find it hard to locate in the storm of distracting bad decisions elsewhere. The bad? Well, you can read about that elsewhere. A cheap film factory and story meets the three...
Published February 23, 2024
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Wish (2023)
Be careful what you wish for.

Asha, a sharp-witted idealist, makes a wish so powerful that it is answered by a cosmic force – a little ball of boundless energy called Star. Together, Asha and Star confront a most formidable foe - the ruler of Rosas, King Magnifico - to save her community and prove that when the will of one courageous human connects with the magic of the stars, wondrous things can happen.

Many in One I won’t lead this with a rebuttal to those that did not enjoy it because they thought it woke, and part of a grand conspiracy against something. I will lead with what I think is a brilliant, effective cinematic decision. Pixar’s world...
Published February 18, 2024
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