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Rango (2011)
Heroes come in all different colors.
Filmmaker(s): Gore Verbinski

When Rango, a lost family pet, accidentally winds up in the gritty, gun-slinging town of Dirt, the less-than-courageous lizard suddenly finds he stands out. Welcomed as the last hope the town has been waiting for, new Sheriff Rango is forced to play his new role to the hilt.

Corpus It is possible to decorate something ugly with beauty. It will still be essentially ugly, but have some attraction. Likewise, it is possible to have an ordinary movie, borrowing from others in an ordinary way, but to have some clever elaborative filmmaking. Verbinski is...
Published February 10, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Cars 2 (2011)
Take a trip. See the sights. Save the world.
Filmmaker(s): John Lasseter

Star race car Lightning McQueen and his pal Mater head overseas to compete in the World Grand Prix race. But the road to the championship becomes rocky as Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage.

Killer TeeVee You can see Pixar being as Disney-fied at the same time Disney gets Pixar-ated. In this case, the experiments in a spatial camera all go away while the cartoon becomes an ordinary 3D production. And there’s too much story. It is a kid‘s...
Published February 9, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Ones |
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Brave (2012)
Change your fate.

Brave is set in the mystical Scottish Highlands, where Mérida is the princess of a kingdom ruled by King Fergus and Queen Elinor. An unruly daughter and an accomplished archer, Mérida one day defies a sacred custom of the land and inadvertently brings turmoil to the kingdom. In an attempt to set things right, Mérida seeks out an eccentric old Wise Woman and is granted an ill-fated wish. Also figuring into Mérida’s quest — and serving as comic relief — are the kingdom’s three lords: the enormous Lord MacGuffin, the surly Lord Macintosh, and the disagreeable Lord Dingwall.

Engineering Steve Jobs remade Apple, embedding a very specific philosophy. Usually called ‘design,’ the idea is simple and the goal is simple. Have a vision of what you want to accomplish, a clear vision. Then engineer to that vision, ruthlessly eliminating all else. It sounds...
Published February 8, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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The Gruffalo’s Child (2011)

A follow up to the 2009 animated feature and adapted from the childrens' book by Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler. The Gruffalo's child explores the deep dark wood in search of the big bad mouse and meets the Snake, Owl and Fox in the process. She eventually finds the mouse, who manages to outwit her like the Gruffalo before!

Flat Black Tongues Oh help. Oh no! This is not the Gruffalo. If you know the book of which this story is the sequel, then you have experienced something special. It has an untrusted narrator nested in another untrusted narrator. The inner con is by...
Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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Penguins of Madagascar (2014)
The movie event that will blow their cover

Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private join forces with undercover organization The North Wind to stop the villainous Dr. Octavius Brine from destroying the world as we know it.

Films on Top of Films Some reviews you will read may remark on how self-aware this is as a movie. The target audience of kids won‘t get any of the movie references, but some of their parents will. It is pretty obvious that a strategy...
Published February 5, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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The Good Dinosaur (2015)
Little Arms With Big Attitude
Filmmaker(s): Peter Sohn

An epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend.

Background as Foreground I follow certain filmmakers in a way unlike any other relationship. If they have worked well for me at least once, they become a permanent part of my life, not friends or family because I give nothing back. When they try and...
Published February 4, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Threes |
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The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
They come in pieces.
Filmmaker(s): Mike Mitchell

It's been five years since everything was awesome and the citizens are facing a huge new threat: LEGO DUPLO® invaders from outer space, wrecking everything faster than they can rebuild.

Eggo The concept is gone. We are in a golden age of concept folding and our experimental loft is popular film. When the filmmakers hit a sweet spot and adventure in self reference is carried in a hit movie, the whole society becomes more cognitively...
Published February 3, 2024
| Categorised as IMDB Comments, Twos |
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A Dream of Dolls Dancing (2017)
Filmmaker(s): Christiane Cegavske

A Dream of Dolls Dancing is a new short film by Christiane Cegavske, the creator of Blood Tea and Red String. In the dead forest, The One dreams. In his dream he hears the siren call of the dolls dancing on a far away island. He must answer their call no matter the risk. In a paper boat on a liquid sea he sails for the island where they dance. Will he find salvation or despair?

Mechanical Some time back, Christmas 2006 to be precise, I saw a film that was so engrossing, I elevated it to a ‘Four’, meaning you really should see this. That list is hard to get on. No filmmaker can have more than two, and no...
Published January 21, 2024
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Blood Tea and String (2006)
Filmmaker(s): Christiane Cegavske

The aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak battle over the doll of their heart's desire.

Alice’s Rosencrantz I saw this on Christmas Day and was rather thankful. 2006 has been a bad year for movies and at the end of each year I start to put together my additions to my short list of films everyone should watch before they...
Published January 21, 2024
| Categorised as Fours, IMDB Comments |
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The Magician’s Elephant (2023)
Dare to believe
Filmmaker(s): Wendy Rogers

Peter is searching for his long-lost sister when he crosses paths with a fortune teller in the market square. His only question is: is his sister still alive? The answer, that he must find a mysterious elephant and the magician who will conjure it, sets Peter off on a journey to complete three seemingly impossible tasks that will change the face of his town forever.

Layers Any children’s movie runs the risk of easily being reducible to a ‘message’, often mistakenly called a moral. I’ve already read a few reviews of this that mention the film’s message, and how wonderfully it is presented. I suppose if that is how you...
Published December 2, 2023
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