“Good kids’ movies are the ultimate pacifier; it’s a genre of self-reinforcing tropes about self-esteem and positivity built to electrify and calm children and give rest to pooped parents. In his three films at Pixar, Docter has disproved this characterization, not by making his films more adult, as directors like Brad Bird have done, but by imagining the world of childhood in all its psychological complexity. His latest, “Inside Out,” co-written with Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley, animates the emotional life of a young girl, literally. With the film taking place in 11-year-old Riley’s mind, and characters representing her five key emotions, Docter is able to embrace philosophies of children’s development that feel radical in American animation.”
Read more at RogerEbert.com.
“Last weekend, the Pure Flix-produced, inspirational drama Do You Believe? opened in theaters, and if you’re a regular moviegoer, chances are you didn’t see it. You might not have even heard of it. As its title suggests, Do You Believe? is about religion. More specifically, it’s a religious film, spreading messages preached by Evangelical Christians across America to appeal to those very same Christians. It’s part of a growing genre of faith-based films made to target this largely conservative religious community, and while that’s a pretty specific niche, the business model has proved surprisingly profitable of late.”
Read more at Movie Mezzanine.
“The scene opens. A man stands over us, staring in our direction. He looks away and begins to speak. Next, another man sits in a chair next to him looking away from us, and he speaks, too. After several minutes, we cut to a woman. She sits silently, processing her situation and barely hiding her disdain. Finally, a shot of the woman from above: God’s eye looking down, omniscient and ambivalent. For the next 100 minutes of Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, while the dialogue flows constantly, the camera does the most telling of all.”
Read more at Movie Mezzanine.
“A few weeks ago, I noticed a friend of mine talking about Philip Roth. I’ve never read any Roth before, though I was certainly aware of his acclaim. I made a mental note: read some Roth. Then a couple weeks later I saw another friend talking about the author. Clearly I needed to get on this writer sooner rather than later; all signs pointed in that direction. I started looking up lists of his books, getting an idea of where to start. There were other books already on my plate, but I could bump those back a spot or two to make room for Philip Roth. The plan was formulating and now I just needed to pick up copies of some of his books. That’s when a most serendipitous event occurred.”
Read more at Pajiba.
“The Red Wedding killed Game of Thrones. Or, more accurately, The Red Wedding killed my ability to care about almost anything that happens on Game of Thrones.
Investment in a fictional universe is a curious thing. It’s so easy with the current state of television to get pulled in by a series to the point where the characters feel like real people and every aspect of the world feels important. Game of Thrones had been that show for me for three seasons. I watched and re-watched it incessantly. I read the first book to fill in gaps in my knowledge, then decided to stop so I wouldn’t get spoiled on future episodes. I’ve seen every episode at least twice, and in some cases three or four times. I cried when Ned Stark bit it. I cheered when Stannis’ ships blew up at the Blackwater. I was in pure shock when the ‘The Rains of Castamere’ started playing and all those throats got slit.
And then it lost me.”
Read more at Pajiba.
