The Adventures of Tintin

The Adventures of Tintin

Making a film version of The Adventures of Tintin was a bit of risky move for Steven Spielberg, since the popular Belgian comics are next to unknown in the United States.  The opposite can be said here in Canada, where there was a popular animated series based on the books that aired in the 1990s.  I have fond…

Young Adult

Young Adult

Young Adult sees the reteaming of director Jason Reitman and and screenwriter Diablo Cody after their previous collaboration on Juno, which won Cody the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The film stars Charlize Theron as Mavis Gary, the author (more specifically, barely credited ghost-writer) of a (formerly) popular series young adult novels, who returns home to…

The Artist

The Artist

I suppose this is the week I see films that celebrate the classic days of cinema.  Two days after seeing the cinematic history lesson Hugo, I see The Artist – an ambitious silent film about the end of silent cinema. Making classic-style silent film – complete with intertitles for dialogue – more than 80 years after the end…

Hugo

Hugo

That fact that Hugo is directed by none other than Martin Scorsese was probably the first sign that it wouldn’t be just your average family film.  In fact, the film turns out to be a celebration of the history of early cinema, most notably the work of Georges Méliès, played in the film by Ben Kingsley. For…

Shame

Shame

Let me start by saying that I thought that Shame was a really good film.  The film does have very strong sexual content, which makes it a little difficult to watch at times (and it’s not really passive entertainment). That said, I thought that overall the film was absolutely enthralling, with excellent performances by Michael Fassbender…

The Muppets

The Muppets

I’m am a bit of a weird age when it comes to my fandom of The Muppets.  When I was born in 1982, The Muppet Show had already finished its run and two of the three original Muppet films were already released.  However, the Muppets were still a big part of my childhood, with me watching everything from…