Originality is a concept that is becoming increasingly more optional as Hollywood lays out their future plans, and there is ultimately very little point in resisting or wishing that the system would change – the industry is simply becoming overrun with sequels, reboots, revivals and remakes, a quartet of terms that have divided audiences and…
Category: adventure
Lilo & Stitch (2025)
At some point in the last fifteen years, the Walt Disney Company simply seemed to stop caring about originality. This is a far cry from the studio that not only defined the art of mainstream animation, but single-handedly was responsible for nearly a century of entertainment, capturing the attention of generations of viewers. Like any…
A Minecraft Movie (2025)
At some point in the last thirty years, someone decided that video games would be fertile ground for extracting stories – there were a few made in the decades preceding it, but distinct video game adaptations are a uniquely modern phenomenon, which is obviously due to their rise in popularity during the 1990s, which continues…
Paddington in Peru (2025)
Over a decade ago, when it was announced that Paul King (a mostly unknown director who had previously only made one barely-seen independent comedy) would be adapting Michael Bond’s timeless stories of Paddington Bear, the reaction was intrigued but not entirely enthused. There had been countless efforts to bring cherished childhood stories to life on…
The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)
Literary adaptations are often considered the bread-and-butter of the film industry – most of the earliest works of silent cinema were based on novels or cherished stories, and it has always been seen as an honour to be able to take a beloved work and adapt it to film, and the more successful a filmmaker…
Riddle of Fire (2024)
Each one of us possessed a different childhood, but often we find that, regardless of background or circumstance, some qualities are nearly universal. No matter where you go in the world or how far you look into the past, a sense of childlike wonder and curiosity has always been a part of the process of…
Mufasa: The Lion King (2024)
For whatever reason, The Walt Disney Company has pivoted away from producing original works and has seemingly instead shown themselves to be the very embodiment of the concept of resting on its laurels – not only are many of the works they have produced in the last decade been sequels to some of their most…
Adventures of Captain Fabian (1951)
In the canon of great American filmmakers, one name that you will rarely (if ever) see come up in conversation is William Marshall, who was both fortunate and profoundly unlucky to have been working at a time when any competent filmmaker would be hired to direct projects across a range of genres, and their ability…
The Reivers (1969)
The search for the proverbial “great American novel” has been ongoing for decades, with so many different contenders being suggested as the best representation of the nation’s values and history, collectively accumulated into one sprawling, cultural odyssey that best encapsulates the experience of being American. The search often looks more at specific authors than their…
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
“Fortune smiles on the brave and spits on the coward.” Perhaps it’s a bold assertion, but Werner Herzog may be the most fearless filmmaker in the history of the medium. Very rarely have we seen any director who is so willing to put himself in the path of danger for the sake of artistic expression,…
The Postmodern Pelican 