When the Chinese documentary series A Bite of China debuted in 2012, its bucolic scenes of mushroom gathering, mud fishing, and family reunions sparked something deep in the Chinese psyche. The food safety crises of the past decade were still fresh in the mind, along with the idea of urbanization robbing the country of its rich food […]
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The musical score plays an even greater role in “The Godfather: Part II” than it did in the original film. Nostalgic, mournful, evoking lost eras, it stirs emotions we shouldn’t really feel for this story, and wouldn’t, if the score were more conventional for a crime movie. Why should we regret the passing of a […]
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There’s so much intriguing information, possibility and daring inside the modern-day version of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which updates Carl Sagan‘s epically important Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, that there’s also a risk of overlooking the simple parts of it. Case in point: The series kicks off with a creative, visually impressive 45 minutes built around rock star astrophysicist Neil […]
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Blink and you may miss the sly joke that sets “The Good Dinosaur” on its enchantingly eccentric way. It begins with a near apocalypse 65 million years ago and an asteroid racing toward Earth. And while that’s around the time, more or less, that science hypothesizes the dinosaurs bit the dust, the wizards at Pixar have […]
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The gang is back behind the wheel for this latest fuming blockbuster, which cruises along nimbly enough before putting the exhaust in exhaustion. The seventh instalment in any franchise is rarely the most anticipated. Police Academy: Mission to Moscow was the final straw. No-one looked forward to Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Freddy’s 1994 stagger down […]
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Netflix’s innovative and stylishly presented cooking series Chef’s Table takes us into the minds and inspiration behind some of the best chefs in the world. Through a mixture of interviews, archival photos and a healthy dose of classical music, Netflix whips us up on a culinary journey through the world of rich cuisine and innovation. […]
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The second season of the Netflix thriller is about to drop, so in preparation, here’s a handy reminder of everything that happened first time around. Frank Underwood Underwood is not very nice: at first you think Frank (Kevin Spacey) is just a bit of a Machiavellian old devil, playing senators and congressman off one another with […]
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This strange but overlong docudrama explores the workers and clients of a company who rent family members. Werner Herzog’s Family Romance, LLC looks terrible. It’s a film that opens, unashamedly, with credits rendered in the Times New Roman typeface and camerawork with the amateurish feel of your dad’s ’90s home video footage. Yet, wonky production values aside, […]
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Most of the gang is back – but the sense of fun that catapulted the original to success is drowned out by desperation in this bigger, louder follow-up crime caper. Being a Hollywood sequel, Now You See Me 2 of course comes supersized. It’s significantly longer than its predecessor, running over two hours. The first film took a short […]
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My Neighbor Totoro [Tonari no Totoro] is Hayao Miyazaki at his very best. Subtlety is clearly Miyazaki’s friend, even though Totoro presents a typical mix of his eco motives and fantastical creatures the film feels light as a feather. It’s the ideal children’s film (it even works when they can’t understand a single word that’s […]
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