The truth is, if I’d known what Cicada was going to be about, I’m not sure I would have watched the film.  I would have read the three sentence synopsis and surmised that it would be too painful, too grueling and that it would break my heart – and it was, and it did.  Though, beyond the stomach-knots and frustrated tears, there is so much beauty and love I would […]

Toy Story 4 isn’t bad. This is, already, a huge achievement, for there was every reason in the world for it to be bad: Pixar Animation Studios has a fairly unimpressive track record with sequels and is nowhere near the regular level of absolute brilliance they were when the last film in this series, Toy Story 3, came out in 2010. Not to mention that the same Toy Story 3 […]

First, the petty, niggling point: by the strictest definition, Belle’s Magical World and Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Magical World are two different features. Initially, the second sequel – if that’s even the right word – to the luminous Disney classic Beauty and the Beast was released under the shorter of its two titles on VHS in 1998 with a running time of about 70 minutes. It consisted of three […]