In reviewing Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, I summed up my not-really-a-conclusion thus: “If the next two films are great, this will hopefully seem like an elegant piece of scene-setting. If they’re lousy, this will seem like a huge missed opportunity that wasted too much time getting to the good stuff”. As it turns out, […]
(Almost) every week this summer, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend’s wide releases. Last week: Pokémon Detective Pikachu represents the first time that the beloved video game animals called Pokémon have appeared in […]
Previously reviewed at the Film Experience Many directors have had great years, in which they’ve released two (or more!) tremendously good films that demonstrate the breadth of their skills. But very, very few directors have ever had a years like Yuasa Masaaki had in 2017. This was the year that the animation genius, whose work […]
There is nothing quite like the profound satisfaction of a quiet movie made with absolute confidence and no need to prove itself. And in this vein we have Shoplifters, the thirteenth narrative feature directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu (and a lucky #13 at that; it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the most wholly deserving film […]
The thing that most surprises me about the Japanese animated feature Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms* is that it is not based on a manga series. Which of course should be no surprise at all, given that the vast majority of films in history have also not been based on a manga series, but […]
Two devotionals, to start with. Every fan of animation in the United States really should be prostrating ourselves daily in front of a shrine dedicated to GKIDS, who is at this point the only distributor making an effort to bring the best and bravest of feature animation from around the world to get something like […]
A review requested by Taylor Black, with thanks to supporting Alternate Ending as a donor through Patreon. Do you have a movie you’d like to see reviewed? This and other perks can be found on our Patreon page! In his horribly brief career that ended with his death in 2010, at the age of 46, […]
A review requested by Yourself, with thanks to supporting Alternate Ending as a donor through Patreon. Do you have a movie you’d like to see reviewed? This and other perks can be found on our Patreon page! How to go about discussing the 1964 Kwaidan? It’s historically important as the first Japanese horror movie to […]
A review requested by Nathan Morrow, with thanks for supporting Alternate Ending as a donor through Patreon. Do you have a movie you’d like to see reviewed? This and other perks can be found on our Patreon page! There is a tradition of “the bureaucracy of Heaven” movies going as far back as 1941’s Here […]
It is easy, and usually ignorant as hell, for the Western critic to declare of any fantasy-tinged anime feature from Japan, “why, that reminds me of Studio Ghibli!”, but in the case of Mary and the Witch’s Flower, that resemblance is less a matter of cultural bias than of distinct, definite intent. This is, in […]
Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters might very well represent the largest shift in the Godzilla formula since 1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, and not just because Planet of the Monsters is the first animated Godzilla feature (there have been multiple animated Godzilla TV series produced in both Japan and the United States).* Though it’s unlikely […]
A review requested by Andrew Milne, with thanks for supporting Alternate Ending as a donor through Patreon. Do you have a movie you’d like to see reviewed? This and other perks can be found on our Patreon page! We now live in a world where it seems like goddamn near every movie has massive CGI […]
