Browsing Tag

movies

Movie Review: The Peanuts Movie

Peanuts Movie

Photo Source: USA Today

I’ve had to say no to eating peanuts for as long as I can remember, but when I heard the Peanuts franchise had a new release coming out, it was hard to resist.

The Peanuts Movie is the cutest romantic comedy I’ve seen in ages and it doesn’t make a difference whatsoever that it is an animated movie intended for children. The pre-pubescent characters are still in elementary school, but they have just as many hormones as ‘grownups’.

When we’re first reunited with the beloved characters, it’s winter. While the kids are enjoying a snow day, they see a moving truck unloading boxes at the house across the street from Charlie Brown’s house and mystery ensues.

Charlie relishes the opportunity to make a new friend who doesn’t know anything about his awkward mistakes and when he meets her in school, he immediately gushes over the Little Red-Haired Girl. What’s more, Charlie starts planning a future for them when they are assigned to work together on an assignment. “You’re the only person I know who could turn a book report into a lifelong commitment,” Linus tells his best friend.

Continue Reading

Movie Review: Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, Michael Fassbender, Apple, movie

Photo Source: Slate

Steve Jobs was a legend. I still vividly recall the night he passed away. I was sitting at my desk in London and one of my Apple enthusiast friends sent me a Facebook message to commiserate. Millions miss him but his legacy lives on in pop culture and commerce.

Now Hollywood has released another tribute to him through Steve Jobs in which Michael Fassbender portrays him. It’s easier to learn about the pivotal moments of his career through a two-hour-long movie than by reading six hundred pages in Walter Isaacson’s biography.

The movie focuses on three key product launches between 1984 and 1998 to expose his personality, family life and business savvy. It’s interesting to see the evolution of his style because at first he wears suits and then he doesn’t find his trademark black turtleneck and jeans look until he introduces the iMac after returning to work at Apple.

Continue Reading

Movie Review: Suffragette

Carey Mulligan as Maud in SUFFRAGETTE

Carey Mulligan stars in Suffragette, which tells the story of working class women in London, England in 1912 who are tired of working for sexist bosses for low pay. They want their voices to be heard in the public sphere and they want to create a better future for their daughters.

After Maud (Carey Mulligan) joins the movement by sharing a testimony about her life to a group of men, they ignore the evidence, dismiss Maud’s poor working conditions and refuse to change policies. In fact, they throw Maud and other women in jail for responding negatively to the news. When Maud and her friends become political prisoners, it marks the beginning of their fight and the end of Maud’s marriage.

Continue Reading

Movie Review: The Dressmaker

The Dressmaker - Kate Winslet

Imagine a small town in Australia. It’s 1951. A young woman returns home with her Singer sewing machine and a sophisticated attitude that all her old friends lack. It’s been several years since she’s been home and she’s concerned that the whole town thinks she’s cursed, but she can’t fully explain why. Soon enough, it is revealed that she was sent off to boarding school because the town suspected she murdered a young boy.

When a woman who looks like Kate Winslet shows up out of the blue, everyone takes notice. As a clothing designer, Myrtle AKA Tilly (Kate Winslet) has beautiful taste in fashion and she distracts all the football players when she arrives at a game looking like a knockout in a red dress. Teddy (Liam Hemsworth), one of the football players, quickly becomes Tilly’s love interest and he’s a charming one at that.

Continue Reading

Movie Review: Inside Out

Inside Out - Carbon Brew

Core Memories. Personality Islands. Imagination Land. These are just a few of the driving forces behind protagonist Riley Anderson’s thought process in Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out. The original concept takes viewers on a behind the scenes tour of a young girl’s mind as the script explores how her emotions affect her behaviour. Five emotions – Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear – run an intense operation and guide her through life’s challenging moments like being the new girl at school.

The characters clearly express their feelings through their large eyes and energetic voices. For example, Disgust (Mindy Kaling) has extra long eyelashes and her sassy personality makes her quite entertaining. No matter which emotion they represent, every character speaks with conviction.

Meanwhile, Amy Poehler’s character Joy is the woman in charge. She’s not bossy, but eager. She wants Riley to be happy.  All of the emotions have a symbiotic relationship that helps Riley function like a typical preteen. When that gets disrupted, chaos ensues. Midway through the movie, I was so engrossed that whenever Joy and Sadness stood at the edge of a cliff, I felt nervous for them. That’s a tell-tale sign of good storytelling.

Continue Reading