Isle of Dogs
“I wouldn’t bring puppies into this world,” Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson) Humour and humanism. Animation cinema has its work cut out for the rest of 2018 if it wants to best this early front runner for the 2019 Oscar. (INCREDIBLES 2 needs to be on fire.) This puts its stop-animation recent rival, EARLY MAN, in the shade. Witty and stunningly animated, ISLE OF DOGS is an adventure with a perpetually relevant allegory. The film is a dig in the age of grim right wing politics: Scapegoating the poor, foreigners, etc. ISLE OF DOGS is a lesson in long-term inaccurate negative propaganda. How it can tap into a gullible population’s hate-filled simplicity. The narrator speaks of a “tidal wave of anti-canine sentiment.” Look around the world and you will see how topical this project is, even down to students being at the vanguard of hope. [To read more, click here.] |
Ready Player One
"I just came here to escape, but I found something much bigger than myself," Wade Watts/Parzival (Tye Sheridan) The year is 2045, and the world's economies are in the toilet, and the second largest corporation is trying to own the number one. There is no explanation or exploration of why there is vast economic inequality. Do the filmmakers not care, or are they leaving it to the audience to extrapolate? Before 2016, I would have said the viewer shouldn't be talked down to. After Brexit and Trump, it seems large swathes of the population do need things spelled out. How depressing. In this future, things are worse. Hope has left the equation. People find themselves addicted to the "Oasis". [To read more, click here.] |