Isle of Dogs (2018)

I love Wes Anderson's quirky style and evidently so do a lot of big name Hollywood actors, as he has attracted a star-studded voice cast for his second stop-motion feature. The visuals are stunning. Anderson's attention to detail in his fully controlled animated world far surpasses what he is able to do in a live-action environment. The oddity of this world is charmingly hilarious. And Anderson's witty humor is just brilliant. It's not for everyone, but I can't help but smile at how fun this is. The music by Alexandre Desplat is exciting and beautifully features taiko drums.

The big directorial choice Anderson made was to linguistically divide the dogs from the humans. The humans speak Japanese and are not subtitled. We, like the dogs, do not understand them. We rely on interpreters to give translation sometimes. Sometimes, we are just left in the dark. The dogs speak English, or rather their barks are voice-translated in real-time. There is a language disclaimer right in the beginning. I understand the separation he tries to make, putting the audience firmly in the dog world. That being said, I was not crazy about the bilingual foreign exchange student saving the day. A student movement rightfully has its place in the movie, but it doesn't have to be led by a white student. She serves as a convenient means of translation, but Anderson is clever enough to have figured that out. They could've diagrammed their plans, for example.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

It's a dark comedy, cleverly written, well-acted, and unexpectedly quite funny for a movie about vigilante justice. But I do feel like it hides a little behind it's label as a dark comedy. There are some rather problematic parts that I think have been glossed over a little quickly without scrutiny. For example, Peter Dinklage's character is the butt of a number of ill-spirited midget jokes. How about the blase attitude on police brutality? There's the cop that beats African Americans. There's this same cop that defenestrates people. There's the sheriff that seems to condone this cop's behavior. And we're supposed to feel bad for this sheriff? And what about the black friend that is thrown in jail on trumped up drug charges? Frances McDormand makes a big fuss about it at first, but then let's it go. Just collateral damage. So what redeems the movie amidst all this? Frances McDormand. She's devilishly good.

Hail, Caesar! (2016)

In short, I didn't really like this movie. I fell asleep. It has its funny moments. There are some great scenes, like the one in which the religious leaders discuss the accuracy of the movie. There just aren't enough of them.  It really feels like a Coen Brothers movie. The humor is unusual and dry but fast and witty. But I just couldn't really get into it. The movie is loving depiction of Hollywood and the movie-making business. 

The Good Dinosaur (2015)

This is a solid family film, but as far as Pixar films go, this movie pales in comparison to Inside Out earlier this year.  The reason is that the movie lacks heart.  Pixar is known for drawing out emotions from its viewers but The Good Dinosaur was a little tame. The story is kind of typical for the genre and a little simple and shallow for Pixar's standards. It seems to hearken back to other classic animated films.  It is very much like Lion King, in which the father dinosaur dies tragically early on (very typical Disney).  Then there are three pterodactyls that try to make a meal of Arlo, like the hyenas from Lion King.

The premise of the film is interesting. What if the dinosaurs never went extinct? Then they would have evolved... to learn to domesticate agriculture and livestock, like humans did.  There is some charm and some genuine laughs. The movie is visually stunning, animating different species of dinosaurs in a friendly way that looks a lot better than The Land Before Time.  Those lightning bugs and the actual lightning and thunder that storm up trouble for the protagonist.  The animation is actually quite different. The computer images are not evocative of the same visuals we're used to from Pixar, but this was the kind of animation that this movie needed.