Corny as it may sound, I consider little details like that poetry.  Aside from what they may add to the character or overall movie, the fact that they were observed and painstakingly animated is rewardingly humanizing.

If I had to make as short a list possible, I'd boil it down to Mononoke and Kiki as antipodes — one high-conflict and epic, one low-conflict and intimate — with Spirited Away in the middle.  Frankly, if Miyazaki made a film about a girl lying in a field and looking at the sky while the wind rustled the grass around…

I think Crudup did a fantastic job, and it's easy to underappreciate him because his character is meant to be a sort of heroic mediator, always serving as the voice of reason and balancing out the other characters.  I'm not sure if anyone else could have done a better job.

I mentioned it above, but it also should be taken into account that subtitle translations are often abridged or just flat-out bad, so I don't understand why some might consider a subbed version of an animated film less compromised than a dubbed one.  It's easy to be dismissive of people who don't want to read…

I love Yoshihiro Tatsumi, but it's been a while since I revisited his work, so I wasn't aware of this film.  I absolutely can't wait to see it.

I try to avoid English-dubbed foreign-language films at all costs (although I admit that for many dubbed-no-matter-what Italian movies, my avoidance is probably arbitrary), but when it's an animated film, especially anime, being a purist only makes sense to me if (assuming you don't speak the original, undubbed…

That's what you think.

I hope it doesn't sound creepy or patronizing, but I've always been impressed by Miyazaki's appreciation of femininity in all its forms — from little grace notes like the thing with the hair, to tomboy impetuousness, maternal level-headedness, etc.  Most of his heroines (and even, say, the villain of Princess Mononoke)…

This is a completely trivial observation, but I love the moments in Studio Ghibli films when a female character pulls her hair back, like in Spirited Away when Chihiro holds a rubber band in her mouth while she pulls back her hair and then fixes it in a ponytail.  It's such an inherently fetching feminine gesture, and…

I hope there's a scene where Hardy tells Pine he's had a change of heart, and then Pine replies, "A lot of good that'll do you.  You've still got the same face."  Etc.

Why does it mean war?  Does Hardy call Pine an upstart?

Odd as it may sound, I loved the book until the action kicked in.  The main character has some interesting things to say when he's full of amoral ennui, but when he has something to live for and begins acting on his conscience, the book gets very busy and very boring.  The frequently gorgeous writing becomes…

Well, I thought it was funny.

Wow, you should change your name to Ennuito.  Or just lighten the fuck up.

I saw this last night, and even though I had high hopes for it, I think this review is fair.  I was in the mood for some creepy gothic atmosphere, and I'm a fan of Ciarán Hinds, so it wasn't a complete waste of time; Hinds is great, and the scenic design is good.  Otherwise, Radcliffe can't carry the film on his own,…

I love the scene where Ben Kinglsey types up the list, reverently holds it up and says, "The list … is life," and then Liam Neeson tells him, "No, it's not.  It's a kill list, you dumbass."  And then Kingsley brains him with a hammer.

Actually, dr. zarnak, it uses that same device, amongst others.  I thought the sound design was incredibly effective in that regard, but the dialogue can be extremely hard to make out at times, with a lot of whispered, thickly accented lines mixed at a naturalistic level I was straining to hear.

This "sex coop" you speak of … does that require filing some sort of zoning variance?

At least it doesn't feature any of Cohen's MS Paint artwork.

"Accoutrement"?  WHAT IS THAT SHIT?