Cruella (2021)

I’m going to whisper this quietly so nobody freaks out, *I’ve never seen the 1996 live action version of 101 Dalmatians*. Not the hugest cinematic crime, I know, but it does mean that I haven’t experienced the full glory of Glenn Close’s Cruella de Vil. I do, of course, have fond memories of the 1961…

Raya And The Last Dragon (2021)

It feels impossible to think about those heady days of BC (before corona) cinema, but I only realised today that since the start of the pandemic we haven’t haven’t had a new release from Walt Disney Animation Studios. Pixar bookended 2020 with Onward and Soul, but you have to go back to Frozen II in…

Top Ten: Films Of 2020

Well well well, what can one possibly say about 2020 that hasn’t already been said? This has been a year to forget societally, medically, and to a certain extent, cinematically. Many of the year’s big movies were postponed, and from a personal standpoint, many of the big movies that did go ahead proved to be…

Soul (2020)

Happy Holidays everybody. To those who celebrate at this time of year, I hope you were able to have as merry a time as possible even if your original plans were curtailed. With so much unexpected and unusual free time around the bust Christmas period, I carved out a couple of hours last night to…

Mulan (2020)

I’m sure there were others at the time, but to me it very much feels like Mulan was the first high profile casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic. I mentioned in my March review of System Crasher that I had expected to be watching Disney’s big new remake on that weekend, but here we finally are…

Onward (2020)

Is it just me, or has this latest Pixar release surfaced with absolutely no fanfare whatsoever? When I say I had absolutely no idea what I was in for with Onward, I mean I hadn’t even seen a trailer, I’d barely seen a poster, and until I was physically at the cinema, I thought there…

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

It’s taken me nine ‘Episodes’, one animated movie and two standalone features to get there, but I’ve finally realised that the experience of watching Star Wars in this modern landscape is always going to be at the mercy of fans whose perceived ownership of the property overrides any individual opinions that you might try to express.…

Frozen II (2019)

It’s hard to believe that Frozen is nearly seven years old, simply because it feels like it never went away! From Let It Go to Elsa costumes to Olaf toys and everything in-between, the film became the kind of cultural phenomenon that Disney hadn’t experienced for a while, it’s almost as if audiences prefer new…

Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil (2019)

When Maleficent came out in 2014, it had the benefit of being one of the earlier of these new era Disney projects focused on either remaking or retelling old beloved properties. Whilst I didn’t really think much of the film as a whole, I enjoyed the different, comparatively darker approach to the Sleeping Beauty tale,…

The Lion King (2019)

Well, here we are again. Mere months after both Dumbo and Aladdin hit cinema screens across the world, Disney are showing no signs of slowing the cogs of their regurgitation machine. The third remake of a beloved childhood classic of any kind might feel a little over the top at this point, but I think…