Beyond the Rhetoric

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) It’s quite unfortunate for the team at Dreamworks that How to Train Your Dragon came out around the same time as Avatar. They’re not the same movie, to be sure, but they both have the whole theme of taming some flying beast so you can ride it into battle. [...]

The Mountain Thief (2010) Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. I was there for three films: two shorts and one feature-length. All three were centered around Filipino culture and concerns, but they approached entirely different subjects. One talked about the plight of a live-in nanny who is finally [...]

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, surrounded by 8-bit video games, then you really have no choice but to head out and watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. This movie is completely outlandish, utterly outrageous, and leaves you innumerable “WTF” type moments. In it, Scott Pilgrim [...]

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Computer-generated animation? Check. Cute talking animals placed in anthropomorphic situations? Check. Cheesy plastic 3D glasses? Check. On the surface, it would look like 20th Century Fox has figured out the formula to a family-friendly cartoon with plenty of merchandising possibilities. That’s on the surface. The execution of this formula, [...]