Films and Feelings

       By now the system errors of Disney's live-action remake matrix are well codified. These outputs tend to have pacing that feels like it was okayed by a chain store manager trying to lower the quarterly statement. They also show weird deference to very specific gags from their animated source yet don't bother to ask whether they fit well in the photorealistic world of live-action. And combing through the screenplay, you always seem to get snagged on certain lines of dialogue that someone must have thought belonged in a children's movie ("Being gross is against galactic regulation!).      These are all present in this  summer's live-action reinvention of "Lilo & Stitch." But mercifully, this remake allows itself to go off-script here and there. The result may be one of the stronger Disney remakes ... whatever that's worth.     The 2002 animated masterpiece by Dean Deblois and Chris Sanders (who voices the little blue alien in bo...

So here’s a question: how much do you really know about your favorite actor?  Follow-up question, do you sometimes wish you knew less? It is a truism that the people making the magic onscreen are not necessarily mirror reflections of the heroes they are bringing to life. The players in your favorite romantic drama have cheated on their spouses. Your favorite action hero has enabled abuse. Or, he’s just a loser. And all of us lost at least one favorite to #MeToo.  But just the same, we cannot deny our fascination with those people on the big screen. Film historian, Ty Burr, described in his book, Gods Like Us ,  Gone with the Wind (1939) “The fascination with stars is in large part a desire to unlock the nagging puzzle of identity—who are these people who we know so well and not at all? ... The violence done to Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin by the mobs in the public square was on some level a rapacious desire to unclothe them, flay them, burrow to their essence....