Films and Feelings

     I think I must have known that Chris Sanders had another movie on deck, but I guess I had forgotten it was coming out so soon. For whatever reason, when I saw his name at the end of the credits for The Wild Robot , out this weekend, I was caught off guard ... and then realized that it actually explained a lot. The basic premise felt broadly reminiscent of Lilo & Stitch , and there was at least one sequence that definitely recalled How to Train Your Dragon , both of which Sanders co-directed with Dean Deblois (executive producer on this film). With his latest offering for Dreamworks, Sanders cements his position as a titan in the world of animation.     The movie sees ROZ, a shipwrecked robot stranded on an island completely untouched by humans. One would think that such an Eden would be bereft of the squabbles that humans seem so happy to create, but the animals of the island revile this new intruder and put up every fence they have. The only thin...

    The question of whether a person needs a literal degree in film to be a "real film critic" is one I wrestle with often.     On the one hand, the film discourse has been mired by players who lack any base of knowledge in the thing they are critiquing. The YouTube algorithm rewards voices who know how to get clicks, not people who possess any special eye for the semantics or historical context for film. On the other hand, it's not fair to keep all the keys to the conversation to those who have the means to pursue a literal graduate and post-graduate education, nor should film lovers shirk from insights that come from alternative sources.  Sherlock Jr (1924)    While I am invested in a future that includes graduates of film school--institutes dedicated specially to cultivating knowledge about the artform--I also don't necessarily think a person needs to get the grade in order to be qualified to talk about film, but they  do  need to do thei...

              I want to start this piece by recounting my very first experience watching John Ford’s 1956 masterpiece, The Searchers .         The film sees John Wayne playing Ethan Edwards, rugged cowboy who embarks on a years-long quest to recover his young niece, Debbie, after she is kidnapped by a band of Comanche Indians, who also murder her entire family. Ethan is joined on this adventure by Debbie’s adopted older brother, Martin, played by Jeffrey Hunter. Ethan does not welcome Martin’s presence on this mission and even tries to leave him behind at the start, and he will continue to menace Martin as they travail the desert. Part of this is because Ethan does not consider Martin to be Debbie’s real family, and he also resents Martin’s Native American lineage. But most of his animosity stems from the fact that he simply sees Martin as weak. He does not seem like the kind of guy who can ...