After one year of waiting with bated breath to view the powerhouses of Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo respectively reprising their roles as Glinda and Elphaba on the big screen, it almost seemed unbearable for fans and converted audiences alike. Audiences need not have feared as the Wicked: For Good immersed …
In November 2024, the film version of the 2003 Broadway musical Wicked finally hit theaters. The Broadway musical from Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman is an adaptation of the book of the same title by Gregory Maguire. The film by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians & In the Heights) …
Starting with Toy Story 2 in 1999, each new entry in the franchise was accompanied by a teaser trailer that had little to do with the actual movie. Toy Story 2’s teaser was released in June of 1999, featuring Little Green Men staring at a crane, revealing the film’s logo, …
This November, Pixar’s Toy Story turns 30. That number feels impossible to me. Released on November 22, 1995, just twelve days before I was born, the film became a fixture of my childhood, then my adolescence, and, honestly, my entire life. For years, I watched it nearly every day. It …
There are only so many ways a film like Sweetheart, originally titled Gioia Mia, pans out. Special Jury Prize winner at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present competition, Margherita Spampinato’s debut feature is a predictably compelling take on the coming-of-age genre: a schmaltzy drama about grief and …
Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon has been one of the most fascinating workshops for the medium since their 2009 feature debut, The Secret of Kells. Wolfwalkers by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart is only their fifth feature since Kells. Nearly every work of theirs went on to get an Academy …
The director, Erich Cannon, presents a family film about grief in Braving Rapids. It tells the story of a family that recently lost its patriarch to an unnamed illness. The mother, Stevie (Megan Heaps), is trying to raise her three kids, Jake (Nate Morley), Chance (Thomas Carroll), and Gracie (Amy …
There is a certain charm in looking back at a film that you watched as a kid. 1995’s A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, from director Michael Gottlieb and writers Michael Part and Robert L. Levy, was an easy choice for family movie night. It stars Thomas Ian Nicholas as …
For his next trick – not his follow-up to Anora, since he did not direct – Sean Baker has co-written, edited and co-produced this Taiwanese movie about a family of three women trying to make it in Taipei. The director (and co-writer) is Shih-Ching Tsou, who has worked with Mr. …
Marking its final adventure, the third season of Apple TV+’s acclaimed Jane premiered last week. I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with two of the key creative forces behind this environmentally conscious children’s series. The seasoned duo of J. J. Johnson and Matt Bishop (best known – at least …
In 1970, Judy Blume’s eponymous novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was published. The book, a grounded curtail pull on teenage sexuality, was met with indignation by certain literary factions of the USA, going as far as banning the book in certain states over its discussion of menstruation …
While it is to be praised that so many dads are making movies for children these days, it does rather mean the dads are centering themselves in the movies, instead of the children for whom the movies are supposedly made. This is very frustrating, not least when it’s clear that …