Perhaps there is no greater testament to the enduring strength of Shakespeare’s plays than the rich, incredibly varied interpretations the plays have encouraged, provoked or (in some cases) endured . Feudal Japan, 21st century American high school, gangland New York,…
When I first heard about “Big Hero 6,” its homonym main character Hiro, and his brother Tadashi, I wondered how Disney would be able to deliver a robotics story involving Japanese-named characters without being locked into an anime style. Well, if you’re…
Tough guys and kids. What is it that makes them so fascinating? In “Leon: The Professional” an assassin reluctantly “adopted” a girl whose family was murdered and taught her the trade. In the 2010 South Korean film “The Man from…
Ever have the feeling that when your day starts off on the wrong foot, it’s going to be one stumble after the next, until you can go to bed and get a fresh start the following morning? That’s what happens…
Kids who love “Frozen” owe a big thank-you to the Disney staffers who made “101 Dalmatians.” Animation had grown to be such an expensive proposition that it took 600 people to bring the previous film, “Sleeping Beauty,” to the big screen in…
In 2007, a British audiologist named S.J. Watson wrote a psychological thriller about a woman with amnesia who, like the protagonist in “50 First Dates,” could not build short term memories because the initial event that caused the amnesia was…
It had to happen. With so many gritty, sex-filled dramas on cable TV and with prostitutes taking center stage in such series as “Deadwood,” you knew that eventually there’d be a melodrama set entirely in a brothel. I just didn’t…
Ursula K. Le Guin fans won’t recognize her Earthsea series in this 2006 Studio Ghibli animated adaptation—at least that’s what Le Guin thinks. And Hayao Miyazaki was of the opinion that his son, Goro,was too young to direct the film,…
What do you get when you cross “Casablanca” with “The Sun Also Rises,” “The Dawn Patrol,” and “Beauty and the Beast”? If you animate it and throw in your own vision (and a few seaplane pirates), you get “Porco Rosso”—in English,…
During Shakespeare’s time, men dressed like women because women weren’t allowed onstage. But there’s always been a fascination (fetish?) with men donning dresses. Tyler Perry as Madea makes just about everybody’s list of worst attempts at men playing women in movies,…