Dec 24, 2020A Walt Disney Production: “The Aristocats”In late 2017, when I decided to start a series of film retrospectives leading up to the release of Ralph Breaks the Internet, I settled on covering all of the Walt Disney Animation Studios films that hadn’t been adapted from any source material. A cursory internet search told me that…Animation8 min readAnimation8 min read
Dec 13, 2020Review: “The Prom” misses its cuesAllow me to begin with a disclaimer: I haven’t seen any Ryan Murphy project since Glee, nor have I seen The Prom on stage. But judging by Murphy’s film adaptation, the show was either a perfect vehicle for him to provide more of his trademark subpar queer representation, or the…Film4 min readFilm4 min read
Aug 29, 2020Review: “Candace Against the Universe” struggles to adaptPhineas and Ferb premiered when I was nine and lasted long enough that I outgrew all other Disney Channel programming and came right back for their other animated series in the years before its finale. It overlapped with both Kim Possible and Gravity Falls, acting as a bridge between distinct…Phineas And Ferb5 min readPhineas And Ferb5 min read
Aug 6, 2020Cannes Review: “Dollhouse” is a faux-feminist wet dreamI shouldn’t be surprised that we’re still here. I shouldn’t be surprised that the next piece being lauded in the festival circuit as an audaciously feminist narrative is another movie full of redundancies and stereotypes masquerading as some kind of exposé on systemic misogyny. And yet, when I learned after…Film4 min readFilm4 min read
Jul 19, 2020The Real McFly: How the Back to the Future Trilogy Corrects its TimelineSome weeks ago, my best friend and I had a movie night over FaceTime, repeatedly trying to play the video at the same time and giving each other our timestamps to try and match up whenever one of us had to pause it. Normally when we do this, we only…Back To The Future7 min readBack To The Future7 min read
May 20, 2020Member-onlyThe Hamilton Hypocrisy: Disney’s Modern Identity CrisisI was brought to tears when I saw Love, Simon two years ago. Sure, there was a lot about the titular character and his story that didn’t really resonate with my own experiences in high school or with coming out, but there were some huge moments that seemed to echo…Disney8 min readDisney8 min read
Feb 25, 2020Review: “Softness of Bodies” is a frustrating, morbidly fascinating indie pieceDirector Jordan Blady’s debut film gave me some mixed feelings. For the first half-hour or so, it was mostly irritation, but at some point it shifted to curiosity without me even noticing, and by the end I was more or less satisfied with what I’d seen, even if it wasn’t…Film3 min readFilm3 min read
Jan 28, 2020My 2020 Movie To-Do ListLike last year, I fully intended to have this up at midnight on January 1, but that was a little too optimistic given everything I had to do over Christmas and New Year’s, followed almost immediately by a month-long internship in New York which, like London, caused a week’s worth…Movies10 min readMovies10 min read
Nov 25, 2019Review: “Frozen II” is bigger, not betterBack in 2013, much of the marketing for Frozen mischaracterized the actual tone and content of the film, somewhat ignoring the themes of broken relationships and mental illness in favor of showcasing the obligatory comic sidekicks. But Disney clearly caught on to the fact that although Olaf was certainly a…Movies5 min readMovies5 min read
Sep 15, 2019Review: “I Used to Be Normal” is a deep dive into supposedly shallow watersThe boy band is a phenomenon to which no one seems to be a stranger. Most living people have likely encountered it for themselves, through classmates growing up, or through their children. It’s frequently mocked and parodied, and certainly not without reason. Unfortunately, some of the biggest reasons turn out…Music4 min readMusic4 min read
