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A comedy about death is a serious matter, especially when children are included in the target audience. Tim Burton has become an expert in achieving that with both animated and live-action films: The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Ed Wood, and Beetlejuice.

December 25, 2016, is a day that George Michael fans will never forget. In the midst of eating, drinking, and putting Wham’s “Last Christmas” on repeat, our phones let us know that our very own musical deity tragically and unexpectantly passed away.

  The documentary Kili Big is the story of 20 plus-sized women from around the world all attempting to climb to the top of Africa’s highest mountain, Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Director John Ford once said to a reporter, “Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals.  Directing is not a mystery, it’s not an art.

Interesting and heavy, consequential questions of art’s relationship to commerce hang all over the terrifically engrossing documentary Claydream, informing its bittersweet portrait of the rise and fall of the man largely considered the father of modern-day clay animation. That its subject’s actual name remains unknown outside of tight-knit industry circles while his rebranded, formerly eponymous studio, wrested away from him two decades ago and given a new moniker, has gone on to garner considerable acclaim with a fanciful origin story speaks to a time-honored Hollywood axiom: when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

When can a disease be life-saving? The answer to that riddle forms the spine of the documentary Syndrome K, narrated by the late Ray Liotta and available across digital platforms on August 16. Directed by Stephen Edwards, the movie tells the fascinating story of a fictitious highly contagious illness concocted by three Roman Catholic doctors during World War II.

By the time Steve Carell’s star turn in The Office came to an end, in 2011, the character-actor-turned-leading-man had already proven his bankability as a movie star with a string of hits including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Get Smart, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Little Miss Sunshine, and the Anchorman franchise. And then, in a surprising about-face, he swiftly changed tack towards darker fare in films such as 2014’s Foxcatcher, which earned him an Academy Award nomination, and two more in 2018 - Beautiful Boy, in which he played the father of a drug-addicted son, and Vice, in which he portrayed George W.

“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

Pakistan is not known for its animation. Animated cinema, especially traditional feature film animation, is noticeably absent in that country.

With no major new releases, Top Gun: Maverick was, at one point on Sunday, poised to re-claim the number two spot even after 12 weeks of release. But as this report is being written, it looks like DC League of Super-Pets narrowly edged out Tom Cruise’s blockbuster to win second place.