Film

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.

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.

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

Nonfiction films which trade in biography arguably have the ability to avoid a good number of the narrative pitfalls that frequently bedevil fictionalized biopics. They’re less frequently compromised by the active participation of their subjects, for starters.

Music has always been considered the primary vehicle of human memories. Each August 12, music enthusiasts celebrate National Vinyl Day to recognize an invention that has allowed people to capture their memories forever.

Turning 80 years old this year is everybody’s favorite deer, Bambi. This film marked the 5th animated offering from Walt Disney Animation and has remained a staple of beloved children’s movies for many generations, despite the horrific death of Bambi’s mother.

The ’90s were a complex time for the industry – the dawn of digital, the slow death of physical effects, the transition from VHS to DVD, the rise of higher image and better sound in theaters, and the growth of the multi-screen multiplex. It was a bonanza time for studios, and the audiences were eager to consume the new elements of the end of the century.

After his stint in the US Armed Forces as a fighter pilot during the last years of WWII where he chalked up more than 50 bombing missions, Robert Altman spent twenty years writing scripts, directing industrials and episodic television, first in Kansas City and then in Hollywood. Success came late in his career – he was 45 when he won the Palme d’Or for M*A*S*H* in 1969, his greatest works still ahead of him.

A collective gasp resounded through Hollywood when it was announced last week that the much-awaited Batgirl movie, budgeted at $90 million, had been shelved. The canning of a movie is, of course, not a rare occurrence in and of itself.