It’s a Wonderful Life is a 1946 “Christmas” movie, up there along the classics in its genre such as A Christmas Carol, The Grinch and dare I say the first Die Hard (see my other article). Directed by Frank Capra, it stars James Steward and Donna Reed. The movie itself is meant to be wholesome;…
Year: 2021
The spiel with Spiegel
The phrase “the original was better” has been thrown around a bit too loosely in recent years. Excluding the philosophical question of what exactly constitutes an “original” and the subsequent dilemma of inspiration vs. plagiarism, we tend to forget a very important thing. In most cases, this comparison is made between two different mediums, in…
Wuthering blood-red heights
Given that for Spooktober I decided to take into consideration a movie that we may call a “posthumously-trashy” horror, for this month I will follow through with a movie that is on the better side of the frightening and nail-biting spectrum. Crimson Peak is referred to as a gothic romance film, but I would dare…
The empathy within the Fruits Basket
I knew the title for it to be somewhat a classic, but I never expected to remain so impressed it. Fruits Basket is a shōjo written and illustrated by Natsuki Takaya, recently re-animated by TMS/8Pan and Funimation. I thought it to be a classic story of high school love and drama, something to put in…
From Transylvania with love
Happy Spooktober to all you Halloween enthusiasts out there! For the movie column of the moth, I decided to stay in theme and analyze a “horror” movie. Now, although the figure of Dracula has had along the years a wide array of representations with great actors (consider for instance Bella Lugosi, Klaus Kinski, Christopher Lee…
Kinda sus
Confessions (Kokuhaku) is a 2010 Japanese movie that unfortunately has passed under the radar on behalf of the western viewers. It is based on the homonymous book written by Kanae Minato. Be however fairly warned that it is a harsh movie and it is not suited for the casual viewer. The premises provides an interesting…
A song of change
This article will cover some aspects of Vivy: Flourite Eye’s Song, an original animation aired recently that in my opinion has and will somewhat ‘fly under the radar’. I will talk about the premises, as they are unveiled in the first episode, but will hence refrain from spoiling anything else; I prefer to concentrate on…
Day of the woodchucks
Groundhog day is a 1993 movie starring Bill Murray; while it is certainly not the first in its genre, considering previous iterations especially in literature (most notably the ones that emerged in Japan), it is amongst the most iconic movies to feature the time-loop trope. This story archetype relies on re-living the same day over…
Found in context
Lost in translation is a 2003 movie directed by Sofia Coppola starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. It presents the lives of two individuals, Charlotte and Bob, while on a trip in Japan for a brief period of time and for different reasons; they meet, they talk about life and I would say that that…
Turmoil strolling
Chaos walking is a 2021 movie with Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley and Mads Mikkelsen. It is a sci-fy film about terraforming another planet; in spite of its premises, the encounter with the autochthonous aliens of the new planet and equilibrium, or lack of it, is largely left unexplained. It chooses rather to concentrate on the…