Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The things that set the Ant-Man films apart from the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were cheeky humor and a slam-bang heist spirit that more than made them memorable and endlessly watchable. Ant-Man and its first sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, carried with them a mirthful, bratty-little-brother vibe, almost making meta-parody mincemeat of the […]

Right away, Jungle Cruise throws you off with an altered Magic Kingdom logo underscored with a repeated E-G-B-E-B-G note sequence which suddenly becomes all too familiar once more instrumentation is added. Then you find yourself wondering, “What the hell is Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ doing as the musical score of a Disney flick?!” Everything about […]

There’s a realness to Disney/Pixar’s Soul that rises above its animation, music, and script. It has a life, vibrancy, and urgency which recalls shades of Inside Out, a similar story where two beings must work together to find home, but Soul takes a different path. Here, writer Mike Jones and co-directors/writers Pete Docter and Kemp […]

There are so many things to admire about the emotionally-charged Onward, Disney/Pixar’s latest offering. Themes of grief, single parenthood, sibling relationships, and broken families trying to put things back together accompany a sharp social commentary about how much of our world we take for granted every day. The nimble voice cast and vivid animation more […]

The cultural impact of 2013’s Frozen still resonates six years after its release. Children can be seen dressed up as the film’s heroic sisters on Halloween; its insta-hit song “Let It Go” is performed annually at school talent shows; film geeks are constantly parsing its many references and in-jokes; and even before the sequel’s first trailer dropped, toys […]

To be honest, 2014’s Maleficent was off-putting to me, but not in a bad way; that it made me feel uncomfortable was one of the film’s strong points. Here was a movie which had the balls to make its bones with metaphors for the patriarchy, date rape, single parenthood, and unwanted children. Maleficent has now […]