We are coming up to that thrilling time of year again, when animation filmmakers and students flock to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival taking place from June 11-17 in Annecy, France. The festival is the world’s largest animation film festival and it is always an amazing experience, a showcase for the best in contemporary […]

  (That You May Never Have Heard Of!) Note: Posted by Lobell, written by Larry Ruppel There is a film festival held each year in a storybook-like village that is best described as one of the most magical experiences that can be had for aficionados of animated films. I am referring to the Annecy International Animated […]

Visionary Creativity: How New Worlds are Born, is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle, and on Barnes & Noble. From the back of the book: These are times of turmoil. But times of turmoil can also be times of creativity as we become aware of new possibilities in our arts, sciences, and industries, and of […]

A movie review revisited by Griselda Steiner of a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky With Frank Pavich’s movie, Jodorowsky’s Dune, about to open at Film Forum in New York, and the article in the New York Times Magazine of March 14 titled “The Psychomagical Realism of Alejandro Jodorowsky” discussing Jodorowsky’s first new film in 23 years, […]

a movie review by John Lobell Somewhere along the way I lost a step, got sloppy… dulled my own edge. Maybe I went and did the worst crime of all: I got civilized. So now we zero the clock. Gotta find that animal side again… I am a big fan of the Riddick series—Chronicles of […]

In my discussion of The Chronicles of Riddick on this site (which I have retitled The Evolving American Myth, Part 1: The Chronicles of Riddick), I refer to the story of Percival, one of the Arthurian Romances, and to the vision of an inner moral sense in each individual. I trace this inner moral sense […]

by John Lobell As we await Cloud Atlas, let’s look at a more modest spiritual movie from the past, Babette’s Feast, a 1987 Danish movie directed by Gabriel Axel, staring Stéphane Audran as Babette, and based on a story by Isak Dinesen.   Babette’s Feast looks at the dual nature of out existence. In the […]

by John Lobell Have you noticed that quite a few recent movies use non-linear layered time? In 50 First Dates, a man romantically pursues a woman who has suffered a brain injury affecting her long-term memory. Each night she loses all of the memories of the day, and wakes up the next morning thinking it […]

Groundhog Day is one of those movies that I will watch any time I come across it on TV. I have been thinking about why. Groundhog Day is a 1993 romantic comedy directed by Harold Ramis and staring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was well received on release, but as is often the case […]

by John Lobell   The Chronicles of Riddick, directed in 2004 by David Twohy and staring Vin Diesel, has always been a favorite of mine. It had a poor critical reception and its gross did not make back its production, marketing, and distribution costs. However it has since seen success on DVD and television broadcasts. […]

by John Lobell An expedition goes to a remote planet where there was an outpost of beings from another world called the Engineers. The members of the expedition piece together that the Engineers had created life on earth, and that those on this outpost had created a vicious bio-weapon (the aliens of the Alien movies) […]

The Hunger Games Reviewed by John Lobell First, this is a discussion of the movie; I have not read the books. Second, I am going to exercise some laziness and, for those not familiar with the story line, quote from Wikipedia to get us up to speed: “The story takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic […]

Tron: Legacy a Movie Review by John Lobell It is bad enough that movies have become so formulaic, but when they are, they could at least follow the rules of the formula. In Tron: Legacy, we have: – Search for and reconciliation with the father – Travel to the underworld for the completion of the […]