Movie Review: The Book of Life (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


Many years ago, I made the mistake of dismissing The Nightmare Before Christmas as a visually spectacular but hollow animated musical. Yeah, I didn't get it. It isn't that nostalgia has made the movie feel closer to a classic or that over time its style has eclipsed its substance. In a fundamental way, I've come to realize, its style is its substance. I shall not make the same mistake with The Book of Life. While not the animation game-changer that The Nightmare Before Christmas may have been, The Book of Life perhaps has even more room to grow into a classic in the coming years. And curiously it has a similar pedigree.

Movie Review: 21 Jump Street (2012)

by Tony Dayoub

21 Jump Street, a reboot/remake of the popular late '80s cop series that launched Johnny Depp to stardom, has been in development for years. It's got not one but two directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who's biggest claim to fame is the mediocre 2009 animated movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Which is to say, this buddy film has been through a lot of hands. Not ulike the stoner action-comedy, Pineapple Express, which fizzled in the over-elaboration of its contradictions, 21 Jump Street has its own schizoid quality: is it a grisly, violent cop thriller or a drug-fueled high school comedy? The big difference is that despite these disparate elements stacked against the new movie (compounded by the flatness owed to its small-screen origins), somehow, 21 Jump Street works.