Fierce creatures

DANGEROUS ANIMALS

2025

Directed by Sean Byrne

Written by Nick Lepard

Spoilers: moderate

Walt Disney, part LXIV: At least I saw the wild before it disappeared

THE WILD

2006

Directed by Steve "Spaz" Williams

Written by Mark Gibson, Philip Halprin, Ed Decter, and John J. Strauss

Spoilers: moderate

Good for the goose

THE WILD ROBOT

2024

Written and directed by Chris Sanders (based on the novel by Peter Brown)

Spoilers: moderate

Cardboard Science: Weird West

THE VALLEY OF GWANGI

1969

Directed by Jim O'Connolly

Written by Willis O'Brien, William Bast, and Julian More

THE BEAST OF HOLLOW MOUNTAIN

1956

Directed by Ismael Rodriguez and Edward Nassour

Written by Willis O'Brien, Robert Hill, and Jack DeWitt

Spoilers: moderate

Walt Disney, part LVI: I believe you left a wake-up call for the dawn of time?

DINOSAUR

2000

Directed by Ralph Zondag and Eric Leighton

Written by John Harrison, Robert Nelson Jacobs, Walon Green, et al

Spoilers: moderate

Walt Disney, part XLV: Slimy, yet satisfying

THE LION KING

1994

Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff

Written by many

Spoilers: high

Before Earth

65

2023

Written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

Spoilers: moderate

The Encyclopedia Brown: There's gold in them thar hills

THE TRAIL OF '98

1928

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Benjamin Glazer, Joseph Farnham, and Waldemar Young (based on the novel by Robert W. Service)

Spoilers: well, it certainly doesn't last, does it? (moderate)

Cat

BEAST

2022

Directed by Baltasar Kormákur

Written by Ryan Engle and Jamie Primak Sullivan

Spoilers: mild

A planetary romance

FIRE OF LOVE

2022

Directed by Sara Dosa

Written by Shane Boris, Erin Casper, Jocelyn Casper, and Sara Dosa

Spoilers: big N/A

A boy and his deer

THE YEARLING

1946

Directed by Clarence Brown

Written by Paul Osborn and John Lee Mahin (based on the novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)

Spoilers: moderate

Disney's Challengers, part VII: Your mother can't be with you anymore

THE LAND BEFORE TIME

1988

Directed by Don Bluth

Written by Judy Freudberg, Tony Geiss, and Stu Krieger

Spoiler alert: high, but 'cmon

Walt Disney, part XXXI: Neither one of you sees your natural boundaries

THE FOX AND THE HOUND

1981

Directed by Ted Berman, Richard Rich, and Art Stevens

Spoiler alert: man, that bear came out of nowhere, huh?

Reviews from gulag: And 2019's still stinking up the place, part 1

Happy (belated) New Year!  Before we get started with 2020, there's still a lot of debris to clear out from 2019.  In this installment: In Fabric, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged.

IN FABRIC

The Duke of Burgundy, Peter Strickland's second feature, was one of my ten favorite films of 2015.  Hell, it was one of my eight favorite films.  That's a lower bar than it would usually be—2015, as a cinematic year, has been exceeded in its lousy mediocrity only by the year that's just passed—but it's still a sign of some modest excellence to have cleared it, and I think it's a pretty great movie, an art-horror romance ribboned with surrealistic and absurdist touches that still has a real, genuinely emotional story of relationship dysfunction to tell beneath the opaque glaze of 70s-nostalgic Europastiche that represents its director's preferred, and only, mode of artistic expression.  In Fabric, Strickland's follow-up to The Duke of Burgundy, is rather more the follow-up you might've expected from Berberian Sound Studio, his first film.  That is, it's an ultimately-tiresome exercise in pursuing his various aesthetic interests which, in Strickland's conciliatory gesture toward his film being about something, or anything—and, in fairness, this does put it miles ahead of Sound Studio—winds up being about an absolute shitload of "somethings," which all add up to far less than the sum of their parts by the end.

King Week: The judgment of dog

In which Halloween-related marathoning has resulted in reviews of several spooky movies from the mind of the world's favorite horror author, Stephen King.

CUJO

1983

Directed by Lewis Teague

Written by Don Carlos Dunaway and Barbara Turner (based on the novel by Stephen King)

Spoiler alert: high

Apex predator all day

CRAWL

A fun, disciplined trifle, Crawl knows what you want and gives it to you reasonably good and fairly hard.

2019

Directed by Alexandre Aja

Written by Shawn Rasmussen and Michael Rasmussen

Spoiler alert: moderate

Sure, but the CGI on the kid is amazing

MOWGLI: LEGEND OF THE JUNGLE

Even with the anti-hype machine in full swing, I held fast to my faith in Andy Serkis' Mowgli as the better of the two Jungle Books we were going to get this decade.  Unfortunately, I can't say my faith was wholly justified, even if Mowgli does offer a fair amount to enjoy.

2018

Directed by Andy Serkis

Written by Callie Kloves (based on stories by Joseph Rudyard Kipling)

With Rohan Chand (Mowgli), Christian Bale (Bagheera), Andy Serkis (Baloo), Peter Mullan (Akela), Naomie Harris (Nisha), Louis Ashborne Serkis (Bhoot), Cate Blanchett (Kaa), Freida Pinto (Messua), Matthew Rhys (John Lockwood), Tom Hollander (Tabaqui), and Benedict Kumberbatch (Shere Khan)

Spoiler alert: moderate

When Jaws dies, nobody cry

ORCA: THE KILLER WHALE

No, seriously: what about the words "Dino De Laurentiis" and "Jaws with an orca" does not compel you to see it for yourself?

1977

Directed by Michael Anderson

Written by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati, and Robert Towne (based on the novel Orca by Arthur Herzog)

With Richard Harris (Nolan), Charlotte Rampling (Dr. Rachel Bedford), Will Sampson (Jacob Umilak), Keenan Wynn (Novak), Bo Derek (Annie), Peter Hooten (Paul), Robert Carradine (Ken), and Yaka and Nepo (the Orca)

Spoiler alert: high

Joe Dante, part II: Lost river

PIRANHA

Well... plastic fish being rubbed on a bunch of appliances representing human flesh is kind of scary.  I guess.

1978

Directed by Joe Dante

Written by Richard Robinson and John Sayles

With Heather Menzies (Maggie McKeown), Brad Dillford (Paul Grogan), Kevin McCarthy (Dr. Robert Hoak), Keenan Wynn (Jack), Shannon Collins (Suzie Grogan), Paul Bartel (Mr. Dumont), Dick Miller (Buck Gardner), Bruce Gordon (Col. Waxman), Barbara Steele (Dr. Mengers)

Spoiler alert: moderate

Water, the source of all life

THE SHALLOWS

The Shallows wears the skin of one of my favorite movies, while feinting toward the substance of another, and if it doesn't reach the heights of either one, well, that's not its problem, because it's still the best treat of the season so far.

2016

Directed by Jaume Colett-Serra

Written by Anthony Jaswinski

With Blake Lively (Nancy) and Sully (Steven Seagull)

Spoiler alert: moderate