Film Review: Studio Ghibli crafts a reflexive gem with "From Up On Poppy Hill"

Note: This film was not screened in advance for critics in Denver, so I had to see the film on my own, and it unfortunately took me a little while to get around to it. As such, this review is posted here, rather than at my current home of We Got This Covered. The Landmark Esquire, where the film is being shown, is screening both the new English dub and the original Japanese version, and the text of this review refers to the latter. 

Gorō Miyazaki’s From Up On Poppy Hill strikes me as a very important film for Studio Ghibli. The famed Japanese animation house is not yet a crossroads, but it will be one day, for founding filmmakers Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata are both over 70 years old, and will not live forever. It is a sad notion to consider, but one the film itself invites us to ponder, for in his second directorial feature, Gorō Miyazaki works alongside his father, the elder Miyazaki performing script duty, to deliver a story about the passage of time, the importance of the past, and the possibilities of the future.

Continue reading after the jump...

My book, "Fade to Lack," is now available for Kindle E-Readers!

As has been frequently requested over the last month, my book, Fade To Lack: A Critic's Journey Through the World of Modern Film, is now available as an e-book for Amazon's Kindle! The price is $7.99, and you can buy it here!

The book has been published as part of the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, so if you own a Kindle device and are an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow the book free of charge.

And if you do not own a Kindle, the book is of course compatible with all Kindle reader apps for Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad, Android devices, and more. I personally do not own an actual Kindle device, but I use the apps all the time, as it allows me to access book from any web browser and all of my electronic devices, which I why have chosen Kindle as the platform for the Fade to Lack e-book.

It will be exclusive to Kindle for the foreseeable future, but if there is interest in other e-book version, for Nook or iBooks, please let me know, and I may be able to release an edition for those readers sometime in the future. But for now, the book is a Kindle exclusive - although I have elected to make it DRM-free, both because DRM on e-books is silly and immoral, and because it may allow users of other platforms to put the file on their devices (wink, wink). All I ask is that you refrain from pirating the book.

If you would like to learn more about Fade to Lack, visit the book's website at www.fadetolack.com, or read this blog post I made about the book last month. For now, here is the description from the book's back cover:

Superheroes. 3D. Digital projection. The world of modern film is in a constant state of flux, and in a career that began at the age of ten in the pages of The Denver Post, critic Jonathan R. Lack has spent his adolescence and beyond writing about it all. Featuring over 50 full reviews, numerous in-depth analytical essays, and major, multi-chapter explorations of recent pop culture phenomena like Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games, Fade to Lack – named for the author’s weekly print column in The Denver Post’s ‘YourHub’ section – offers an entertaining and insightful survey of contemporary American film, filtered through the journey of a critic who grew up studying this fascinating, evolving medium. 

Remember, you can also purchase Fade to Lack in paperback from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and throughout Amazon Europe, all of which are offering the book for at least 10% off! And you can now visit my newly created Amazon Author page for further details and updates!

Read my tribute to the late Roger Ebert at We Got This Covered

It is a devastating day for film fans everywhere, as Roger Ebert has passed away at 70 from his long battle with cancer. He was a hero to me - just look at the title of this blog - and I had much to say about him.

For legal reasons, I cannot publish my piece on Ebert on two websites at once, so my tribute is now live at We Got This Covered, and you can read it by following this link:

A Tribute To Roger Ebert From a Lifelong Disciple  

Enjoy, and please share any thoughts you have on Ebert's passing here or at We Got This Covered in the comments. 

Announcing Book Signing for "Fade to Lack" on April 6th!

As you have hopefully heard by now, I recently published a book!  Fade to Lack: A Critic's Journey Through the World of Modern Film, a survey of contemporary American film related through my personal path as a young movie critic, is now available on Amazon.Com, and today, I have a very cool announcement to share with readers!

I will be hosting a book signing for Fade to Lack on Saturday, April 6th at 4:00 PM at Bean Fosters, a lovely, independently owned coffee and used book shop in Golden, Colorado (visit their official website here!).

Books will be available at the event for purchase (cash or check only, please), but you can of course buy your own copy first - from Amazon or directly from the publisher - just in case there are not enough copies on hand to go around. The event will last two hours, and I will be there the entire time to sign books, chat, and answer questions. Refreshments will be available from Bean Fosters.

If you can make it, I would love to see you there, and if you have any questions about the event beforehand, please feel free to shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment here at the blog.

Time: April 6th, 4:00 - 6:00 PM

Place: Bean Fosters (720 Golden Ridge Rd, Golden, CO, 80401)

Announcing "Fade To Lack: A Critic's Journey Through the World of Modern Film," a new book by Jonathan Lack!

I am delighted to finally announce the culmination of a project I have spent a very long time working on: The publication of my very first book!

It is called Fade to Lack: A Critic's Journey Through the World of Modern Film, and can be purchased today, in paperback, from Amazon.Com or directly from the publisher. You can also visit the book's official website, www.fadetolack.com, to learn all the details on this very special project!

As the title suggests, this book is a chronicle of my personal journey as a film critic. I began reviewing movies, in conjunction with The Denver Post, when I was only 10 years old, and Fade to Lack - named after my YourHub print column - is a record of the best and most significant work I have done, or discoveries I have made, over the course of this incredible adventure studying cinema.

But Fade to Lack is about so much more than just me. The book is an extensive and insightful critical survey of contemporary American cinema, composed of 55 movie reviews, numerous analytical essays on many significant films – both classic and recent – and major, multi-chapter explorations of pop-culture phenomena like Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. The book has been designed both for casual readers seeking compelling writing about film as well as those in need of scholarly, critical reference on modern movies, and can be read, enjoyed, and used in a variety of ways.

And while much of this material is collected from my previous writings, there are many compelling reasons to read the book even for those who have read some of these reviews and essays before. In addition to a substantial amount of new material in the Preface, Introduction, and first part, there is new retrospective commentary and original section introductions included throughout, and all previously published articles have been revised, polished, and annotated to better function as scholarly writings. Most importantly, much of the book’s best material – such as Priori Incantatem: Harry Potter Memories or any review from 2009 to the first half of 2011 – are no longer available online, as they were removed from YourHub following the site’s 2011 redesign. For the most part, this book is the best and only place to find many of these writings, all presented in better quality than ever before.

As another awesome bonus, Fade to Lack includes original cover artwork and seven original illustrations, all by my good - and extremely talented friend - Shannon Wheeler.

It has been a lifelong dream of mine to publish a book, and I am extremely proud of everything Fade to Lack has to offer. I hope you enjoy it as well, and I could not be more excited to finally share this work with all my friends, family, and loyal readers.

So if you are interested, please head over to Amazon.Com, or directly to the publisher, or to the book's official website, www.fadetolack.com, to purchase a copy of Fade to Lack. 

And if you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to e-mail me (at dinochow@jonathanlack.com) or contact me on Twitter, @JonathanLack.

2012 Denver Film Critics Society Awards Nominations – “Argo,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Django Unchained,” “The Master,” and more!

As a member of the Denver Film Critics Society, I had the chance to participate in something very exciting this year: Voting in our third annual DFCS Awards. Earlier this week, members were asked to send in ballots in each of the 12 categories, providing five ranked nominations for each. Today, the official nominations for the DFCS Awards have been released, and I am proud to provide them here, with a bit of my own commentary as well as my official vote for each.

The winners will be announced next week, on January 8^th, and I will publish another article then. For now, take a look at our nominations. I think they are a pretty healthy set of nominees, and I am surprised to see how many of my own picks got nods.

Read more after the jump…

A Collection of All My 2012 Movie Reviews! Nearly 100 Reviews and Tons of Special Features!

Happy New Years Eve, everyone! It has been a long, fruitful year for reviewing and discussing movies, and tomorrow, the cycle shall start anew.

I have spent a lot of time these past few weeks reminiscing on the year in film, with Top 10 Lists of all shapes and sizes, but before moving on to 2013, I wanted to publish one final retrospective – one that took an awful long time to put together but is, I hope, worth the effort.

I have compiled, in this post, the links to every single movie review I published in 2012, with their publication dates and original letter grades. In addition, many films were mentioned in other articles, or had other articles written about them, so I have linked to those as well when applicable.

This is my final, definitive guide to the movies of 2012, and I hope it serves as a nice resource for those looking to brush up on what they missed, or to simply look back on the many, many films released and reviewed this year.

The indexed list of reviews begins after the jump. Enjoy…