Paranorman has the best damn messsage of any kids movie, heck of most films in general, and makes it in a great way. 'Its never okay to hurt people, even if they hurt you. Revenge is a poison to yourself'. That kinda thing. Sure beats the hell out of 'Just believe in yourself', or that 'friendship and family is the true treasure'. Or any pablum like that.
Speaking of poor messaging, Warren Beatty has brought us a muddled, compromised and/or heavily edited (hey, lets get Ed Harris, and give him four lines of dialog) movie about Howard Hughes that has a parallel and deeply unsatisfying youth love story that's shoehorned in.
Rules Don't Apply can't seem to tell a consistent story, or have consistent characters (although, to be fair, the main dude is Howard Hughes-level crazy), but it is an intermittently amusing and sorta zany comedy about a capriciously run business empire. Beatty himself is the highlight, even as he's directing himself most often in Streisand-flattering or obfuscating lighting, its a compelling character to play and he's clearly relishing it. if I hadn't seen Alden Ehrenreich just a few month back in a entirely different 1950's era retro showbiz pastiche (man, what are the odds) I would have assumed he was just a crappy actor, but he was good enough in
Hail, Ceasar! to make me wonder just what the hell happened with this movie. Its a mess, but at least its sometimes an interesting one.
Awesome director Kim Jee-Won made another film with the increasingly versatile Song Kang Ho. Hells yeah.
The Age of Shadows is a gripping, dense, knotty, and mostly excellent espionage thriller. Its got all that fun spy movie stuff, but it also ends up being a much better platform for its lead's performances than its early going suggests. But first, before the inner turmoil and well defined protagonists, there's all that Le Resistance stuff, and for a plot heavy film such as this being able to cleverly zig and zag and navigate its many double, quadruple, and even perhaps quintuple crosses and still keep things legible is key, and its done well here. 2016 has been a great year for Korean cinema and here's another reason as to that.
