The French Institute Alliance Française announces the program for the seventh annual Animation First, the only U.S. festival dedicated to showcasing the legacy and innovation of Francophone animation. FIAF is thrilled to celebrate the seventh edition of its popular festival, which expands this year from a three-day to a six-day festival due to increased popularity, running from Tuesday, January 23 through Sunday, January 28.
Tag Archives: Foreign
Full Time (2023)
Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Éric Gravel’s drama is a movie filled with so much tension and suspense, yet it’s a movie that has no actual villain. There’s no criminal or abusive spouse or corrupt officer. All there is is time that constantly seems to be working against our protagonist Julie. In a world where being a single parent becomes tougher and tougher, Gravel has offered audiences easily the most universally relatable drama in a very long time. Despite its setting, “Full Time” is wonderful often emotionally exhaustive exploration of a single parent, Julie, who is tasked with trying to keep her world above water. This becomes even harder as she’s tasked with caring for two children, both of whom are demanding of her constant attention.
Five Great Movies Featuring Pools
Pools have almost always been interesting elements in films and television, from movies like “Sunset Boulevard,” “Poltergeist,” and “Gremlins” to famed TV shows like “Breaking Bad.” Since “Night Swim,” Bryce McGuire’s horror tale centered on a swimming pool is currently in theaters, I thought I’d list five great movies centered on or prominently featuring swimming pools. What are some of your favorites? What did you think of “Night Swim”?
OSS 117 Box Set from Music Box Films (2023)
The OSS 117 films have been around for a very long time. Originally a sort of French response to James Bond and his 007, OSS 117 films seemed to disappear for a while and then, in 2006, Jean Dujardin stepped in the suit and made it his own. His films as the famed spy started with OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006), followed by OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009), and OSS 117: From Africa with Love (2021). The box set released by Music Box Films recently contains the first two films only, something that was a bit of a letdown. However, it is a solid release of these films.
Our Top Ten Films of 2023
It’s been a crazy year for the movies, and it’s been a crazy year for Hollywood. There was Barbenheimer, the massive SAG-AFTRA/WGA strike, the continued streaming wars, the decline in the popularity of superhero movies, the end of the DCEU, the phasing out of physical media in major chain stores, and twenty five years after “Family Matters” ended, Steve Urkel got his own animated movie.
What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Here are Our Top Ten Movies of 2023.
Please to remember this is our opinion, and only our opinion, not gospel. But we encourage you to let us know your top ten movies of the year or what other nineties icon you think will get an animated movie next.
The Ghost Station (2022)
A young journalist stumbles upon a story that blows up as she starts publishing it. Soon, she finds herself entangled in a story of ghosts, untimely deaths, and grudges.
Nightmare on 34th Street (2023)
Like clockwork every year a studio releases a Christmas themed anthology for the masses, and almost always it’s a big letdown. It’s not really enough to inject the whole Christmas aesthetic. A genuinely scary story helps, too. “Nightmare on 34th Street” is a rambling, often nonsensical, unscary Christmas anthology movie that is literally all over the place. It re-uses actors, garners a whole cast that spend their time obviously reading from cue cards off screen, and director Crow doubles down a shoddy editing job that makes his film more confusing and jarring than scary.