The Feature.

Beyond the responsibility of making sure a set is running smoothly and safely, it’s the more personal and specific responsibilities that a filmmaker places on themselves that will always be the ones that weigh heaviest and speak loudest on screen. Sian Heder’s work carries baggage, and she always finds a way to deftly lighten that load. Her films appear to be born from a genuine aching desire to do good, to make something happen, to leave someone inspired and conscious of something they may have been previously ignorant of. In this regard, she soars. Sian clearly admires Judy Heumann to no end, and I left incredibly happy to now know who Judy Heumann is, to know how irrevocable her impact remains today.  Being Heumann seeks to extend her resistance, it’s reassuring to know that the filmmaker behind both this and the best picture winning CODA - two stories that demand a lot of tenderness and research from their teller - are being delivered by someone with the empathetic touch of Sian Heder.  There’s an unignorable lack of “experience” happening in the character writing, humour or tone here. I could never shake off my absence of internal conversation; it’s a film...

Eight years since The Incredibles 2 and more than a decade since his last original animated film, Ratatouille, renowned animated movie Director Brad Bird has gifted moviegoers patience with his new film, Ray Gunn. A witty neo-noir mystery thriller set in a retro-future where humans and aliens cohabit a sci-fi Earth called Metropia. From the start, flying cars and jetpacks zip around a bustling Jetsons-style city - brought to life with the typical flair and reverence for spectacle that is expected from a Brad Bird film. It likens comparisons to his vision for Tomorrowland, except here those aesthetics are rendered a lot darker with a greater emphasis on the shadows given Ray Gunn's film noir story.  We follow private investigator Raymond Gunn, voiced by Sam Rockwell; he's a sharp-talking, snaggletoothed do-gooder, but chronically down on his luck. His one-eyed alien business partner and friend for life, Eyera, voiced by Tom Waits, blames their luck problem on Gunn's habit of being an honest man in a dishonest world. Right off the bat, the film promises a hard-boiled story wherein our protagonist navigates a mystery that exposes a corrupt world. That promise of excitement is backed up immediately; in less than ten...