Hands of Stone clearly wants to be this generation's Rocky, but the film works so hard to convince moviegoers of its inspirational relevance that it ends up feeling like an empty collection of genre conventions.
A cast of bright young stars and a promising new filmmaker transform XOXO into a fun, light-hearted romp that delivers a rare win for films based on the world of electronic dance music.
Gomorrah demonstrates that the world of organized crime is as narratively rich as ever, bringing a decidedly modern spin to the genre that is distinctive from beloved predecessors like The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire.
Laika brings another visually dazzling epic to the screen with Kubo and the Two Strings, and while the narrative isn't the studio's finest, its stylish execution and thematic heft neatly pick up the slack.
Meryl Streep (of course) delivers yet another solid performance, but Florence Foster Jenkins gets a bit too lost in the balancing act between comedy and drama to emerge a bonafide winner.
When a studio is as old and has as big a catalog of hits as Disney, it's inevitable to look back through past decades of success stories for a property that can be refreshed and re-appropriated for a modern audience. Lately, Walt Disney Pictures has been making headlines for its rampant revisits to some of its most beloved animated classics, with this year's The Jungle Book serving as the most recent example of the studio taking a story from animation to live action. However, in addition to translating these iconic stories into a new visual style, Disney has also sprinkled in several notable remakes of its own live-action films.
Though it takes liberties with the source material, The Little Prince enriches the novella on which it is based, developing its themes and characters into one of the best animated releases of the year.
