It’s been a slow ramping up for me in Santa Barbara, coverage wise. I’ve had some Wi-Fi difficulties that are being sorted and I’ve posted when I can from where I can, but a couple of notes on the last two days.
Yesterday I took in a late afternoon screening of Tomm Moore’s “The Secret of Kells,” the film that probably served up the biggest surprise last Tuesday when it slid into the animated feature field over the populist, branch-respected “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and the less-respected “Ponyo,” which nevertheless comes from a titan of the medium.
The film is beautiful in so many ways, offering a rich, artistic palette of shapes and color to paint a portrait of a well-circulated Irish story revolving around the non-fictional Book of Kells. The artwork ultimately mirrors, in some way, the Insular art featured in the book, and the narrative itself, abstract as it feels at times, seems to be about the persistence of art and history.
As always, the year’s adapted screenplay race is much more competitive than the original screenplay race. But what’s intriguing to note is that of the anticipated “big four” still to be widely screened, three of them are right in the thick of this discussion.
From pulse-pounding beginning to edge-of-your-seat end, J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” moves at a break-neck pace that never lets up, never misses a beat and shockingly, never loses itself in its labyrinthine story. It is a near-perfect action thrill ride that ticks off every box on the ultimate movie experience checklist and perhaps adds a few more.