Au Hasard Balthazar Is A Boldly Grim Cinematic Experience

Sight & Sound Voyage Entry #35
Placement On Sight & Sound Top 50 Movies List: #16                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            One of the biggest no-no's in the world of cinema is hurting animals. Kill all the people you like (so long as they ain't kids) but hurting an innocent animal? You've gone too far. That's a really understandable phenomenon to me because animals are awesome and the sight of seeing an innocent creature with less capabilities than a human being experiencing pain just feels icky. That's why I've never been big on hunting and that's why movies have typically eschewed showing animals in dire pain, though there are exceptions of course. Satantango decided to just abuse a poor cat in one of its worst and most pointless scenes while Old Yeller is famous for its climax that results in the demise of the titular canine.

Shrek Review (Classic Write-Up)

A week ago today, Shrek turned fifteen years old. One of the biggest animated movies of all-time that shifted the entire zeitgeist of animated filmmaking officially turned fifteen..and no one seemed to care. Buzzfeed didn't write up a thousand articles about "21 Gifs That Make Shrek Totes Relatable", there was no release of the feature on Blu-Ray to commemorate the occasion. Hell, even the official Facebook page for the film made absolutely no mention of the anniversary. Granted, turning 15 isn't typically as big of a deal in the world of marketing as a movie celebrating its tenth or twenty-fifth anniversary of existence, but still, the absolute radio silence on the occasion struck me as shocking.