Not only is this a cinematic version of the first concert to ever gross over one-billion dollars, but it’s also the overdue shake-up to the entire movie theater industry. Rather than how other major studios would normally tell theaters far in advance when to book their next tentpole movie release, Taylor contacted those theaters herself, blocking out all of October so that no other major releases would conflict with her film. As a result, the cinematic version of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour became one of the biggest hits of 2023, making huge theater crowds lining up for a theatrical event a reality once again after the COVID-19 pandemic hurt the industry.
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For what feels like the first time, fans are able to experience a live concert without the messy crowds, loud noises, or expensive tickets that may discourage them from going. Yet these fans are still encouraged to wear friendship bracelets, t-shirts, and other T-Swift related merchandise, getting the freedom to participate in the theater the same way they would at the live concert. In fact, watching the concert this way provides the extra advantage of seeing Taylor more up close and personal; it’s easier to see how openly grateful she is toward her adoring fans. Thanks to this largely influential musician’s desire to make her body of work more accessible will save movie theaters, a new chapter to what the theatrical experience is all about has begun.

PG-13 (DLS)
Documentary/Musical
2 hr. 49 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to LEARN.
Watch it to feel HAPPY.

This remake had the task of marrying together the original book by Alice Walker, the Steven Spielberg film, and the Broadway adaptation, all while keeping the soul of the story preserved. With Oprah Winfrey on board as a producer, this newest version gives an inspirational glance back to a time when Black freedom in America was still a new concept, making this an important movie for Black women to feel seen and heard. As another component behind why this version works so well, Danielle Brooks and Fantasia Barrino, two cast members from the Broadway production, reprise their respective roles. Likewise, Taraji P. Henson is here, playing the role she originally turned down on Broadway.
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With that authentic touch of theatrical pizzazz, that naturally means this film version has some phenomenal musical numbers, including one with traditional Ugandan fashions. One of the songs featured is, “She Be Mine,” which was originally written for the Broadway show but didn’t make the final cut. Ultimately, the production in the end looks great, and the cast seems to be such a closely-knit community who had their hearts in the right place. For anyone who’s been a victim of abuse, neglect, or poverty, The Color Purple is for them. It’s the sort of movie that motivates the overlooked by promoting deeply Christian themes, particularly in how God created purple flowers so that we can notice His rare sparks of beauty in nature.

Hayao Miyazaki last made a feature-length motion picture a full decade before making this one, and he ended up leaving retirement to spend seven years directing this deeply personal WWII-era epic. Since that essentially makes The Boy and the Heron an ultimatum of Miyazaki’s legacy in cinema, the animation techniques are much more advanced and up-to-date now. That includes a new installment for Studio Ghibli: Dolby Cinema, a technology that better distinguishes the highlights and lowlights of the movie’s image. Yet the skill of the animators remains tremendous, particularly when animating the heron, who appears grotesque in the most uncanny of ways.
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The entirety of the movie includes a similar contrast of beauty against darkness. The story is indeed grim, but the magical score helps keep the experience from being too overwhelming; the music complements every emotional peak of the story perfectly and even presents a wonderful new song, “Spinning Globe.” The fact that such an emotionally delicate work of animation finally got recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures is a big deal. Not only is it the first hand-drawn animated film to win Best Animated Feature since Spirited Away twenty-one years ago, not only is it the first international film to win since then, but it’s also the first ever PG-13 movie to win in that category. Therefore, this important Oscar win is guaranteed to change the entire animation industry forever.

As director Greta Gerwig made the creative decisions for this ambitious blockbuster movie, she refused to go with what the adult in herself would’ve wanted, but rather what the little kid in herself would’ve wanted. Sure enough, her vision led to the set and costume designers using more shades of pink than anyone ever thought could exist. The sets resemble life-size Barbie houses- all authentically artificial and built to scale with the actors (the car Barbie drives is 23% smaller than an actual car). For the fun sequences of the bridge between Barbieland and the real world, scenes are depicted in various locations, all with moving background canvases and multiple layers of artificial set pieces that move.
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Every Barbie party outfit ever sold is referenced in the dance party scene, and even the brand’s more forbidden dolls are included in the cast, such as “Growing Up Skipper” and “Sugar’s Daddy Ken.” Makeup tests were done as well on Margot Robbie to make sure she looked as perfect as a stereotypical Barbie doll—a process that took approximately a year. This huge movie would be nothing however without the brash musical score and hit songs, which demonstrate what happens when filmmakers don’t take themselves too seriously and just have some fun. Yet these filmmakers balance that fun with a loving critique of the Barbie brand’s legacy, which is why Barbie will soon change future tentpole movies forever.

With its anamorphic lens cinematography and its use of Ave Maria in the musical score, this darker take on the world’s greatest detective is essentially an independent art-house film that happens to have an enormous budget. As it lays out the story arc of Batman over a near-three-hour runtime, the story maintains a fast pace that balances its quicker moments with doses of symbolic imagery meant to represent the stark contrasts between beauty and death coming together. All these mise-en-scène elements work hand-in-hand to create some unforgettable adrenaline-heavy fight scenes, each held together by inky shadows that make various lighting effects such as flames and strobe lights stand out further.

​Yet it’s the designs that really shine the most, and not just because of the four hours’ worth of prosthetic work behind Colin Farrell’s Penguin makeup. The batsuit was made out of 3D-printed molded rubber and then stitched by hand, while Bruce Wayne’s eye makeup stayed on his face whenever he removed his cowl. Every location is the perfect stage for a spectacular action-packed sequence, each one sustaining a cold and grim color palette to match the way Wayne views himself amidst the city’s chaos. So even while this movie suffers from weak female characters and Colin Farrell’s ultra-hammy performance, The Batman deserves some appreciation for how it further elevates the artistic potential of motion pictures based on comic books.

To capture the big emotional rush that a finale deserves, the designers and VFX artists behind this highly anticipated eighth film give it their all. Starting with the battle at Hogwarts, the biggest action set piece the series has ever created, stone statues come to life, giants and spiders are spotted within the chaos, and a large amount of stunt choreography with teenage extras went into these sequences. To make things a bit easier while filming these very complex shots, many of the broken stone bits on the battlefields were made of a lightweight substitute. Though it’s not just Hogwarts, Gringotts is also revisited with an updated design to fit the darker, more realistic tone of the film compared to the first movie it was seen in.
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The filmmaking style also pulls no punches in capturing exactly what moviegoers during the 3D boom of cinema at the time wanted. Elements are constantly flying through the air, thousands of objects multiply inside a vault, a stark white set depicts an empty King’s Cross Station, a giant dragon flies through the sky, and even the approaches to filming a ghost and a snake are utilized in efforts that justify seeing the movie in 3D. So despite feeling incomplete as only the second half of a book adaptation, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 2 sets the gold standard for how a series finale should be handled.

With it being the beginning of the end, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows- Part 1 was part of the production crew’s final exam about everything they learned from the past decade of making a revolutionary cinematic saga. The scene of the seven Potters alone demonstrates how far the effects in the series have come, as six of the actors transform into Harry Potter with the power of motion capture. Then Daniel Radcliffe had to match the movements and mannerisms of every one of them as he played them in separate shots that were all combined into one.
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But that’s just a couple of minutes of screentime, another major difficulty for the set designers was the Ministry of Magic set, which got destroyed two movies earlier and had to be entirely rebuilt again. Other effects had to stretch the imagination of the VFX artists, such as by putting an LED suit on a dog to create the light of a CGI Patronus, while other scenes took weeks to plan, such as one taking place in Piccadilly Square that was full of over 500 extras. However, this film overall still feels incomplete as just the first half of a story, as one could argue that the last book was split into two movies to rake in more money. Yet this penultimate film in the series did what it needed to get done to get audiences pumped for the true finale.

​As the series nears its end, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince establishes just how much darker the journey of the title character can be. Now, that isn’t to say the artistic quality ever improves, because this movie, in particular, suffers too much from awkward love subplots and a lack of chemistry between the teen actors. However, the dramatic spectacle is a massive improvement from the five preceding films, starting with the destruction of the Millennium Bridge. From there, each scene is its own contained showcase of miraculous designs married with groundbreaking visual effects. One of the standouts to demonstrate the VFX work and design work coming together is Fred and George Weasley’s joke shop, which is packed full of delightful detail after delightful detail.
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The costumes also are constructed with much care and attention to detail to make everything about the wearer’s personality instantly recognizable. Those types of costumes are most apparent in the wardrobes of Professor Slughorn and Luna Lovegood, who ironically are the film’s two most impressionable characters. To add to the escalating challenges of filming these movies, much of the cast, particularly Rupert Grint, had to go through more physical training than ever before. With the cast and crew’s toilsome efforts to create something truly special, the two-part series finale now has a glorious red carpet rolled out for its entrance, in turn setting the stage for the standard all other tentpole blockbusters must meet.

As the Harry Potter movies continue growing darker and more mature, each one proves to be a grander technical achievement than the last. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hooks in the audience early on with the spectacle of the Order of the Phoenix flying on broomsticks over London, and every element used to generate this sequence comes together seamlessly without a single giveaway of a green screen in sight. These types of effects look even better though in the Hall of Prophecies, an environment made entirely on the computer. Among the CGI creatures that contribute to the film’s tremendous visual effects include thestrals, dementors, patronuses, centaurs, and a giant.
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The effects with the wand fights are likewise an improvement from the previous four movies, as they were arranged by a dance choreographer, and the wands were made out of rubber so they wouldn’t break while filming. The designs are also unlike anything seen throughout the rest of the Wizarding World up until this point, particularly the enormous Ministry of Magic set, which took twenty-two weeks to build and looks like it was built with 100% authentic materials. So no longer is this Wizarding World limited to just gothic-inspired designs, now it’s stepping into the look of a Churchill-era London. Thus, despite the messy plot, this fifth installment to the series continues proving just how much of an impact it left on the art of blockbuster filmmaking.

In the fourth cinematic installment of the legendary Harry Potter series, another new director, Mike Newell, comes on board with a different approach to the Wizarding World. That includes kicking off the film with the immense spectacle of the Quidditch World Cup, which features a campsite and a larger-than-life colosseum. Then from there, the French Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and the Northeastern Durmstrang Institute are introduced, providing greater context to what the wizarding community is like in other parts of the world. Yet that’s still at the start of the movie, virtually every other scene is a showcase of incredible technology and design work merging harmoniously.
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The Black Lake sequence was perhaps their most daring sequence yet, as Daniel Radcliffe had to spend six months learning how to dive, and then had to spend long days shooting underwater in Europe’s largest water tank. Aside from the fact that filming this kid underwater was challenging enough, the use of underwater bluescreens also proved to be groundbreaking. Equally as impressive are the icy silver designs for the Yule Ball, all topped off by gorgeous dresses and lovely accompanying music to demonstrate the incredible work of the set and costume designers. While Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire may be considered by most to be the worst of the saga due to its disloyalty to the book, it still proves how technologically innovative the series continues to be.