REVIEW: 百日紅 [Sarusuberi: Miss Hokusai] [Miss Hokusai] [2015]

“That nutty old man is my father” Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai‘s “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” series is one of my favorite works of art with “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” being its unforgettable cornerstone. Even so, I never thought to myself, “Why hasn’t anyone made a movie about his life?” If you’ve seen one tortured artist biography you’ve seen them all and if the subject at hand doesn’t fit that angst-fueled mold, what’s the point? There needs to be a hook because seeing a painter paint within a cramped…

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360|365FF10 REVIEW: The Secret of Kells [2009]

“I’ve seen the book that turned darkness into light” I remember the morning that Oscar nominations came out and hearing which films were up for the Best Animated Feature, completely perplexed when The Secret of Kells was announced. I had been nodding my head in a gesture of agreement until that moment, having never heard the film’s title before in my life. Well, thanks to the 360|365 George Eastman House Film Festival, I was able to finally enter Tomm Moore’s Celtic world at the time of the legendary Book of…

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