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For Your Reconsideration: Man of Steel

by Kevin Ketchum

A funny thing happened this summer. A new Zack Snyder film landed, though this one had immensely more favorable pre-release buzz than any of the director’s previous efforts. The trailers all landed with considerably positive feedback, and everything about the film seemed just right. The first wave of early reviews hit, and nearly all of them were raves. Then, suddenly, the critical tide shifted, and outright pans started hitting with equal fervent measure. It was as if people had seen two completely different films, down to scenes being interpreted in vastly different ways, and the divide over the film became more and more like a great chasm with each passing moment. You’d be forgiven for thinking this was a debate over the Affordable Care Act, but no. That film was Man of Steel.

For Your Reconsideration: Wolf Children

by Christopher Runyon

With the retirement of Japanese legend Hayao Miyazaki, film and anime fans have been wondering: could there possibly be a successor to Miyazaki’s legacy of beautiful, heartfelt, gorgeously drawn animated films? The answer is no, obviously, because Miyazaki is, indeed, a legend, and all legends are one of a kind. However, I’d say that the closest we’ve gotten to a true successor to Miyazaki (excluding his numerous collaborators at Studio Ghibli) is Mamoru Hosada.

Hosada is most well-known in the anime landscape for being one of the primary creative forces behind the television show Digimon, but he has now moved on to standalone feature work. Some of you may have seen his first two features—the teen-drama/time-travel film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and the techno-apocalyptic dysfunctional family dramedy Summer Wars—but the director tops himself with his third and latest film Wolf Children, a stunningly beautiful, unabashedly sentimental, and surprisingly complex story that works as both a coming-of-age film and a study of the trials of being a single mother.