Movie Reviews

‘It Was All a Dream’ Review: Compelling dream hampton Memoir Mines the Past to Make a Case for Documenting the Present

Published

2 years ago

June 22, 2024

‘It Was All a Dream’ Review: Compelling dream hampton Memoir Mines the Past to Make a Case for Documenting the Present

Early in the documentary It Was All a Dream, the veteran music journalist and filmmaker dream hampton (stylized in lowercase as an homage to the scholar bell hooks), moseys around the offices of The Source magazine, filming her colleagues. The hip hop periodical was, in its early days, a wellspring for understanding the nascent genre. “I learned to be a fan and a critic of some of the greatest artists of a generation,” hampton says in a voiceover that accompanies brief scenes of debate among writers and interviews with editors. The Detroit native moved to New York in 1990 to study film at NYU and a few months later, she joined The Source’s staff.

Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, It Was All a Dream chronicles hampton’s early years in New York. The Surviving R. Kelly (2019) executive producer culls footage from her personal archives (shot between 1993 and 1995) and sets those clips against poetic excerpts of pieces she wrote for The Source, Spin, Village Voice and Vibe between 1993 and 1999.

It Was All a Dream

The Bottom Line

Affirms the importance of archival work.

Venue: Tribeca Film Festival (Spotlight Documentary)
Director-screenwriter: dream hampton

1 hour 23 minutes

As a young hampton cruises through the streets of Brooklyn with Biggie Smalls, her present-day self recites early musings about hip hop as a genre of “kamikaze capitalists” and young Black boys “who quickly expanded their tightly wound worlds then set them afire.” Her meditations are drafts, evidence of a feminist thinker and genre custodian in the making.

Hampton wrestles with the reality of hip hop’s commercial traction and misogynistic impulses. The doc is buoyed by her unbridled enthusiasm for tackling big questions of gender, capital and craft. She interviews Biggie, Method Man and Snoop and holds court with Nikki D, Hurricane G and LeShaun. On the table for discussion: albums, aspirations and the unrequited love between men and women in the genre.

More than a time capsule of an exciting moment in hip-hop, It Was All a Dream makes a compelling case for fastidious documentation and preservation, especially in music journalism. (Hampton recently directed an episode of Netflix’s docuseries on female rappers, Ladies First.) The film is a trove of information about some of the earliest days in a genre some people thought wouldn’t survive. It shows how contemporary conversations about distribution and misogyny extend into the past, where they were also topics of fervent debate.

When hampton convenes with rappers like Nikki D, LeShaun and executives like Tracey Waples to talk about fortifying a community of women in hip hop, it adds a thrilling layer to the current landscape, which includes, for example, new-gen collaborations between Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B.

An interview with Richard Fulton, owner of the coffee and jazz house Fifth Street Dicks in Los Angeles, about who will own the distribution rights of hip hop records in the future connects to Vince Staples and other rappers’ ongoing reflections on the insatiable greed of music labels. It Was All a Dream, like so many archival works, reminds us that the past is the present is the future.

As a window into the past, It Was All a Dream contextualizes parts of hip hop and pushes against convenient amnesia. Hampton takes us around the country, from Bedford Stuyvesant to Venice Beach, to show how rappers in different locales experiment with rhyming styles and samples. She loosely organizes her doc around geography, using title cards with neighborhood names to demarcate a new section.

Hampton also digs into modes of self-expression and coastal beefs; she lets artists wax poetic about what their music will help them achieve. Hip hop, then and now, was a site of play, a political tool, a repository for hopes and dreams.

It Was All a Dream also offers rare perspectives from some of the genre’s greatest acts and enduring villains. Biggie freestyling in the studio; Lil’ Kim leaning into the window of his car in one scene; Diddy, whose recent sexual assault allegations have shaken the industry, grooving to a beat. The grainy, shaky and occasionally underlit footage gives It Was All a Dream a coarseness that makes the doc feel more intimate.

In The Source office, hampton interviews managing editor Chris Wilder, who doubles down on the importance of the publication: “Thirty years from now, if hip hop comes and goes, people will look at The Source to see what happens,” he says.

Listening to Wilder’s words and watching hampton, armed with her camera, confidently interviewing friends and observing mundane moments in the lives of these artists, inspires questions about the current music media landscape. Some of the magazines hampton wrote for still exist in theory, but many have been gutted by lack of funding, venture capital shuffling, the dramatic shift from print to digital and the ease with which charlatans can cosplay as journalists on social media.

Still, a record must be kept and someone must do the keeping. Driven by an awareness of hip hop’s profundity and a commitment to how its story should be told, hampton documented, becoming a custodian of the genre’s history. It Was All a Dream brims with the green energy of an enthusiast and affirms the power individual archives play in building a community narrative.

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Movie Reviews

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

Published

6 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Jeremy Schuetze’s ‘ANACORETA’ (2022) – Movie Review – PopHorror

PopHorror had the chance to check out Anacoreta (2022) ahead of its streaming release! Does this meta-horror flick provide interesting story telling or is it a confusing mess.

Let’s have a look…

Synopsis

A group of friends heads to a secluded woodland cabin for a weekend getaway, planning to film an experimental horror movie. As the shoot progresses, the project begins to fall apart—until a real and terrifying presence emerges from the darkness.

Anacoreta is directed by Jeremy Schuetze. It was written by Jeremy Schuetze and Matt Visser. The film stars Antonia Thomas (Bagman 2024), Jesse Stanley (Raf 2019), Jeremy Schuetze (Jennifer’s Body 2009), and Matt Visser (A Lot Like Christmas 2021)

My Thoughts

Antonia Thomas delivered an outstanding performance as the female lead in Anacoreta. It was remarkable to watch her convey such a wide range of emotions with authenticity and depth. I was continually impressed by her ability to switch seamlessly between different dialects. I absolutely loved her delivery of the dialogue of telling The Scorpion and the Frog fable.

Anacoreta employs a distinctive, meta-horror style of storytelling. The narrative follows a group of friends creating a “scripted reality” horror film, and as the plot unfolds, the boundary between their staged production and their actual lives becomes increasingly blurred. This was interesting, but at the same time frustrating as a viewer.

Check out Anacoreta on Prime Video and let us know your thoughts!

Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Pixar’s best original movie in years

Published

18 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Pixar’s best original movie in years

“So it’s like Avatar?” one character quips in Disney and Pixar’s “Hoppers,” bluntly translating the film’s high-concept premise for the sugar-fueled kids in the audience. And yes, the comparison is apt. The story follows a nature-obsessed teenage girl who manages to quite literally “hop” her consciousness into the body of a robotic beaver in order to spark an animal rebellion against a greedy mayor determined to bulldoze their forest for a freeway.

It’s a clever hook. The kind of big, elastic idea Pixar used to make look effortless. “Hoppers” does not reach the rarified air of “Up,” “Wall-E,” or “Inside Out,” but after a stretch of uneven originals like “Turning Red” and “Luca,” and outright misfires such as “Elemental” and “Elio,” this feels like a genuine course correction. The environmental messaging is clear without being preachy, the animals are irresistibly anthropomorphized, and the studio’s once-signature emotional sincerity is back in sturdy form.

Pixar can afford to gamble on originals when it has a guaranteed cash cow like this summer’s “Toy Story 5” waiting in the wings, but “Hoppers” earns its place in the catalogue. Director Daniel Chong crafts a warm, heartfelt film that occasionally strains under the weight of its own ambition, yet remains grounded by character and theme. Its meditation on conservation and animal displacement feels timely in a way that never tips into after-school-special territory.

We meet Mabel, voiced with bright conviction by Piper Curda, as a child liberating her classroom pets and returning them to the wild. Her moral compass is shaped by her grandmother, voiced by Karen Huie, who imparts wisdom about nature’s sanctity. True to both Pixar tradition and the broader Disney playbook, this beacon of guidance does not survive past the opening act. Loss, after all, is Pixar’s favorite inciting incident.

Years later, Mabel is still fighting the good fight, squaring off against the smarmy Mayor Jerry, voiced with slick menace by Jon Hamm. He plans to flatten the glade where Mabel and her grandmother once found solace. Mabel’s resistance feels noble but futile. The animals have already mysteriously vanished, the machinery is coming, and her last-ditch plan involves luring a beaver back to the abandoned forest in hopes of jumpstarting the ecosystem.

That’s when the film gleefully pivots into mad-scientist territory. At Beaverton University, Mabel discovers her professor, voiced by Kathy Najimy, has developed a device that can project human consciousness into synthetic animals. The process, dubbed “hopping,” allows Mabel to inhabit a robotic beaver and infiltrate the forest from within. It’s an inspired escalation that keeps the film buoyant even when the plotting grows predictable.

Her new posse includes King George, a lovably beaver voiced by Bobby Moynihan with distinct Bing Bong energy; a sharp-tongued bear voiced by Melissa Villaseñor; a regal bird king voiced by the late Isiah Whitlock Jr.; and a fish queen voiced by Ego Nwodim. As is often the case with Pixar, even in its lesser efforts, the world-building is meticulous. The animal hierarchy, complete with titles like “paw of the king,” is layered with jokes that play for kids while slyly winking at adults.

The plot ultimately follows a familiar template. Scrappy underdog rallies community. Corporate villain twirls metaphorical mustache. Emotional third-act sacrifice looms. At times, you can feel the machinery working a little too cleanly. Pixar, and Disney at large, has grown increasingly reliant on sequels and established IP, and “Hoppers” does not radically reinvent the wheel. In an animated landscape where films like “K-Pop: Demon Hunters,” “Across the Spider-Verse,” and “Goat” are pushing stylistic and narrative boundaries, being safe and sturdy may not always be enough.

And yet, there is something refreshing about a Pixar original that remembers how to tug at the heart without squeezing it dry. “Hoppers” is playful, peppered with cheeky needle drops, and builds to a sweet emotional catharsis that may or may not have left this critic a little misty-eyed. It feels earnest and engaged.

“Hoppers” may not be top-tier Pixar. But it is a welcome return to form, a reminder that the studio still knows how to marry big ideas with a bigger heart.

HOPPERS opens in theaters Friday, March 6th.

Movie Reviews

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

‘Hoppers’ review: Who can argue with hilarious talking animals?

Just when you think Pixar’s petting-zoo cute new movie “Hoppers” is flagrantly ripping off James Cameron, the characters come clean.

movie review

HOPPERS

Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG (action/peril, some scary images and mild language). In theaters March 6.

“You guys, this is like ‘Avatar’!,” squeals 19-year-old Mabel (Piper Curda), the studio’s rare college-age heroine.

Shoots back her nutty professor, Dr. Fairfax (Kathy Kajimy): “This is nothing like ‘Avatar!’”

Sorry, Doc, it definitely is. And that’s fine. Placing the smart sci-fi story atop an animated family film feels right for Pixar, which has long fused the technological, the fantastical and the natural into a warm signature blend. Also, come on, “Avatar” is “Dances With Wolves” via “E.T.”

What separates “Hoppers” from the pack of recent Pix flix, which have been wholesome as a church bake sale, is its comic irreverence.

Director Daniel Chong’s original movie is terribly funny, and often in an unfamiliar, warped way for the cerebral and mushy studio. For example, I’ve never witnessed so many speaking characters be killed off in a Pixar movie — and laughed heartily at their offings to boot.

What’s the parallel to Pandora? Mabel, a budding environmental activist, has stumbled on a secret laboratory where her kooky teachers can beam their minds into realistic robot animals in order to study them. They call the devices “hoppers.”

Bold and fiery Mabel — PETA, but palatable — sees an opportunity.

The mayor of Beaverton, Jerry (Jon Hamm), plans to destroy her beloved local pond that’s teeming with wildlife to build an expressway. And the only thing stopping the egomaniacal pol — a more upbeat version of President Business from “The Lego Movie” — is the water’s critters, who have all mysteriously disappeared.

So, Mabel avatars into beaver-bot, and sets off in search of the lost creatures to discover why they’ve left.

From there, the movie written by Jesse Andrews (“Luca”) toys with “Toy Story.” Here’s what mischief fuzzy mammals, birds, reptiles and insects get up to when humans aren’t snooping around. Dance aerobics, it turns out.

Per the usual, “Hoppers” goes deep inside their intricate society. The beasts have a formal political system of antagonistic “Game of Thrones”-like royal houses. The most menacing are the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep — I’d call her a chameleon, but she’s playing a bug), a staunch monarch butterfly and her conniving caterpillar kid (Dave Franco). They’re scheming for power.

Perfectly content with his station is Mabel’s new best furry friend King George (Bobby Moynihan), a gullible beaver who ascended to the throne unexpectedly. He happily enforces “pond rules,” such as, “When you gotta eat, eat.”

That means predators have free rein to nosh on prey, and everybody’s cool with it. Because of bone-dry deliveries, like exhausted office drones, the four-legged cast members are hilarious as they go about their Animal Planet activities.

No surprise — talking lizards, sharks, bears, geese and frogs are the real stars here. They far outshine Mabel, even when she dons beaver attire. Much like a 19-year-old in a job interview, she doesn’t leave much of an impression.

Yes, the teen has a heartfelt motivation: The embattled pond was her late grandma’s favorite place. Mabel promised her that she’d protect it.

But in personality she doesn’t rank as one of Pixar’s most engaging leads, perhaps because she’s past voting age. Mabel is nestled in a nebulous phase between teenage rebellion and adulthood that’s pretty blasé, even if a touch of tension comes from her hiding her Homo sapien identity from her new diminutive pals. When animated, kids make better adventurers, plain and simple.

“Hoppers” continues Pixar’s run of humble, charming originals (“Luca,” “Elio”) in between billion-dollar-grossing, idea-starved sequels (“Inside Out 2,” probably “Toy Story 5”). The Disney-owned studio’s days of irrepressible innovation and unmatched imagination are well behind it. No one’s awed by anything anymore. “Coco,” almost 10 years ago, was their last new property to wow on the scale of peak Pixar.

Look, the new movie is likable and has a brain, heart and ample laughs. That’s more than I can say for most family fare. “A Minecraft Movie” made me wanna hop right out of the theater.