9 is about a ragdoll defending Earth from a machine, or The Terminator meets LOTR. –August 31, 2024
Tag: Animation
Chicken Run
Chicken Run is better than I remember because I now understand its satire of beautiful men (as in vocal performer Mel Gibson) and WWII POW movies and TV shows. –May 31, 2024
Mulan
Animated Mulan is better than live-action Mulan because, “I’ll make a man out of you.” –April 30, 2024
The Legend of the Titanic
Total POS until the giant octopus saves Titanic. I’m not even kidding. –April 30, 2024
Over the Hedge
Take 1: Suburbia kills, especially woodland herbivores, or so goes the plot of Over the Hedge. Enjoy it for in-jokes about American consumerism, and think about whether it has a happy ending. Take 2: Over the Hedge ends with 100% dead animals before phase two construction. –October 31, 2024
Toy Story
CGI has advanced a lot since 1995, but Toy Story remains alive with charm and a Classical Style plot that employs voice actors I’d like as neighbors. –March 31, 2023
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Ruder and lewder than I remember, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a great satire of censorship hypocrisy and American exceptionalism. –March 31, 2024
Miss Hokusai
Miss Hokusai is a lovely technical achievement that doesn’t cohere as entertainment. –March 31, 2024
Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch puts brown girls at Disney’s core with Stitch as an echo of Gollum. –February 29, 2024
Surf’s Up
Take 1: It shouldn’t be as enjoyable as it is, but Surf’s Up has always pleased me from its hero worship theme, through its reality TV execution, to its surfer lingo. My kids have a Big Z plastic toy somewhere in the house, too. Take 2: Re-watching Surf’s Up made me nostalgic for its Happy Meal toys. –February 29,… Continue reading Surf’s Up
Waltz with Bashir
Waltz with Bashir animates one man’s autobiography around the horror of service in the Israeli Defense Force. Powerful stuff for all it suggests and refers to and considers. –February 29, 2024
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
I didn’t like Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit when I first saw it. On second viewing, I enjoyed the voices of Peter Sallis, Ralph Fiennes, and Helena Bonham Carter. –December 31, 2023
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is stunning and fast-moving and fun until you realize its only purpose is delivering a franchise cliffhanger that stinks of poor organization. –November 30, 2023
A Silent Voice
There is no reason to become emotionally invested in animated movies. They’re clearly artificial. But you can invest in them, and you might want to, and I did with A Silent Voice. –November 30, 2023
Kung Fu Panda
Though there is a movie and TV franchise to sample, the original Kung Fu Panda remains enjoyable every time I see it. –October 31, 2023
Perspolis
Take 1: I re-watch it every few years, and Persepolis is always a treat. Why? It’s an animated documentary that treats a girl’s transition into womanhood as something worth celebrating, warts, war, cubist people, and all. Take 2: Again, Persepolis pleases me, this time for the benefit of my second daughter. Wow. –July 31, 2023
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is not great. When the stop-motion hero submits to fascism in Italy during World War II, though, it works exceedingly well. –May 31, 2023
The Iron Giant
As a fable about friendship, The Iron Giant is sentimental entertainment. As a story of militarism in the face of the “Other”, it’s a thoughtful consideration of tolerance. –May 31, 2023
Mad God
Phil Tippet worked for 30-years on his stop motion passion project Mad God, which consists of GI Joe dolls hiding from defecating cave trolls. Terribly memorable without making sense. –February 28, 2023
Strange World
Strange World is a DEI animated fantasy that feels like the lesser parts of Moana and Fantastic Voyage. –February 28, 2023
5 Centimeters per Second
Take 1: 5 Centimeters per Second is visually stunning, but it doesn’t cohere as a memorable story. Take 2: 5 Centimeters per Second is an experiment tying together three stories with photorealistic animation. You’d be forgiven for wonder why. –February 29, 2024
Shrek 2
A casting call for Shrek 2: “Green monsters needed to supervise donkey-dragon romance and hoplophilic cat.” –November 30, 2022
The Prince of Egypt
In The Prince of Egypt, ancient Hebrews avoid extermination because Val Kilmer is Moses and there’s a song featuring Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. –November 30, 2022
The Bad Guys
The Bad Guys is bad, and I’m frustrated because Marc Maron, a terrific comedian and podcaster, lent this flop his overdubbed voice as the only reason I agreed to see it. –October 31, 2022
Sing 2
Sing 2 is so bad that it doesn’t even wink at us to acknowledge that we know it knows we know it’s a jukebox musical about animals doing community theater. –September 30, 2022
Tokyo Godfathers
Satoshi Kon was a weirdo (RIP). Need proof? See Tokyo Godfathers, a Christmas story about three homeless people saving a newborn girl who is thrown out with the trash. Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum! –September 30, 2022
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Like Theodore Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq., The Girl Who Leapt Through Time dramatizes consistency paradoxes when a girl time travels and falls in love. –July 31, 2022
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya is a charmer about how a bamboo shoot begets a girl because she’s the daughter the moon, which makes more sense than you think. –May 31, 2022
Wolfwalkers
Take 1: Wolfwalkers is the story of a girl who saves her daddy and a pack of wolves and the people-wolves that lord over them. But it’s also the story of religious fidelity, colonization, chosen families, and gynophilic imagery. Take 2: Wolfwalkers is a triumph of 2-D animation meeting the emotional needs of tween children. –May 31,… Continue reading Wolfwalkers
Your Name.
Any animated movie built around photographic techniques and cinematic editing choices grabs my attention. Your Name. adds to the mix a story of body switching between teens trying to save people from the certain doom of a falling comet. –May 31, 2022
Fantastic Planet
Fantastic Planet is about blue giants that keep people as pets because they can. Then the people revolt, and the blue giants must figure out whether to squash them, poison them, or accommodate sentience in all its forms. It’s animated, blunt, and quite enjoyable. –March 31, 2022
Fritz the Cat
Fritz the Cat is an animated, anthropomorphized cat. He’s also sexually voracious, racist, and profane, which makes him a great lead in a bonkers feature from Ralph Bakshi, whose work, here, is simultaneously irritating and stunning. –March 31, 2022
Encanto
Never stop never talking about Bruno, or: Encanto, an instantly forgettable Disney animated feature that gets one thing right: brown folks come in all shades with specific individual gifts and limitations. –January 31, 2022
The Castle of Cagliostro
Take 1: I’m a completist, so The Castle of Cagliostro was my last unseen Miyazaki, and I put it off for years, assuming the master’s first feature would be his worst. Happily, it isn’t. You should see it. Take 2: Eurocentric settings meet oddly eclectic design in The Castle of Cagliostro, the first of Hayao Miyazaki’s feature films… Continue reading The Castle of Cagliostro
The LEGO Movie
From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard refers to Gnosticism, Elliot, birth marks, and all things awesome, and Garrett plays on the floor with a children’s toy.” –October 31, 2021
Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is nearly perfect, although I didn’t think so when I first saw it. Then you see it again, and again, and again, and its beauty falls into place as so many perfectly placed narrative devices that push a group of fish into becoming better people. –October 31, 2021
The Rescuers
Not as good as you might remember. –September 30, 2021
When Marnie Was There
A ghost in a Japanese fishing village helps a schoolgirl better understand her mom. When Marnie Was There isn’t life altering, but it is emotionally realistic, so long as the realism you enjoy accepts paranormal creatures that heal broken families. –September 30, 2021
The Secret of Kells
Take 1: Among literati, words turn language into magic. In The Secret of Kells a boy transcribes a book that holds good and evil in balance, and the magic of his world comes from hand drawn animation with scene transitions like stained-glass fragments. Take 2: The Secret of Kells is a parable of literacy in a time of… Continue reading The Secret of Kells
Cars 2
Cars 2 is way better than I was led to believe, but I do wonder why Pixar focused on Mater with Michael Caine in the cast. –July 31, 2021
Monsters, Inc.
“You filled your quota on the first kid of the day.” Take 1: Again, Monsters, Inc. genuinely enchants me with its story of male work/life partners that yearn to adopt a baby they can’t make on their own. Take 2: All hail Pixar, through which our entertainment-overlords produce the “feels” somewhere in Emeryville, California. Now ubiquitous with… Continue reading Monsters, Inc.
Song of the Sea
Song of the Sea is about a boy with a little sister who is a supernatural creature. They live in Ireland where magic is every day, and the sentiment affirms love and wonder. –June 30, 2021
Luca
Pixar’s Luca is pleasing and forgettable, save for being a family friendly Call Me by Your Name. –June 30, 2021
Coraline
Stop motion animation can’t cover the joins between shots, and that’s how Coraline builds an abandonment nightmare every child remembers from wondering whether a loving parent will remember to feed them. –May 31, 2021
Porco Rosso
A human pilot survives World War I and becomes a literal pig-man bounty hunter, aka Porco Rosso. Eventually, he redeems his honor, and nothing you’ve just read will prepare you for how good it is. –May 31, 2021
Raya and the Last Dragon
Take 1: Progressively Christian, Raya and the Last Dragon gave me the feels when its young brown-skinned woman/prophet survives her good father’s sacrifice, saves a female dragon, competes with a non-binary friend, and consolidates a troubled kingdom by helping everyone reach heaven. Take 2: Raya and the Last Dragon is better the second time through because the dragon’s… Continue reading Raya and the Last Dragon
The Croods: A New Age
Sometimes you snort at entertainment because you think you’re superior. Other times you snort because you’re pleased. The Croods: A New Age is the second kind of snort where animated people make fun of HOAs, coastal elites, and old people with equal verve. –March 31, 2021
The Adventures of Tintin
The Adventures of Tintin features a single-take chase through a busy village that takes up minutes of screen time. It’s perfect Spielberg. –January 31, 2021
The Wind Rises
My favorite Miyazaki is The Wind Rises. –December 31, 2020
Klaus
I saw Klaus and liked it fine. Now I can’t remember why. –December 31, 2020
Soul
A Pixar mash-up: Inside Out + Coco = Soul, which is very good by normal standards, although I wish it had been in theaters rather than on Disney+. –December 31, 2020
Howl’s Moving Castle
Another brilliantly animated nonsense world of steampunk crazy, Howl’s Moving Castle is about a girl with an RV that must stop a civil war. Seriously. –November 30, 2020
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
Miyazaki peaked early. For proof, see Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, or the beta Princess Mononoke. –November 30, 2020
Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky is about a magic girl and ordinary boy that bring balance to the world with lots of flying to take on pirates and overcome a big-bosomed villainess. –November 30, 2020
The LEGO Movie
Take 1: The LEGO Movie hates women. Take 2: From “The Hi-Lo Bro Show” podcast: “This is the one where Richard pines for a Sears catalog and Garrett discovers phallic imagery.” –October 31, 2020
Spirited Away
I’ve seen it three times and I still don’t understand why so many people think Spirited Away is anything more than beautiful nonsense. –October 31, 2020
Kiki’s Delivery Service
FedEx with a broom: Kiki’s Delivery Service. –October 31, 2020
My Life as a Zucchini
Take 1: My Life as a Zucchini follows an animated orphan who suffers from guilt after accidentally killing his mother. And it’s wonderful. Take 2: My Life as a Zucchini is about animated, clay figurine orphans. Most character noses resemble male genitalia. –April 30, 2024
Onward
Take 1: COVID-19 ruined Onward as a Pixar money-maker. Too bad. It’s really good, considering the trailers. Take 2: It’s the Pixar feature where an older brother is his younger brother’s father. Onward: good the second time, too. –May 31, 2020
Ghost in the Shell
Take 1: Ghost in the Shell, the anime, imagines our cyborg future through hypnotic imagery to celebrate a sentient computer virus. Not for all tastes. Yet it shows the coming overlap between machine and human being in provocative detail. Take 2: Machinery combined with a curvy woman results in the high-concept Ghost in the Shell. It’s eerie… Continue reading Ghost in the Shell
The Addams Family
Is this funny to you? Thing Addams, a disembodied hand, gets caught looking at naked, disembodied feet. If so, continue on through the animated The Addams Family. –March 31, 2020
Rock & Rule
Rock & Rule: or how bad it is when you add (The Secret of Nimh + Heavy Metal + Debbie Harry) and divide by (Ralph Bakshi – Harvey Pekar). –February 29, 2020
Kung Fu Panda 2
You can watch it over and over, and Kung Fu Panda 2 remains a great movie. –February 29, 2020
The Lion King
Photorealistic CGI animals look cool, but they can’t act. Even J. Earl J. reprising his role as The Lion King is a stupid waste of time. –January 31, 2020
Frozen II
Take 1: Frozen II = more of same. The animation is great, and several songs are haunting. But I felt like I was inside an advertisement for things I should buy rather than a moving story. Take 2: Frozen II is a jukebox musical with original songs that copy pop styles from the last 40 years. And… Continue reading Frozen II
Wonder Park
The story of a daughter mourning her sick mother made me cry. Then Wonder Park kept going, and I had to watch it through to the end because I’d already paid the rental fee. –November 30, 2019
Legend of the Guardian: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
Turn 300’s naked Spartans into warring owls, and you’ve spent too much time worrying about nonsense. But Legend of the Guardian: The Owls of Ga’Hoole passes time better than any live-action Disney remake. –November 30, 2019
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
“I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit landed in the summer of 1988 and re-focused American pop culture on live actors performing alongside animated characters. Ancillary markets did double-time, pushing toys and apparel off shelves and racks, and the “how’d they do that?” vibe helped shift entertainment reportage towards technical… Continue reading Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Grave of the Fireflies
“All this child needs is some food.” It’s not often that children star in movies. When they do, they often succeed; they almost never die. In Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (1988) these rules are upended in the adaptation of a short story called “Grave of the Fireflies,” written by Akiyuki Nosaka and published in 1967.… Continue reading Grave of the Fireflies
The Secret Life of Pets 2
The Secret Life of Pets 2 offers Harrison Ford doing VO work as an old animated guard dog. So, it’s a documentary? –September 30, 2019
Missing Link
I saw Missing Link and I liked it. I think it’s about the problem of manufacturing reliable handcuffs. –September 30, 2019
The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part
The self-consciousness of animated LEGO characters is disarming. I don’t get it, but The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Partsucceeds because it piles on self-conscious intertextuality to such a degree that any critic is pummeled into submission and (egad) some joy. –July 31, 2019
Toy Story 4
It’s really unbelievable that Buzz and Woody, and the gang, have more story within them. But they do, courtesy of screenwriters Stephany Folsom and Andrew Stanton. See Toy Story 4. –July 31, 2019
Ice Age: Collision Course
Scrat is a working man’s hero. In space. With no nuts. See Ice Age: Collision Course, if you’re series completist. Otherwise: nap. –June 30, 2019
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a motion capture experiment from 2001 featuring Ming Na and Alex Baldwin. When Na was on ER and Baldwin was narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. It isn’t good. –June 30, 2019
Coco
Finally got around to Coco. No matter how hard I tried to resist, Pixar made me cry. –June 30, 2019
Tarzan
Phil Collins did the soundtrack to Disney’s Tarzan, which has really kinetic animation, and Phil won an Oscar for “You’ll Be in My Heart.” Meaning: “Sussudio” gets the girl when he finally visits Uganda. –May 31, 2019
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Spider-Verse looks really terrific. I never tire of Jake Johnson’s slacker-dude and I like Black-centric anything. But shouldn’t the Oscar winner for Animated Feature be better than this? –May 31, 2019
Monsters University
Unlike my college experience, the characters in Monsters University learn a practical skill. –March 31, 2019
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is terrifically beautiful and conclusive. But the dragon preserve beneath the ocean would collapse the world of humans and cause massive global extinction. –March 31, 2019
How to Train Your Dragon 2
In How to Train Your Dragon 2 the boy, Hiccup, advances his symbiotic relationship with a dragon, Toothless, because he’s missing a foot and the dragon’s missing a tail fin. They fight the voice of Djimon Hounsou because we don’t have enough Black villains in movies. –March 31, 2019
Ralph Breaks the Internet
When your child sees Ralph Breaks the Internet and feels frightened of Ralph’s computer virus-multiplied self in the finale, you wonder if Disney has struck a new line of tragic possibility or merely found the best way to copy/paste animation code and fill up a screen. –January 31, 2019
James and the Giant Peach
“When I had a problem, my mom and dad would tell me to look at it another way.” When Roald Dahl published James and the Giant Peach in 1961, he was a Welshman in his middle 40s, married to the American actress Patricia Neal, and the father of three (they would eventually have five children together). He… Continue reading James and the Giant Peach
The Breadwinner
“We are a land whose people are its greatest treasure.“ Nora Twomey’s 2017 animated feature The Breadwinner, based on Deborah Ellis’s 2000 novel, is the story of 12-year old Parvana, an Afghani girl living with her family in Taliban-controlled Kabul. When her father is arrested and imprisoned, Parvana’s family must figure out a way to survive.… Continue reading The Breadwinner
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation
“The Chanukah Song” is Adam Sandler’s best work. Then there’s the Hotel Transylvania series, including #3: Summer Vacation. Everything else is might keep me from more valuable sleep. –August 30, 2018
Despicable Me 3
Pierre Coffin likes making funny voices with his friend Kyle Balda, and they directed Despicable Me 3. Meaning: I confirm the movie exists. It entertains many kids, perhaps also the children of the movie’s star Steve Carell. But I don’t like it. –July 31, 2018
Isle of the Dogs
Isle of the Dogs is another Wes Anderson object of eccentricity, intertextual reference, and in-group dialogue among frequent collaborators that uses stop-motion animation to become both fascinating (attractive and repulsive) and hat tipping (“I finally got that joke!”). –July 31, 2018
Incredibles 2
Superheroes are metaphors, and you decide their secondary meaning. Incredibles 2 adds a dollop of stay-at-home-dad-schtick to a wallop of several empowered women and an IT expert-turned-villain to prove that good intentions do not guarantee good outcomes. –June 30, 2018
Tower
Take 1: One day worth an essay. Take 2: Non-fiction animation is rare, and Tower performs its magic by enlivening testimony with re-enactments to heal from a then-50-years old school shooting. –May 31, 2024
Kubo and the Two Strings
The limits of parental love define Kubo and the Two Strings, in which a grieving orphan accepts the challenge of overcoming his evil grandfather through manipulating paper with song. Wait all the way through “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” –May 31, 2018
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
“Whistle While You Work!” Ba-da-dum-dee-dum-dee-doo. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is as dated and old fashioned as you might imagine, but it’s also the cornerstone of the house that Walt built. –April 30, 2018
Shrek
Shrek was once eye-opening as an animation pioneer. Then it was repeated in sequels and TV specials. Now it’s one booger joke away from being a kindergarten primer. –April 30, 2018
Ferdinand
The Story of Ferdinand is a great children’s story about a bull that loves flowers and doesn’t enjoy bull fights. It’s also a John Cena-voiced animation vehicle that’s better than you think it will be, but equally unmemorable and barely anything like Munro Leaf’s source material. –April 30, 2018
Moana
Moana wants more from her provincial life. “And no one leaves” she sings. Her father answer: “That’s right. We stay / We’re safe and we’re well provided.” In context, you’ll laugh at the difference between parent and child in this finely wrought, animated brilliance. –February 28, 2018
Monsters vs. Aliens
Monsters vs. Aliens is a counterfactual about how the US government is both competent enough, and able, to hide supernatural creatures in an underground bunker. For decades. Without anyone catching on. Not even the folks near Area 51. –January 31, 2018
The Little Prince
A helicopter mom meets an elderly neighbor, and her overschedule daughter learns to reconcile a great story with how to make a good life for herself. It’s The Little Prince, but not the book you may have read or the movie with music by Lerner and Loewe. –January 31, 2018
