film
I love #animation and I love #writing. I watch the former, but I built a career on the latter, then it died when the #pandemic swallowed the world. I have #LongCovid and it’s major features are brain fog, tinnitus, and exhaustion. I just can’t focus, so I think I have some idea about what Hayao Miyazaki has been going through. How do we live? Good question. Watch this. www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch As reported on #Animation World Network, #Netflix has dropped a teaser for Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight, the third CG #film from Alain Chabat and the first to be localized for English audiences. I read Goscinny & Uderzo books as a child in the 70’s and have loved them ever since. Each successive film has looked better and better, and it’s clear they’re leaning more into the comic roots of the tales of one village of Gauls against the Roman Empire. #movies
Um… WOW!? Looney Tunes haven’t gotten a lot of love in… decades? Just take in the teaser for Ketchup Entertainment’s new #animation outing, The Day the Earth Blew Up starring Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. The teaser is utterly hilarious, and it’s traditional 2D animation and hits theaters February 28th, 2025. #cartoons #movies www.youtube.com/watch
STEVEM’s profile of Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg art film, one in a series of videos about the legendary director of beloved #anime #movies like Patlabor and Patlabor 2, Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2, and The Sky Crawlers, is a deep dive into a film that almost wasn’t made. It’s an extraordinary experience and a must see for any #animation lover. www.youtube.com/watch
Oh my… I’m not sure nightmare fuel human teeth Sonic the Hedgehog will ever go away, and it seems that Paramount is comfortable with that. As ugly holiday sweaters go, this is decidedly atrocious and will give your children under 10 PTSD. #sonicthehedgehog #movies #videogames www.polygon.com/movies/49…
www.polygon.com/animation… #animation #movies I’ve recently watched Away for the first time and was blown away. I nearly passed out when I found out it was made by one person. Now director Gints Zilbalodis' new film Flow is in theaters now and people appear to be loving it. If you haven’t seen Away yet, you can watch it now for free on Tubi, with ads of course. But you should buy the Blu-Ray or rent it, as it’s better without interruptions.
I’ve watched the vast majority of the fifty nine films on this list of the best anime films of all time according to /Film. How about you? I won’t bother critically analyzing the list. It seems accurate enough. #animation #anime #movies www.slashfilm.com/1202644/t…
When I first saw the headline, I was confused about what #film they could be teasing (click-baiting?), but of course it’s 2002’s Equilibrium. I have this in my DVD library and have watched it at least a dozen times. It’s like a mashup of concepts from Fahrenheit 451, 1984, and Brave New World blended with a unique take on kung fu with guns. It’s well worth a watch, if you haven’t seen it already. #scifi #movies #gunkata www.slashfilm.com/1718512/c…
I’ve been a #Trekkie since I was a kid growing up in the 70’s and I’ve watched everything in the #StarTrek universe of media. I wasn’t so hot on #Picard, but I definitely did NOT like #Discovery, and I have a feeling I won’t like #Section31, either. Some of the trailer looks great, but a lot doesn’t. I guess we’ll just have to see when it drops on Paramount+ January 24th. Yes, direct-to-streaming. Feh. #scifi #movies www.youtube.com/watch
Well, well, well. The first “Special Teaser #Trailer” for Lupin the IIIrd: The Movie penned by mangaka Monkey Punch dropped a couple days ago and it’s stunning. And, if my eyes do not deceive me, all hand-drawn traditional #animation and directed by Takeshi Koike (REDLINE, great film). A fine, fine return to its original form that I look forward to taking in next year. #film #movies #LupinThe3rd #anime #2025 youtu.be/KopjWLIz5…
How J.J. Abrams broke Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation 30th Anniversary Print by Dusty Abell, Copyright © 2017, Roddenberry Entertainment Inc. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved. Dusty Abell is a comic artist who has pencilled countless comic books, is an illustrator, and has been involved in the animation industry as a character designer since 2000. He has worked on productions such as Batman: Return of the Caped Crusader, Batman vs. Two-Face, Young Justice, Mike Tyson Mysteries, King of the Hill, The Official Handbook of the Invincible Universe for Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, and many, many others.
The first Star Trek television show, known colloquially as The Original Series, ran from 1966 to 1969. The series, produced by Paramount Television and both commissioned by and broadcast on NBC, had its moments with episodes that broke critical new ground, like the first inter-racial kisses in Season 1’s introduction to Khan Noonien-Singh, “Space Seed,” and the more frequently cited kiss between Kirk and Uhura in Season 3 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.”
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania | Film Review
Despite the growing recognition in the West that animation is not a medium made expressly for children, there is an expansive industry that revolves around productions that aim specifically for that audience. Ahem… Disney? Heard of ‘em? There are a number of outfits that play in that space these days. Warner, Illumination, Pixar, DreamWorks, Universal, and Sony Pictures Animation, in no particular order, are a smattering. Each studio has their own “voice” but Sony’s Hotel Transylvania franchise is a series of films that speaks in its own voice, and that voice is Genndy Tartakovsky.
And yet, Tartakovsky’s participation in the fourth entry in the tetralogy is limited to writing the story, co-penning the script, and acting as an executive producer. Instead, the helm was handed off to co-directors Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kluska, who are both first timers in the director’s chair (that’s a big chair.) Tartakovsky wasn’t the only one to decline participation in this latest, and reportedly final, installment, either. Most notably, Adam Sandler was replaced by Brian Hull as the voice of Count Dracula and Kevin James’ Frankenstein was replaced by Brad Abrell. Trust me when I say that you won’t miss them. The replacements are almost exact matches, indicating that star power just isn’t necessary to support feature-length animation. All it does it foster bloated production costs.
Sony describes Hotel Transylvania: Transformania as follows:
When Van Helsing’s mysterious invention, the “Monsterfication Ray”, goes haywire, Drac and his monster pals are all transformed into humans, and Johnny becomes a monster. In their new mismatched bodies, Drac, stripped of his powers, and an exuberant Johnny, loving life as a monster, must team up and race across the globe to find a cure before it’s too late, and before they drive each other crazy. With help from Mavis and the hilariously human Drac Pack, the heat is on to find a way to switch themselves back before their transformations become permanent. [SOURCE: IMDB.com]
At its core, Hotel Transylvaniais both an homage to classic luminaries of the Golden Age of animated shorts like Wily Coyote, Tom & Jerry, Popeye the Sailorman, and even more contemporary adherents to classic animated hijinks like Roger Rabbit and Ed, Edd, & Eddy (a meta turducken, if you will) and entirely its own thing, something like Rush is to rock music or Ben Folds Five is to alternative.
Nuts & Bolts
As the fourth entry, HT4 is a solid evolution of the defined art style, but it doesn’t stray from the franchises established parameters. This is no Spider-Verse and yet the color palette is rich and bright, lighting and luminance effects are excellent, and the correct application of bokeh and the lens effects bring believable depth to most scenes. It’s clear, that Sony has been working hard to refine their process. That said, some of the textures don’t look great (the rock slide in the opening musical number looks like crap) which is a big oversight on such a high-visibility production.
Character designs, on the other hand, are peak franchise, hewing closely to the immutable nature of classic cartoon character design that said characters are iconic and must remain recognizable. They only change in service of a gag and always return to their pristine base form when the gag is complete. This is the same basic rule that defines all character designs from all cartoon where these icons always wear the same clothes, et al. Imagine Fred Flintstone wearing actual pants or Jessica Rabbit wearing something other than her signature red, sequined dress… oh. Well, not that, but you get the idea. Thanks, Disney Whitewashing Division…
The story telling is solid, if a bit on the basic side, something I’d expect of Illumination’s work. It’s not bad, but it’s also not sophisticated. The comedy revolves almost entirely around the physical gags which, in turn, defines the entire film. In a film that is more a buddy adventure flick, ala the far superior Emperor’s New Groove, then another entry in the HT canon it works to a degree, but not entirely. There’s little to no meta humor that pleases both adults and kids alike, depending on your depth of knowledge. It comes down to the gag, and that gag is always a physical comedy bit. The approach takes away from the core conceit; two people coming to terms with each other by walking in each others shoes.
Unexpected hair loss syndrome…If anything jumps out at me it’s that the film feels claustrophobic. We start in Drac’s house, then the hotel, the plane, the provincial town, the bus, the jungle, and the cave, then back to the hotel. While the story is about Johnny and Drac and their journey towards acceptance of their differences, and spending time in each others shoes, it pulls back from the more expansive world-building as exemplified in the Tartakovsky-helmed entries. Since each scene needs to serve the setup for the next visual gag, any potential avenues for additional, foundational scope and scale is ditched in favor of setting up for the next gag.
And that’s where it lies; at the intersection of storytelling and spectacle, with the visuals winning over the written by a long shot. It’s not a terrible movie, to be sure, but you won’t derive much but the most deconstructed joy, the kind that makes a little kid roll around in the dirt with the giggles but generally doesn’t survive the transition to higher modes of cognition that come with age.
It should be a hit for years to come as a go-to for quiet toddler mommy hours worldwide.
Greenland (2020) | Film Review
Good GOD, what a pig. Sure, Gerard Butler was a staple in mid-budget action flicks, but this dumpster fire isn’t one of his better ones, and it’s not going to inject any enthusiasm into prospects for his ongoing career.
BUDGET: $35 million BOX OFFICE: $47.5 million (worldwide)
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh and written by Chris Sparling, this schlocky disaster flick wannabe already instills a sense of dread before you cue it up after seeing that the movie poster proudly proclaims the movie is from “the” producer of the John Wick franchise, The Town, and Clash of The Titans (that monster hit… get it.)
When was the last time you were excited to see the latest film from your favorite producer?
Look, I’ve tried to write a simple summary of the plot, but it doesn’t make any sense. Gerard Butler’s insipid delivery as structural engineer John Garrity fares as well as expected when joined by the phoned in crap from Morena Baccarin (wife Allison) and Scott Glenn (Allison’s father Dale) and the obligatory kid, played by Roger Dale Floyd. There’s nobody else of note in the film. I’m rather surprised that these three agreed to sign on, but such is the lack of quality in Hollywood these days.
The basic rundown is as follows: John and Allison are in a bad way, but it’s not made clear why. We also learn that a comet is going to just barely miss Earth, then some of it’s going to hit, then all of it’s going to hit. That’s when John gets a call from the government that tells him he’s been selected to survive if he can get his family to a nearby military base before the end of the day. A lot of stupid shenanigans ensue, they get separated, and they get back together, and they survive. The end.
Big whoop.
Simply put, it’s a waste of time. The pacing is acceptable, but there are a lot of story elements that just feel slapped on, like generic tropes strung together to approximate an actual story. There’s zero recognizable character development, especially for Gerard Butler’s role. He’s not developed as a real, feeling, engaging, desperate human. His life circumstances bring no stakes. He’s not redeemed in the end. He doesn’t learn any harsh lessons. He’s just an unadorned avatar. The same applies to Baccarin and Glenn’s characters.
Multiple planes in the sky are clearly copy-pasted. The fires in the neighborhoods are way too big. The compositing is sloppy. Shots throughout are amateurish. All of it lacks any real energy, something I’m pretty sure is necessary for a disaster film. Hell, I’d bet real money that the Greenland shots are stock.
The Takeaway: Don’t bother.
How Pixar killed traditional animation
It's hard not to think of Pixar and, by extension Apple, as amazing American institutions built by the astonishing, guiding hand of the late Steve Jobs. Pixar, after all, has churned out a steady stream of box office smashes, with the occasional stumble. Yet, at the same time, Pixar has become a cancer that has infected the Western World's lauded history of traditional, hand-drawn animation like an invasive species. We are paying a very steep price for Pixar's success today, and for the foreseeable future.
There is no question that Steve Jobs was a visionary and reshaped our expectations of computers and technology. He and friend Wozniak almost single-handedly created the personal computer market in the mid-70's. However, by 1985 he was ousted from his own company because he didn't fit the standard corporate mold. Steve didn't rest, however. He created NeXT Computers and later, Pixar. Pixar had a megahit with Toy Story in 1995 and Jobs sold NeXT to Apple in 1997. In that same year, Steve Jobs returned to Apple as Interim CEO.
While Jobs was reshaping what we understand as personal technology, Pixar was hard at work creating a new kind of animation using 3D rendering technology it had invented. That, however, is where the two diverge. As Apple created an environment where other manufacturers would start to compete with Apple, Pixar was starting to carve out a niche that would eventually become the entire market, forcing all comers to migrate to 3D or fall behind.
It's hard to ignore a studio whose every release rakes in hundreds of millions worldwide, time after time, almost without fail. Even the films considered relative failures by critics made tons of money for Pixar and distributor, Disney. Spielberg, Katz, and Geffen's DreamWorks SKG was the first real studio practically formed to take Pixar head-on, and eventually it zeroed in on a number of critical hits, namely the popular Shrek franchise. Others would start to make their marks, as well, like Sony Animation, Blue Sky, and Universal. Even Disney started making 3D features in-house.
1995 saw the theatrical release of six traditionally animated films and Toy Story, the first feature length 3D animated film. Toy Story went head-to-head with Disney's Pocahontas and A Goofy Movie and Amblin's Balto. By 2012 Pixar pitted the Celtic-themed Brave against seven CG-based and three stop motion films.*
2011's Winnie The Pooh from Disney, was the last significant traditionally animated feature to be released in the US.
2015 saw the release of Nickelodeon's The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water which featured traditional, CG, and live-action sequences, so can't be counted as a traditional film. Feel free to poke around the lists yourself, though it's quite depressing. In fact, Japan is the only major media producer that predominantly uses traditional animation, though it is commonly blended with cost-saving CG backgrounds and other non-character elements. Most Japanese feature-film releases are also traditionally animated, and Japan's most applauded animation director, Hayao Miyazaki, only rarely applies the use of CG animation, and never to anything important.
So, the result has been the almost complete dissolution of Western traditional animation studios. Period. It's not really a matter of the efficiency of output, after all, Japan produces a literal fuckton of animation over four seasons each and every year. It seems like it's come down to mere one-upmanship, and that sucks for animators or anyone who wants to go into animation.
Traditional animation is an art form. It is based purely in art as a creative, visual outlet that springs from human hands and is viewed by human eyes. While 3D animation can, and often is, beautiful, it is far less organic in variance, creative and/or cultural diversity, and frequently devoid of emotional impact. That last bit is critical. Sure, a story can be strong, and when edited together well, with good voice acting, and a compelling soundtrack, a CG film can be emotionally engaging. They simply lack the additional tonal quality of analog.
Like vinyl records.
* NOTE: All films noted or referenced were released primarily in the US market.
Damon's The Great Wall isn't so bad
You know, if more Americans watched Chinese movies, they might understand films like The Great Wall better. I'm more of a Japanophile myself, but I watch a good number of Chinese epics. Netflix is loaded with them, and some of them are quite good.
The thing you need to understand about Chinese culture is that the ideal of working for the benefit of the whole has been around for a lot longer than Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution (communism, if you didn't learn about Mao in school). The other thing you need to understand is the Chinese love for tales of mythology. Chinese culture has been around for a very, very long time, so they've got a lot of them.
Now, before we get to the idea of whitewashing, I'll say up front, I disagree. Matt Damon plays a white dude who tries to get to China to trade for gunpowder. Despite being a highly skilled mercenary who is mad down with the bow and arrow skills, he loses all but one of his cohort, only to be taken into custody by the Chinese Army at the eponymous wall.
Without revealing any spoilers, I'll say that Damon's stonehearted mercenary is ultimately swayed by the amazing qualities of the Chinese people to connect and fight a shared enemy. He learns that there is much more to life than just fighting for food and money. I'm not suggesting that China has been this oasis from pain and fear and life as we now it all this time, nor that communism is a fix for our ails, but this is what drives a primary element of Chinese culture if you're going to watch these films.
On that note, if you want to see some subtly subversive Chinese film making, check out Chronicles of The Ghostly Tribe. On its surface, it looks like a love letter to the Cultural Revolution, but just check out the overtly hyper-positive attitudes and glassy-eyed recitation that makes it more clownish than oppressive. It's not a bad film, either.
The only thing I want to say now is that you should give this film a chance. It's an epic fantasy that might even be a little too short to tell the entire tale, but it works. You can even skip the beginning bit right up until they get to the Great Wall. That's where I would have started the film with a short, explanatory preamble.