Free Birds Review
Not funny, ugly to look at, filled with awful product placement, boring voice work, and mildly insulting historical parallels, Free Birds is a failure through and through.
animation
Interview: Shayne Ehman & Seth Scriver
We talk to visual artists and directors of the offbeat animated TIFF selection Asphalt Watches Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver about burgers, road tripping, crazy people who think they are Santa, the things they do for money, animation, staying true to the feeling of the trip, believing in the good in people, foul mouthed families, and not wanting to necessarily be the spokesmen for burgers.
TIFF 2013: Asphalt Watches Review
Asphalt Watches Vanguard Directors: Shayne Ehman, Seth Scriver An animated head trip full of laugh out loud offbeat and surrealist comedy, this one defies any sort of expectations or categorizations. It’s assuredly not to everyone’s taste, but those clued into the Adult Swim kind of mentality will get behind it immediately. Loosely based on a […]
Interview: Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen
We talk to the director and co-writer (and Kitchner, Ontario natives) Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen from the animated adventure Escape from Planet Earth about their nearly life long collaborative process, working with Breandan Fraser and Rob Corddry, using 3-D effectively, and how to give life to a wacky waving arm flailing inflatable tube man.
Tatsumi Review
Part biography, part short story compilation, Tatsumi animates the life and selected works of mangaka Yoshihiro Tatsumi in a film that will please fans and newcomers alike.
The Suicide Shop Review
While it isn't as great as the Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Sylvain Chomet films it's trying to emulate, The Suicide Shop still sets itself apart by being darkly different than 98% of all other animated films out there.
Rise of the Guardians Review
While it looks great, Rise of the Guardians teams up some of your favourite childhood hits in a film that's annoying, chaotic, and terribly written. It's as if Michael Bay decided to up and make a film for the under 10 crowd.
Interview: ParaNorman’s Chris Butler & Sam Fell
Part Two
In the age of the omnipresent CG animated film and vapid big budget spectacle, it’s incredibly refreshing to see a lovingly handcrafted stop-motion animated movie like ParaNorman come along. We had a chance to speak with directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell earlier this year, and talked about the talented young cast of the film, the directors' own experiences with bullying, ParaNorman's relationship to the horror genre, the importance of zombies, and much more.
Interview: ParaNorman’s Chris Butler & Sam Fell
Part One
In the age of the omnipresent CG animated film and vapid big budget spectacle, it's incredibly refreshing to see a lovingly handcrafted stop-motion animated movie like ParaNorman come along. We had a chance to speak with directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell earlier this year, and talked about the "John Carpenter meets John Hughes" origins of the film, how technology has helped make stop-frame animation more practical, and much more.
The Pirates: Band of Misfits Review
Aardman Animation, the creators of Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run, bring you The Pirates: Band of Misfits, a giddy sugar rush of British animated entertainment.
Hot Docs 2012 Reviews: Part 4
We break out the big guns for today's Hot Docs 2012 preview with a lot of titles that have gone rush, including Indie Game: The Movie, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists, Detropia, Finding Truelove, Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, and The World Before Her. Also looks at Sexy Baby, Mom and Me, Beware of Mr. Baker, and The Job.
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax Review
The best adaptation of Dr. Seuss book in recent years, The Lorax will likely cast a magical spell on all who see it, young and old alike.
The Secret World of Arrietty Review
Even dubbed into English, it’s hard to go wrong with almost any film bearing the Studio Ghibli name on it. Similarly, the much beloved children’s novel The Borrowers – written by the late Mary Norton with no fewer than four big and small screen adaptations – stands as an enduring brand in family entertainment. While only written by Ghibli head maestro Hayao Miyazaki and only somewhat faithful to Norton’s beloved source material, The Secret World of Arrietty still manages to be another solid, but slight effort from the Japanese powerhouse.
Beauty and the Beast 3D Review
Beauty and the Beast returns to the big screen this weekend (with a 3-D retrofitting) just a shade over 20 years after its initial release and several years after an extended cut of the film made the rounds. The film – which was one of my fondest childhood movie going experiences – holds up nicely in a thematic sense, with as much love for cinematic craft as Hugo and The Artist, but while the 3-D does add to the film, the HD transfer makes a case that maybe not all hand drawn animated films should be toyed with.
TADFF 2011: Redline Review
Redline isn’t about nothing, but it isn’t about much. Nothing stops Redline from hitting goals. Nothing stops Redline from victory. Redline is so ferocious and unwieldy that it’s too dangerous to be bound in your hands, it’s too fast for the qualms of plot or logic. It can’t slow down. The wonderful thing about animation is that it’s a world from scratch, created only by the pen instead of constructs of likelihood. Redline is its own universe, and it rockets through it so fast you’ll miss planets if you blink.
