November 16th, 2009 admin
Starring: Susanna Blakeslee, Erin Torpey, Corey Burton, Roger Craig Smith, Gilbert Gottfried, Linda Larkin
Director: David Block
Runtime: 56 Minutes
Distributor: Disney
Rating: NR
With a price tag of $20.99 and a runtime just shy of an hour, parents may perhaps baulk at this most recent Disney parental go-between, which will happily entertain their kids so that they don’t have to, deciding that the rate is less in line with your average babysitter than a live-in, inner-city nanny who also performs light housework.
A pure piece of candy-coated bubblegum fantasy aimed firmly at the under tens the Disney Princess Enchanted Tales series blends traditional animated fantasy with songs and simplified life lessons into bite sized developmental education with the added benefit of perhaps a little piece and quiet.
Dividing itself into two separate chapters loosely knotted together by the soothing, non-threatening, warble of narrator Susanna Blakeslee (she even sounds like a Disney character), this follow your dreams edition reintroduces us to the continuing adventures of Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, and Princess Jasmine, star of Aladdin.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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October 26th, 2009 admin
2008
Starring:
Director(s): Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Disciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, Richard McGuire
Runtime: 83 Minutes
Distributor: IFC Films
Rating: NR
Brought to us by the celebrated French graphic house and studio Prima Linea, Fear(s) of the Dark is an omnibus anthology of horror themed animation from some of the industry’s premier graphic designers, artist, and comic book creators. Five self-contained stories spliced up together, tied off by a recurring monologue, Fear(s) of the dark challenged six creative minds to animate the rhythm of the fears in the harsh extremities of black and white and the tonal subtleties that lay in-between.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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September 17th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau, Fred Tatasciore
Director: Shane Acker
Runtime: 79 Minutes
Distributor: Focus Features
Rating: PG-13
It is fair to say that if your short film wins you an Oscar, while at the same time turns the heads of both Tim Burton and Nightwatch director Timur Bekmambetov to the point where they want to back you in making it into a feature, then you’re likely harboring a talent that’s pretty special. It’s also fair to say you’re not pushing the bright and bouncy fare the likes of DreamWorks and Pixar. In fact this beautiful dystopic fantasy from former Weta artist Shane Acker, about a band of dolls made sentient during the final days of humanity, could almost serve as a dark funhouse mirror reflection of Toy Story.
A post-apocalyptic flight of fancy bubbling over with ideas and allegories, 9 offers a terrifying vision of the future, but one possessing an overriding message of hope. Somewhere in the not too distant future (or perhaps the past?) humanity’s great machines of war turned on us and we were wiped out. Fearing the worst, one scientist imbued nine stitched up creations with pieces of his on soul. Emerging from the rubble is #9 (Elijah Wood), the last of his creations, possessing a singular curiosity and will to unlock the riddle within and restore the spark of life to our decimated world.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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July 13th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Sean William Scott, Josh Peck, Karen Disher, Simon Pegg
Director: Carlos Saldanha
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Rating: PG
Despite a veritable explosion of bright and colorful pixilated mayhem in recent years that has made the animated genre a box office powerhouse to be reckoned with, this sub-zero family saga stands alone as the only franchise to potentially give Pixar and DreamWorks executives some sleepless nights. Yet while it continues to match the likes of Shrek stride for stride in terms of sequels and storyline, there is a sense here that perhaps the makeshift herd has migrated as far as it can and that tiny Blue Sky Studios should set their talented and capable sights on something new.
Returning co-writer/director Carlos Saldanha once again oversees matters for this third installment and the immediate familiarity of the characters is the movie’s virtue as well as its weakness. Almost as if they’ve never been away we as an audience fall right back in to their comfortable routine; Manny is still grouchy and noble, Elly is still sassy and flanked by the boundless energy of Crash and Eddie, Diego still a smartass, and Sid still inept and silly. Only, they have been away. In the meantime Pixar has raised the bar with Up and the likes of Coraline dazzled our imagination by adding just a hint of seductive darkness. But here on the tundra evolution seems to have passed our heroes by.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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June 1st, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo
Director: Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson
Runtime: 96 Minutes
Distributor: Disney
Rating: PG
The fact that this latest outing from the boys at Pixar was chosen to open this year’s Cannes (one of, if not the most prestigious and art oriented festivals on the calendar) shows just how far animation has come in the ten short years since the epic bedroom set tale of Woody and Buzz took us to infinity and beyond – not only in terms of technological advancements, but also in storytelling and how we regard the medium. Few today would dare question the notion that animation has evolved into a fully realized art form.
Pixar too has come a long way, having steadily evolved over a decade and refined its singular technique of employing everything from insects and rodents, to robots and race cars to tell simple parables of life’s struggle and the dreams we strive to attain. Having reached a peak in terms of pure commercialism with Cars in 2006, Pixar has dialed it down a little and begun to look backwards in time for inspiration. Much as WALL-E drew from the likes of Chaplin and Buster Keaton, Up too draws from the silent classics for its own opening salvo.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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April 7th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Riann Wilson, Stephen Colbert
Director: Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Distributor: DreamWorks
Rating: PG
With that gigantic green ogre who has Pixar executives waking up in the middle of the night in sweats again conspicuous by his absence this year, it’s left to this homage heavy throwback to the golden age of science fiction cinema to bolster that all-important bottom line. With an eclectic voice cast so glittering its ridiculous directors Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon, who between them have coughed up Shrek 2 and Shark Tale, bring us a deliciously zany 3D extravaganza where the bright and bubbly animation just about manage to make up for a somewhat underwhelming story.
Reese Witherspoon voices valley girl Susan, a blushing bubblegum bride set to marry egotistical weatherman, Derek, whose big day gets even bigger when a meteorite filled with gelatinous goo lands on her head, causing her to grow to immense size and proportion. Whisked away by Kiefer Sutherland’s hard-nosed, deliciously named General W.R. Monger to a secret government facility she finds herself face to face with all manner of freaks and mutants (Dr. Cockroach, B.O.B, Insectasauraus, The Missing Link) who have been squirreled away for tests and experiments. Chasing the aforementioned goo, Rainn Wilson’s Gallaxhar and his alien armada show up to annihilate Earth and take possession of its power, so the government unleashes Susan and her cohorts as our last, best hope for salvation.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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April 2nd, 2009 admin
If this were a truly honest world, this companion release to DreamWorks’ latest rip-roaring animated hit would be titled Cash-In Panda: Slightly Cheaper Than a Babysitter. At a mere twenty-four minute minutes padded by some paper thin extras, serious questions must surely be raised as to why this supplemental tosh wasn’t simply included with the original feature.
Borrowing a little bit from Ah-nuld abomination Kindergarten Cop, Kung-Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five finds the world’s most lethargic martial artist, Po (voiced by Jack Black) tasked by Myagi stand-in Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to serve as teacher to a class of tiny tot bunnies. Terrified and overwhelmed, Po snaps the little buggers to attention and has them sit Indian style while he regales them with origin stories for the Furious Five, with each one serving as something of an Aesop’s fable to the nippers.
Mantis is always in too much of a rush and is impatient with the world to catch up. Asked to dispatch a meddlesome gang of gators he rushes off too quickly for anyone to warn him of the traps that lie in wait and so is captured. Only when he learns to sit still and play dead is he able to escape his cell and defeat them.
Lesson: sit still!
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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February 17th, 2009 admin
Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Robert Baily Jr. Keith David, Ian McShane
Director: Henry Selick
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Rating: PG
Distributor: Focus Features
Animator and stop-motion director Henry Selick has up to now had every right to be more than a little pissed off really. While it is certainly true that the idea for The Nightmare Before Christmas came from Tim Burton, the dashing ghoulish mayhem that so delights its many devotees was really entirely down to Selick. So while Disney now annually trots out “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” to the theaters on Halloween week, the chorus line audience still claps and cheers remaining largely unaware of who the hell Henry Selick even is.
Well all that hopefully is about to change. Working from a massively successful, award-winning story from the king of literary kook, Neil Gaiman, Selick has fashioned another gothic fairytale that blends the devilish and the delightful into a glorious 3D spectacle of color and imagination.
The story follows the precocious young girl, Coraline Jones (voiced by Dakota Fanning) whose parents move the family out to a rickety old Victorian mansion way up in the hills outside Portland. Bogged down in their crusty, bohemian existence, her parents spend all their time writing a gardening catalogue and have next to no time for their daughter. Bored and lonely Coraline explores the house and the hillside, running into neighbor boy Wybie (short for Why Be Born – parents don’t get much sympathy in Coraline) who tells her that her new home has a history of disappearing kids. That night a troupe of jumping circus mice show her to a mystical portal to a mirror world where everyone has buttons for eyes and her parents are loving and dote on her endlessly. She can stay forever if she wants to; all she has to do is give herself, and her eyes, to her new family.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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September 16th, 2008 admin
2007
Starring: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, Justin Timberlake, Eric Idle, Ian McShane, Rupert Everett, John Cleese
Director: Chris Miller
Runtime: 92 Minutes
Distributor: Dreamworks
Rating: PG
The lovable, not so jolly green giant returns for a third outing to once again keep Pixar executives up at night sweating and the result is disappointingly something of a mixed bag. Breaking the record shattering opening weekend set by its predecessor, and primed for a Broadway spin off, this has been described by some as a “sequel made for the worst reasons.” Indeed, while many liked it – and there are things to like – this follow-on is ripe with doughnut syndrome; plenty of glaze and sugary sprinkles, but with a massive hole right through its middle
Fresh ideas have given way to stock formula and this installment feels rushed and somewhat flimsy. A lean running time is sometimes healthy, but here only serves as an attempt to get the viewer in an out before they catch a whiff of the strong stench of recycled material that with more time and effort could be and should be a lot stronger.
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September 10th, 2008 admin
1988
Starring: Mitsuo Iwata, Nozumo Sasaika, Mami Koyamo, Taro Ishida
Director: Katsuhiro Otomo
Runtime: 124 Minutes
Distributor: MGM
Rating: R
Though it did not reach the big screen until 1988, this apocalyptic cyberpunk epic had existed for years, running in the form of a comic that had at the time of the movie exceeded more than 2000 pages. While the feature film adaptation is of course less dense and less detailed, it will still always be known as the film that built the bridge between Japanese anime and western audiences. Akira opened the floodgates for the huge anime craze that swept the west in the early nineties and paved the way for them to become a respectable cinematic art form.
The story is one of a bleak and terrifying future. In 1989 Tokyo is destroyed by a massive explosion of psionic energy emanating from the subject of a secret military project. Mistakenly thought by the governments of the world to be a nuclear blast, the incident triggers World War Three. Thirty years later on the ashes of complete devastation sits Neo Tokyo. Now a police state, gangs of delinquent youths on high-powered motorcycles wage war with both the authorities and each other. In the shadows, a growing terrorist organization attacks official buildings in an effort to destabilize the ineffectual government. But the military has not abandoned its experiments of psychic energy and paranoid Col. Shikishima has been using children with ESP to monitor the city. When a dissident raid sees one of them kidnapped from the facility, the child comes into contact with Tetsuo, a motorcycle thug. The encounter leaves Tetsuo with an imprint of psychic energy that quickly threatens to grow beyond anything that can be controlled and once again bring complete destruction to all of Neo Tokyo.
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