Animation

Underneath the surface of most films about online life are commonplace themes about appearances and authenticity: the consequences of anonymity, the rapid spread of misinformation, the ways that social media limits expression of our genuine…

Raya and the Last Dragon premiered on Disney+ on Friday, March 5th with perhaps the best lead-in it could have asked for in the midst of the pandemic: the season finale of WandaVision (it also…

Following up their recent Academy Award-nominated feature, the Japanese animation stalwart and truly a standard-bearer brand synonymous with quality animated film, Studio Ghibli turned to a classic novel by famous British young adult fantasy author Dianne…

For Context: When Inside Out was released in 2015, it was a revelation. On one hand, it was simply another link in the Pixar chain of “what if ________ had feelings?” (pick an object and…

Cartoon Saloon’s latest release, Wolfwalkers, is one of, if not, the best 2D animated movie to come out in years. This time, directors Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart travel back to Ireland with another awe-inspiring…

Genre festivals like Fantasia do incredible work in programming an eclectic variety of cinema that is proudly and unapologetically so far from the norm. Whether it’s films with bold and transgressive storytelling, films that are…

Recency bias affects us more often than we realize when it comes to analyzing films. Many are so quick to spread effusive praise, claiming some film as the “best” in one way or another. You…

Onward, a movie I had no expectations for, but I went to see it anyway because it comes from Pixar. It turned out to be a great decision for two reasons: there’s a hilarious short…

3 years ago, in 2016, Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name shook both the Japanese box office and the U.S. box office. The film was universally lauded and broke Japanese box office records. Seriously, if you have…

Walt Disney detested the idea of sequels. This is why, despite their profitability, there were no official Disney animated sequels produced until after his death. But even after his death, sequels weren’t something that Disney…

Earlier in the year, we saw the release of Missing Link. Not being a Laika animation fan, I decided to skip its run in the theaters. I didn’t see the film, and neither did you…

If you’ve seen someone on the internet hate on the live-action Disney remakes raise your hand in the air. Yes, at this point we’re all familiar with the criticism, and for reasons many of us…

Toy Story 4 — the sequel we didn’t need but everyone asked for. And here we are, kicking off the summer with what people have joked would never come to fruition for a decade. Look, I’m…

As the title “Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” suggests, this animated feature has the Caped Crusader meeting the famous foursome of mutant, ninja turtles. The reaction to such a premise will differ on whether…

How frustrating must it feel to consistently deliver quality, yet see each film struggle at the box office? That’s the feeling that Laika Studios has felt for quite some time as their stop motion animation…

It can be very frustrating as a die-hard film fan living in Australia. Distribution in the land down under is all over place and waiting for films you desperately want to see requires a lot…

Everything is still awesome. While the long-awaited The Lego Movie sequel doesn’t completely capture the magic of its predecessor, it sets a standard for what animated sequels should be. This movie sits among the likes…

Brand Recognition: The Movie fits as an alternate title for this film. I am going to start off this piece by trying to process all of the logos and icons that are thrown at the audience…

Commercialism and name recognition exist, so we were bound to get another Grinch-centric movie at some point after Ron Howard‘s How the Grinch Stole Christmas slowly faded away from the collective memory of the casual moviegoer. (It has certainly…

Every year has an animated film that sells its cast to the high heavens in the promotional material while simultaneously angering voice actors everywhere. Seriously Smallfoot, you couldn’t look around for true professionals in this field?…