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Showing posts with the label animation

DR. SEUSS' THE GRINCH - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

CORALINE - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

MARY AND THE WITCH'S FLOWER - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

MEET THE ROBINSONS - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

THE INCREDIBLES 2 - VLOG REVIEW

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I talk a bit about Pixar's The Incredibles 2 .

HERCULES - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

SON OF THE MASK - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

ASTERIX THE GAUL - REVIEW

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Review available on the new website .

BIG HERO 6 - REVIEW

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Based on the Marvel comics, Big Hero 6 was a 2014 CG-animated Disney film about a young inventor who befriends an inoffensive robot called Baymax before training it to become a fighting machine. 14 year-old genius Hiro Hamada is introduced to us participating in illegal robot fights and conning others with his misleadingly unassuming creations. His brother, in the hope of steering Hiro towards a better path, encourages him to apply for a university with an impressive research lab in which a team of quirky inventors get to be as creative as they can. After an unexpected accident, a mysterious villain shows up using one of Hiro's inventions on a dangerous scale so he and his friends, along with inflatable healthcare robot Baymax, decide to fight back and unmask their powerful enemy. Similar to how the marketing for Pixar's The Incredibles relied heavily on an out-of-shape Mr. Incredible trying to fit into his old superhero suit, Big Hero 6 was sold mostly through the ball

LIVE-ACTION COWBOY BEBOP? - PODCAST

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We discuss the possibility of a live-action Cowboy Bebop TV series on The Big Rewind .

BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT - REVIEW

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It's not exactly breaking news that fans were generally disappointed with DC's animated film adaptation of The Killing Joke  so this new attempt at taking on one of the most popular Batman graphic novels seemed like a perfect opportunity to get something right. Batman takes on Jack The Ripper himself in this steampunk story loosely based on Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola's one-shot  Gotham By Gaslight set in the late 1800's. When an exotic dancer (Poison Ivy) is brutally killed by The Ripper and the latter's victims keep piling up, the people of Gotham City start to suspect Batman. With the help of James Gordon and the police, Batman (voiced by Bruce Greenwood) attempts to stop further killings but Bruce Wayne is eventually jailed on suspicion of being The Ripper, which delays the Dark Knight's investigation somewhat. The film makes decent enough use of the familiar characters it does have including a trio of Robins as orphans, Hugo Strange, Selina Kyle (w

TIM BURTON'S DUMBO - PODCAST

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We talk about the upcoming Dumbo remake on The Big Rewind .

BATMAN VS. TWO-FACE - REVIEW

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Before we lost Adam West in 2017, the iconic actor gifted us one last performance as Batman in animated sequel Batman vs. Two-Face . Based on the original 60's TV series, it introduced Harvey Dent/Two-Face who is voiced by William Shatner. The preceding movie, Batman: Return Of The Caped Crusaders , was a fun, silly homage with everything you'd expect from the classic show like lots of classic villains, an over-the-top storyline and a cast including Burt Ward and original Catwoman Julie Newmar. Batman vs. Two-Face also captures the spirit of the show perfectly with lots of funny mistakes left on purpose, silly labels on everything and onomatopoeia-filled fight scenes. The animation is a little less stiff than it was the first time around and there's a lot more emphasis on the story as this new take on Two-Face keeps you guessing throughout. We're introduced to Harvey Dent early on, his friendship with Bruce Wayne prompting some jealousy from Dick Grayson, of cours

THE INCREDIBLES - REVIEW

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As we patiently wait for next year's much anticipated sequel, it's worth revisiting Pixar's The Incredibles , the animated superhero comedy that makes every Fantastic Four movie to date look like a cinematic practical joke. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities between the Marvel superteam and the characters in this movie from their powers to the matching outfits, something that should have made the film dismissable as too derivative and a bit of a rip-off but, in Pixar's hands, still comes off as very fresh and original. The film first introduces us to a world where superheroes are a common thing: they are interviewed like celebrities and their good nature is taken for granted. When super-strong Mr Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson) saves a man from jumping off a building, the latter sues him for wrongful saving since he never asked to be rescued and this leads to a long court battle ending in all superheroes having to hide their powers. Cut to many years l

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2009) - REVIEW

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Despite the relatively unkind feedback Robert Zemeckis received after experimenting with CG animation in The Polar Express , he persevered and, in 2009, he delivered his own version of A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey as Ebeneezer Scrooge... and the three ghosts. While the animation in Polar Express gave an unwanted creepy puppet quality to the child characters, here the visuals are much more polished and the actors' expressions are captured perfectly. It's fascinating to see Jim Carrey being turned into, not only an old man, but a younger Scrooge, a candle ghost and a big bearded spirit dude. The rest of the cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins, are also beautifully rendered into their CGI characters. There are still creepy visuals but this time it's very much on purpose as Zemeckis appears to have picked the scariest aspects of Polar Express and Beowulf in order to give every kid watching this movie nightmares throughout the holiday se

COCO - VLOG REVIEW

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I talk a bit about Pixar's Coco .

COCO - REVIEW

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Critically acclaimed and comfortably ruling the top of the box-office, it looks like nothing can stop Pixar's Coco from becoming another significant hit for Disney, not even sticking a vastly unpopular Frozen  20 minute short at the front of it. Coco is the story of 12 year-old Miguel who dreams of becoming a musician like his idol Ernesto De La Cruz except his family has firmly been anti-music for generations so when they destroy his home-made guitar and forbid him to follow that path, he runs away to prove himself by playing music during the Día De Muertos festival. As he attempts to steal the long-dead De La Cruz's guitar in a cemetery, he is somehow transported to the Land Of The Dead where he learns that he'll need to get his family's blessing in order to come back to the land of the living. Revealing any more than that would be cruel so let's leave it at that story-wise. There's something familiar about Coco from the musical skeletons ( Corpse Bride

WHAT IS THE BEST PIXAR MOVIE?

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I talk about my favourite (and not-so favourite) Pixar movies.

POCAHONTAS - REVIEW

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Disney's Pocahontas was released back in 1995 and it was a relative box-office success despite critics not praising much more than the animation itself. To say that this is a loose adaptation of the Pocahontas real life story would be a gross understatement. Indeed, Disney's reluctance to approach Native American History in an honest way prompted quite a bit of criticism since the film's release, and rightly so. A lot of liberties are taken with what the film calls the "legend" of Pocahontas from the unlikely romance between Pocahontas (Irene Bedard) and British colonist Captain John Smith (Mel Gibson), the former being around 10 years-old in reality at that point, to the relationship between Native Americans and the English settlers. The film constantly romanticises otherwise not-so-pleasant events and replaces the more potentially uncomfortable conversations with cutesy cartoon animals and big Broadway-style musical numbers. A magical fantasy element is ad

ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE - REVIEW

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Released in 2001, when CG animation was starting to rival 2D in a big way, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was Disney's science-fiction love letter to Jules Verne and, while it was successful at the box-office, the film got mixed reviews so it remains a cult favourite. This wasn't your typical Disney musical aimed at a very young audience, Atlantis is a song-free action adventure with a proper sci-fi plot and it feels more like a big-budget Spielberg epic or a Star Wars movie set underground than anything else. The plot sees nerdy linguist and cartographer Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) lead an expedition to Atlantis after his research piques the interest of an eccentric millionaire. He is joined by a team of loveable misfits, mysterious femme-fatale Helga Sinclair and stern Commander Lyle Rourke. After a surprisingly deadly run-in with an unusual creature under the ocean, the gang finally reach Atlantis where Milo meets Princess Kida (Cree Summer) and they both start