Po might be the Chosen One, but he is also a fanboy and a goofball.
animated
Posted inArts & Culture
Heavy Traffic
It was years before Heavy Traffic — Bakshi’s second theatrical film — would find its way into my VCR. It came my way long after I had digested his PG-rated fantasy films like Lord of the Rings and Wizards and had memorized every line of dialogue to Coonskin, Heavy Traffic’s uber-controversial follow-up. And when I […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Monsters University
But that’s not college — that’s high school. Whatever it is, Monsters University, which opens Friday, certainly isn’t the overachiever that its predecessor was. While not on the failure level of, say, Cars 2, this disappointing effort is mildly redeemed by an involving third act — at just about the time pint-sized viewers are apt […]
Posted inMusic
Clip art
“If you really want to make something happen for yourself, you can’t wait around thinking,” said Nik Harper. “Just go out and make what you want. That’s literally all we did. We’re really lucky that people liked what we were doing.” Their video for Philadelphia rapper Lushlife’s “Magnolia” (see below), selected to be showcased at […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1
Christopher Nolan’s recent trilogy, concluding with this summer’s The Dark Knight Rises, owes more to Miller than Tim Burton’s two versions did, and on Rises’ boot heels comes an animated adaptation of Miller’s source material in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, directed by Jay Oliva (Green Lantern: Emerald Knights). At an hour and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Cat in Paris
Dino, the tabby at the center of “A Cat in Paris,” brings new meaning to the term “cat burglar.” He purrs his way between a petty thief on the job and a little girl at home, befriending both and inadvertently tying their disparate worlds. That occurs after the two-bit bandit gives Dino a fenced, fish-shaped […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Brief encounters
ANIMATED “A Morning Stroll” It sounds like the setup to a simple joke: Why did the chicken knock on the apartment door? This clever ditty answers it thrice, each with animation appropriate to the 1959, 2009 and 2059 time periods it depicts. Thus, we move from simple line drawings to today’s CGI, and ending with […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Illusionist
Don’t get me wrong: I liked “Toy Story 3.” I just feel like I had seen it before (it is a sequel, after all). All too often, I think good animated films like Pixar’s are overhyped, because when one considers the other crap our children drag us to — i.e. “Yogi Bear” — something like […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Short stuff
ANIMATED “The Gruffalo” concerns a mouse saving his skin by outwitting a fox, an owl and a snake via a tale about the titular fabled monster in order to save his own skin. Crisp-looking and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, it’s one joke too long at 27 minutes. France’s “Madagascar, A Journey Diary” plays like […]
Posted inArts & Culture
My Dog Tulip
It may be only coincidence that the animated feature “My Dog Tulip” is distributed by New Yorker Films, but Paul and Sandra Fierlinger’s film looks like cartoons torn from the pages of The New Yorker: erudite and engaging, but hardly realistic-looking, and likely not to be understood by the average person. The brisk film plays […]