I really liked this post. Anime is just a tool to tell a story. I hope everyone can appreciate at least some of the films under the very diverse category. I know I do!
Month: August 2015
Pixar Review 28: La Luna
If you can believe it we are in the home stretch of my Pixar reviews. Only 5 left till Good Dinosaur and Sanjay’s Super Team. I’ve been reviewing the Pixar films since April and it has been a real treat and challenging because it’s hard to write about movies you really love and have it not just be hyperbole. At least it is for me.
Well, today we have a very special animated short to talk about. One of my favorites- La Luna. It is directed and written by Enrico Casarosa and was based on the Italian fairytales his Grandpa would tell him. He also used Italian cartoonist Osvaldo Cavandoli who was famous for his line sketch style animation as inspiration.
La Luna is about a little boy or Bambino who sails with his Grandpa and Father to a spot where they climb a latter to the moon and set about their work of scraping the stars from off the moon. (Doesn’t that description just sound lovely?).
In the audio commentary Enrico says he picked a Grandpa and Father for the boy because he grew up in a house with his maternal grandfather and his Dad and I guess the two didn’t get along very well. You can see that dynamic in the short with the 2 men snipping at each other in a sweet kind of way.
But really the greatness of this short is in the animation. The stars and the light is so beautiful. In many ways it feels like a bedtime story, like Goodnight Moon or something like that. It’s lovely to think about someone sweeping stars off of the moon.
Michael Giacchino gets back to his Italian roots with a lovely score that reminds me of the great Ennio Morricone.
There are moments where it looks like watercolor and where the characters look more 2D than CG. There are no other words to describe it but BEAUTIFUL!
I love the way the stars look like little light bulbs and clank together. In many ways they reminded me of the memories in Inside Out in sound and appearance. You can feel the sense of wonder from Bambino as he looks at each glowing star.
This is just a stunning image.
It’s not the most complex as far as story. It’s basically a Grandpa and Father showing a little boy how to do a job but that job is so magical and special that it doesn’t need anything more. It’s like if someone’s job was to bathe an angel. Yes it’s ordinary but it’s an angel! I mean wow!
As I’ve rewatched the Pixar shorts I can put them into several groups. There are the jokes (Presto, For the Birds, Knick Knack), technology advancing (Adventures of Wally, Tin Toy, Geri’s Game, Day & Night), and great artistry (Boundin, Partly Cloudy, Red’s Dream). To me La Luna is the greatest of that latter group. It is an artistic joy to watch and I love it. Definitely in my top 5 of the Pixar shorts.
2011 was also a very good year for animated shorts. All 4 nominees were completely lovely and the winner The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore is wonderful. In fact, I wish it was a feature film. It’s 15 minutes as a short and there’s enough there for more. So the fact La Luna didn’t win that year I am ok with. It certainly was a much better year in shorts than feature films with Rango winning which I did not care for.
What do you think of La Luna? If you haven’t seen it there are versions of it online but none that I could download. I believe it is on the Brave DVD so you can see it there. I wanted to do another short before the Brave review called The Legend of Mor’du to go with Brave so that’s why I reviewed this one here. Next up is the much maligned Cars 2. I just watched it and honestly guys it’s not that bad. In fact, I enjoyed it! So you will hopefully enjoy that review as I am sure it will be a perspective you don’t get every day.
But nearly everyone I know agrees, La Luna is one of the best.
Fantastic Four Review
I really dont want to see this movie so here is a review from jasonsmovieblog that is very thorough and fair. I may watch it on dvd just to see if I agree with critics but for now no need (Good grief I’ve recently seen Chappie and Pixels so I’m wounded enough!)
Ricki and the Flash Review
Well today I was planning on seeing Fantastic 4 but then I heard a bunch of people I respect say it is the worst superhero movie since Batman and Robin and I thought ‘surely there is something else I could see…’ and fortunately there was. I decided to go to Ricki and the Flash starring Meryl Streep and written by the great Diablo Cody. In many ways this movie is kind of like the Age of Adeline. It’s no masterpiece but a solid entertaining film.
Streep stars as Ricki who left her family when her 3 children were little to pursue her dream of being a rock star. Even now as a more mature woman she dutifully plays at a nearly empty club every weekend and works at Whole Foods during the day. This might seem like a sad lot but she is happy with the life she has chosen. Rick Springfield plays her bassist in the band and quasi-boyfriend and he is very good in the part (as in Age of Adeline the acting across the board elevates this material).
Then out of the blue Ricki gets a call from her ex-husband played by Kevin Kline in Indianapolis (I like how every movie uses my poor Indianapolis as the go-to for boring Middle America). Her daughter Julie, played by Streep’s real-life daughter Mamie Gummer, has been dumped by her husband and is in a deep state of depression. Kline is at his wits end and calling his ex out of desperation because she has been so inactive in most of the children’s lives.
She agrees to come and Streep does such a good job showing the insecurity of a woman who both has regrets and has no regrets. She’s confident but completely insecure at the same time. It’s very good. Because of the abandonment her children hate her and think she is a big joke.
I particularly liked a scene where they are at dinner and the way they are interacting reminded me of tense family dinners I’ve been at from time to time.
This is where Diablo Cody shines in writing complex characters that you both despise and root for at the same time. Ricki wasn’t a good mother because she wasn’t there for her kids; however, she was pursuing her dream which does make her sympathetic. Ricki is also not just the aging rocker but she is also a Republican with a brother who died in Vietnam. There are layers to her just like actual human beings.
There’s a strong element of work and dreams which is a topic I always respond too. How much is too great a sacrifice to be happy in your work? What is it worth to go for your dreams? Should Ricki have been miserable and stayed with her family or tried (and failed) to be a rock star? It’s an interesting question to ponder. The movie does also make the good point that if Ricky was a man our society would be far less quick to put the ‘bad father’ label on him for doing the same things.
Streep learned how to play the guitar for the movie in a matter of weeks and does all her own instrumentals and singing, which is pretty remarkable. We of course know from many other films (Mama Mia, Into the Woods, Prairie Home Companion etc) she can sing but she proves it once again here.
There are some problems with the film which take it down from being a favorite. The singing segments, while good, are all too long. Especially being covers (except for 1 song) we don’t need to hear the entire song. A verse or chorus is plenty to get the message. If they were going to do full songs I wish it had been original songs because wouldn’t someone who sacrificed so much for music do more than just covers? At least at the end with her family you’d think so.
The ending is also pretty sappy but I didn’t mind it because every family has sappy moments. Thank goodness we do because all the drama wouldn’t be worth it! But the ending does drag on a little too long as well (and it’s not that long of a movie). They definitely put a bow on everything and make all the problems go away. It is very sitcomy in that way.
All that said, the writing is good with complex characters. The acting is across the board good. The music is good if a little bit too long. Overall, I enjoyed watching Ricki and the Flash and being a part of this family for 100 minutes. I think if you go you will enjoy it and be glad you went.
After all, not every movie has to be a masterpiece to be worth a hardy recommendation.
As far as content there is some profanity and vulgar language, characters smoke pot and unmarried characters have sex mostly off screen. I’d say it is fine for teens and up.
Overall Grade- C+
Content Grade- B-
I’m thinking I made the right choice over Fantastic 4! 🙂
My youtube review
Kung Fu Panda 3 Details
We got new details last week on the upcoming Kung fu Panda 3 and I have to say I am not impressed. You guys know I am not a big Dreamworks fan. I love Prince of Egypt and think the How to Train Your Dragon movies are very good but aside from that most of their movies are too silly for my taste with the dopey humor and pop culture references.
The Kung fu Panda series is an interesting study because just this week I rewatched the first one and to be honest I didn’t think it held up very well. I liked it ok when it first came out but now the jokes felt incredibly dated and unfunny. The villain is bland and while it looks nice it didn’t do much for me. The second movie I saw on a plane years ago and remember thinking it was better than the first. At the time I thought it had a better villain, more action, less reliant on the jokes and had more fleshed out depictions of the Fierce 5. I know that will bring much discussion on the blog but I haven’t seen it since then and I don’t LOVE it so calm down.
Last year Dreamworks had a pretty good year for me but not at the box office . I liked Mr Peabody and Sherman, Penguins of Madagascar and How to Train Your Dragon 2. None of them were my favorite of the year but they were all solid. Then I saw Home and hated that but it did very well at box office. That and Illumination’s Minions success shows how much my taste can predict box office!. Then they announced Kung fu Panda 3 and we got a teaser trailer I didn’t like. It looked to be going back to the typical Dreamworks silliness and lame jokes.
Anyway, then we get this news about the plot and I am even more skeptical.According to Entertainment Weekly:
“The next villain will be Kai (J.K. Simmons), a bull who is especially notable because he is the first supernatural big bad of the series. “He’s somebody that’s beyond Tai Lung, beyond Shen,” says co-director Jennifer Yuh Nelson of the new antagonist, who has large horns, leather armor, and uses two jade swords with chains attached as his go-to weapon.
Nelson says of the early stages of the film, when she and her fellow filmmakers were deciding where to take it, “and it was like ‘You can’t go brawler because Tai Lung was brawler. You can’t go smarter because Shen was smarter. Where can you go? You have to go supernatural, bigger, and even more intimidating.”
Aside from the casting of JK Simmons this sounds like a horrifically terrible idea and their logic is bizarre. You can’t go brawler or smarter so you by necessity have to go supernatural? In what world are those the only 3 options? How about doing a combination of brawl and smarts making him a lethal mixture? Or how about making him politically powerful with an army at his disposal (why has Po only faced 1 villain at a time?)? How about make it a female bear and her sexy and a vixen to tempt Po? I can think of about a million other types of villains they could use rather than having him be some kind of alien.
Even the design of the bull alien looks awful and like something out of a bad video game. And like I said I was not impressed with the animation or where it was going in the teaser trailer with Po’s father being introduced to begin with. Groan…
Don’t get me wrong- it could be good. I always go into a film with an open mind and when I like it I will say so even if everyone else hates it . However, everything I have heard or seen so far makes me incredibly skeptical of the entire project.
I even wonder how much faith Dreamworks has in Kung fu Panda 3. January is notoriously the dumping ground for bad movies and its release date of January 29, 2016 is highly suspect. I don’t get it. If they believed in the movie they would release it over the Christmas holiday where they could make bank right?
Anyway that’s my thought of that. What did you guys think of these new plot updates for Kung Fu Panda 3? Are you as skeptical as I am?
Hit Me with Your Best Shot: Chicken Run
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this week’s Hit Me with Your Best Shot as it is an animated film, and one that I happen to love at that- Aardman animation’s 2000 Chicken Run.
I know this is about chickens instead of turkey but it has become a bit of a Thanksgiving tradition at my house to watch Chicken Run. It certainly beats Free Birds as a Thanksgiving film and I don’t think there are any other movies about poultry. Am I wrong?
I watched it again today and was delighted all over again. This will be more like a traditional review from me since animation is my blog focus but at the bottom I will have my best shot like normal.
If you haven’t seen it, Chicken Run is a claymation, stop motion animation take on a prison escape movie like The Great Escape.
It focuses on Ginger (Minnie Driver), a plucky chicken at Tweedy egg farm who refuses to be satisfied with a life at the farm. She is really the only intelligent chicken in the lot. Well, there is the braniac chicken but she’s the only one that seems to understand what they are up against.
The design of the farm is brilliant with hen houses that look like the cabins of the Great Escape. All of Ginger’s attempts to escape feel very reminiscent of those pictures. I like this shot the bunk has 17 on it like Stallag 17, another famous prison war movie.
The chickens end up failing in all of their attempts and Farmer Tweedy gets suspicious the “chickens are organizing!” which his wife Mrs Tweedy thinks is insane. She’s the main villain of the picture and a lot of fun in a Cruella Deville type fashion. Her dream is to turn the chickens into pies and she buys a giant manufacturing machine to make the pies.
With the purchase of the new machine Ginger is about to lose hope when a rooster named Rocky comes flying in to the farm. Ginger knows he is from the circus but thinks he has somehow learned how to fly. To Ginger this could be their salvation. Perhaps he can teach them how to fly! 
Of course what he isn’t telling them is he is shot out of a canon and can’t fly, but he needs to hide out from the circus while they are in town so he plays along and begins training them on how to fly. This involves a really fun montage of chickens doing pushups and the like.
There’s also an amazing sequence where Rocky and Ginger get caught in the pie making machine. It’s in the spirit of Indiana Jones and adventure movies with all kinds of obstacles to conquer. It blows my mind when you watch this scene and remember it is all done with moving clay figures inch by inch.
The ending plays out in a fairly predictable way for this genre of movie but Mrs Tweedy is pretty scary, maybe too much for some kids? As is always the case it depends on the child.
Thing that makes this movie special is the writing. It is funny throughout. Not just the homages to escape movies but the dialogue is witty and will make you laugh. Pter Lord and Nick Park bring the same type of humor we got in Wallace and Gromit with perhaps more of a visual component added in. (Karey Kirkpatrick is the screenwriter with a story by Lord and Park).
All the other aspects are very strong including great music by John Powell and Harry Gregson- Williams. I particularly like “Flip, Flop, Fly” a great swing number!
Plus, I like the way the chickens look. I like the smoothness of the skin and the feather collar and feather underneath. To me it is a pleasing design. All the sets are incredibly detailed and intricate especially when you consider they are all done by hand (stop motion animation is unbelievable).
I always say when I judge a comedy the number one factor is- Did it make me laugh? The answer for Chicken Run is Yes! I laughed back in 2000 and I laughed today watching it. It’s a delight in every other way so I can ignore a somewhat predictable story.
For me it is a big win!
Overall Grade- A
BEST SHOT-
Hit Me with Your Best Shot can be difficult because do you pick the shot that gave you the most pleasure or the one that looks the best? The two are not always the same.
My favorite joke in the movie is when Ginger tells the girls about the pies and Babs (the knitting chicken) says “I don’t want to be a pie. I don’t even like gravy”. I don’t’ know why but that cracks me up every time.
But the shot of her saying that line isn’t that great. I will go with the line just after it and you can see the mayhem on the part of the hens at this news. I think it is emblematic of the entire film, the claymation style and I love the expressions on the chickens faces. So great!
My youtube review can be found here
Pez movie announced
These people are going to make me hate Lego Movie. Pez movie? They don’t even have legs. At least legos have legs and arms. Sigh…
Testament of Youth Review
On Monday nights I try to go to a movie and see something inspirational or family friendly because Monday nights are family night in my church. So tonight I looked and saw Testament of Youth was playing. It sounded inspirational and had good reviews so I figured ‘why not?’ and I went and saw it. I’m so glad I did! This is a terrific movie. One of the best of the year so far.
Testament of Youth tells the story of Vera Brittain based off of her memoir. It begins in 1914 and the start reminded me of Jane Campions wonderful movie Bright Star. It is full of light and hope surrounding Vera, her brother Edward and 2 friends Roland and Victor.
All the acting is excellent in the movie led by Alicia Vikander from Ex-Machina who reminded me of Natalie Portman. I think she is going to be a huge star. Kit Harrington plays Roland and the two bond over a shared love of writing, poetry in particular (another thing in common with Bright Star).
Vera wants nothing more at the outset to go to Oxford and gain an education. Her father is against it but eventually relents. He could have been such a one note character but he is actually right about a lot in the movie and Dominic West is so good in every scene he is in.
Eventually all of their worlds are interrupted when World War 1 begins and the boys naively fight to enter the war and even be put in combat.
However, we don’t get much of the actual battles. Most of the time is spent with Vera as she works as a nurse first in England and then in the front lines in France. These scenes are tough to take at times and it is amazing it got a PG-13 rating with all the blood we see (stupid MPAA).
There is a leisurely pace to the film but I was really engaged by Vikander’s performance and her life story. It’s not a movie with a strong plot or giant climax. It has 3 climaxes kind of. It’s just Vera’s life story and I was very moved by it.
I couldn’t help but think about World War 1 while watching it. There’s a scene that seemed out of Gone with the Wind where they are surrounded by body after body trying to administer relief. What was all this suffering for? In World War 2 we all know there was true evil that was trying to conquer the world. World War 1 was a diplomatic dispute that led to the assassination of an Archduke. Was that worth all the suffering?
The reason why I think we should have more movies about World War 1 is because most conflicts are muddled in their purpose like it. Very rarely do we have a Hitler to defeat and so Testament of Youth is a valuable film both for the history lesson but also how we repeat it again and again.
I’m sure some people will read this review and think ‘that sounds sad. I don’t like sad movies’ but if you do I think you are really missing out. You could actually learn something and want to make a difference? Heaven forbid movies actually make us feel something more than a good time.
Here is the trailer:
I loved Testament of Youth. It’s beautifully shot, well acted, moving and important film about a time in world history most of us don’t know near enough about. I encourage all of you to hunt it out and see it. I’m sure glad I did. One of best of the year so far for sure.
Here’s my review on the youtube channel. I was trying out a new lens so it is a little fuzzy but I did my best.
Pixar Review 27: Toy Story 3
I’ve struggled in writing my review for Toy Story 3 because my nieces hate it. It is a film that gets very intense, too intense for my nieces and I didn’t know how much to take that into account. I had the same struggle with my Pinocchio review, which in my defense was only the 2nd review I had ever written but at the time I said:
Pinocchio is visually gorgeous with good, if heavy-handed moral teachings. It can be scary for kids and has a grim overall feel. I appreciate it but I can’t give it my highest rating because of how I know it affected me as a child.
So I gave Pinocchio a B+ and I’ve gone back and forth on it ever since. In many ways the issue is the same with Toy Story 3. How much does a child’s opinion count in reviewing an animated film? We know that animation isn’t just for children but in the same breath if they don’t like it isn’t that a problem? I don’t know. I honestly can’t decide. What do you think?
Anyway, in the end I can only review a movie based on what I think of it. At least with the Pinocchio review I was taking into account only what I thought of it as a child not other children. I don’t have that luxury with Toy Story 3. But I didn’t let anyone else’s opinions affect any of my other reviews so why should my nieces feelings be any different. I’m just going to tell you what I think. So here goes.
I love Toy Story 3! I mean this was me after watching it yesterday!
And yet I was also laughing and enjoying the tense moments so it isn’t just a cryfest. It may just be the best 3rd installment in a franchise ever. Return of the King, Indiana Jones and Last Crusade may be better but that’s all I can think of. Can you?
Anyway, in this film we are 11 years after the events of Toy story 2 and just as you might expect Andy has grown up and is off to college.
In the opening scenes they lay out two key themes for the rest of the movie:
1. Andy’s Toys are a family and while they’ve lost some they stick together as best as they can.
2. That Andy will play with them one more time.
But both seem like an impossibility because Andy wants to take Woody to college with him and the rest are accidentally sent to a daycare center called Sunnyside as a donation by Andy’s Mom.
At first the daycare seems like a pretty great setup for the toys. They will get played with again after 10 years in dust and that seems pretty great. They are also welcomed by the leader of Sunnyside, a bear named Lots-O (for Lots-O-Huggin’ Bear) voiced by Ned Beatty.
Unfortunately all is not sunny at the daycare and the next section of the movie turns into a prison escape story but it never gets serious for too long. Most of the humor comes from Buzz who gets put on his Spanish setting (so funny!).
And Michael Keaton is also hilarious as the Ken doll who falls instantly in love with Barbie and is very concerned with his wardrobe.
There is also humor from a little girl named Bonnie’s toys who fancy themselves a kind of theater group. We also learn from these toys the true story about Lots-O and how he came to run Sunnyside like a jail.
Directed by Lee Unkrich he is not afraid to push the boundaries of our expectations. Most people assume characters in a movie like this are not going to die but boy do they come close in the famous (or infamous depending on how you look at it) incinerator scene. It is such a bold scene:
I still can’t believe they cut it that close but it is incredibly gripping if way too intense for my nieces! I completely get their response because I also feel tense watching it. How can you not?
With the prison escape done we get the end of the movie which is Andy’s chance to say goodbye to his childhood and for the toys, especially Woody, to say goodbye to him. Pixar is so great at these type of emotional, life changing moments and this is one of the best.
Some may say it is unrealistic for a college student to play with his toys one last time but I don’t think it is. Maybe in a previous era it might have been but this is the era of adults trick-or-treating and dressing up for comicon. This is the era of grown men collecting Funko dolls and displaying them proudly.
I’m not the most nostalgic person in the world but even I have dolls displayed proudly in my room and I’m 34 years old. If I had to give them up I would cry because my Grandma gave them to me. There’s no reason to assume Andy would be any less attached to these toys.
But even if you set that reality aside saying goodbye to the toys is symbolic of Andy saying goodbye to his childhood and I think he knows that. In many ways it is kind of like the end of the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh when Christopher tells Pooh that he can’t do nothing any more even though it is what he loves most of all.
Plus, in this final scenes we get the fulfillment of the 2 promises made at the beginning of the film creating a nice sense of closure to the film. Just as we were promised Andy plays with the toys one more time and they all stay together because they are a family. Love that.
I think we all have those moments in life where we put away childhood and become a grown up. It’s like the scripture says:
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things”
That is the ending of Toy Story 3 and it is an emotion almost anyone can relate and respond too. In a way you could call it the great necessary evil of life. Despite what Peter Pan wants we all must eventually grow up.
It practically goes without saying the animation is stunning- bright and colorful, with a clarity and realism to all the characters I haven’t seen in Pixar till this film. Also the voice work is top notch with all our familiar characters and new voice actors such as Keaton, Beatty, Whoopi Goldberg, Timothy Dalton, Bonnie Hunt and Jeff Garlin. Everyone involved in Toy Story 3 did an amazing job.
Thankfully we have Pixar to keep making films for adults and some children who aren’t too terrified! They help keep some of the magic alive within all of us and Toy Story 3 has magic in spades. I loved watching it again and if I ever have kids maybe I will just fast forward the incinerator scene so they can enjoy it too. 🙂
Overall Grade- A+
And for the record I have faith they have a good idea for Toy Story 4 and it will be good. It is not going to be a continuation of the Andy storyline but exist solely in the world of the toys, a romance I’ve been told. John Lasseter is directing 4 so sign me up!