REVIEW: Panique au village [A Town Called Panic] [2009]

“Your car is completely broken” Based on the animated series of the same name, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar‘s feature length Panique au village [A Town Called Panic] is a far cry from short five-minute skits. With that said, it’s easy to see how it was born from such a format considering the irreverent humor running rampant through its comedy of errors connected by the thinnest layer of glue. This is how they travel from a celebratory night of birthday festivities for Horse (Patar) to the undersea theft of brick…

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REVIEW: Prologue [2015]

I wasn’t sure what I was watching once Richard Williams‘ Prologue moved past its carefully drawn flower pollinated by a bee and a butterfly soaring across the screen to wipe the page clean before introducing the sharp eyes of soldiers. Their shields and spears conjured thoughts of Sparta; the lack of clothing on the men a character study of anatomy. To me there seemed no purpose other than that: to show the human body engaged in warfare to brutal effect. But then a little girl is seen, her innocence lost…

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REVIEW: Mi ne mozhem zhit bez kosmosa [We Can’t Live Without Cosmos] [2015]

The title may be Mi ne mozhem zhit bez kosmosa [We Can’t Live Without Cosmos], but the thing Konstantin Bronzit shows we really can’t live without is love. I don’t mean romantic love either; I mean the bond between two human beings whether by blood or not. A kinship like what’s cultivated in the military wherein soldiers come home brothers despite leaving as strangers. To find someone to confide in and follow hand-in-hand through life no matter age, trajectory, or location isn’t something to take lightly. For many a friend…

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REVIEW: Historia de un oso [Bear Story] [2014]

While Gabriel Osorio Vargas‘ Chilean short film Historia de un oso [Bear Story] tells the tale of a sad, lonely old bear, it does ultimately prove uplifting. Here’s a creature tinkering tirelessly in his shop to put the finishing touches on what could very well be his life’s work and yet any and all success or failure is met with silence. There’s no one else in his small home to celebrate or lament—just the indentations of two bodies on his mattress permanently displaying that love and company existed not too…

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REVIEW: World of Tomorrow [2015]

“I had lunch today” Animator/writer/director Don Hertzfeldt includes a wealth of philosophically introspective gems within his latest sci-fi short World of Tomorrow. None, however, is more poignant than: “That is the thing about the present, Emily Prime. You only appreciate it when it is the past.” Truer words have never been spoken because so many of our greatest moments prove mere blips on our radar upon occurring. Those we celebrate like earning a promotion or winning the big game are fleeting and ultimately meaningless in context with who we are…

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REVIEW: Hell and Back [2015]

“If you’re a priest or a nun, that’s funny. You wasted your life.” You may have noticed posters for the R-rated, stop-motion animated comedy Hell and Back throughout the summer and fall seasons in anticipation of its October release only to find it didn’t come to a theater near you. It was released and took in about $150,000 on the few screens it graced to the chagrin of a ton of hopeful Nick Swardson fans complaining on the movie’s Facebook page about their inability to watch. So January 5th brings…

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REVIEW: Anomalisa [2015]

“Nah. That’s British Airways.” Leave it to Charlie Kaufman to write a play about human connection and have it be just three actors who don’t physically interact—two playing single characters and the third everyone else with no discernable attempt to differentiate his voice. Then leave it to Dino Stamatopoulos and Dan Harmon of “Community” and “Moral Orel” fame to think it would make a great stopmotion animated film co-directed by Duke Johnson wherein Tom Noonan‘s stable of characters could literally all have the same face. This is Anomalisa: an adaptation…

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REVIEW: Shaun the Sheep Movie [2015]

“Have a … Day Off” Aardman is back after a three-year feature film hiatus with Shaun the Sheep Movie based on their television series “Shaun the Sheep” and it is a delight. It’s incredible to believe this newest entry to the studio’s stable cost only a sixth of critically-panned, computer animation debut Flushed Away‘s budget because of what appears to be a permanent return to stop-motion. I guess it helps to already have the clamation figures ready to go, but you’d think the time alone to capture their movements would…

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REVIEW: The Good Dinosaur [2015]

“Look who got relevated” You constantly hear about movies needing reshoots, but The Good Dinosaur‘s troubles went beyond cosmetic enhancements into full-blown emergency room triage. I’m talking two years of development before a release date announcement, two more before that date and original director Bob Peterson (who came up with the story alongside his directorial replacement Peter Sohn) were scrapped, and another two wherein the plot got completely retooled until the final film would bare little resemblance to the germ of an idea on which it began. Pixar’s cancelled Newt…

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REVIEW: Sanjay’s Super Team [2015]

“Super Team unite!” Sunday school would be a must-attend for kids of every religion if their church, synagogue, mosque, or temple put a fun, pop culture spin on their Gods—guaranteed. How badass would it be to watch a cartoon Jesus using his magic to raise people from the clutches of the evil Grim Reaper? Sure Islam would be tougher considering you can’t depict Mohammad, but there’s surely ways around that. If it’s good enough for the Greeks with Thor, Hercules, and everyone else Marvel/DC has reappropriated, it should be good…

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REVIEW: The Peanuts Movie [2015]

“Good grief” It’s been at least a decade since I saw anything Peanuts related so saying that Steve Martino‘s The Peanuts Movie felt like old times has to be the best compliment I can bestow. The story itself doesn’t have the type of classic longevity of its predecessors—A Charlie Brown Christmas or It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown—but it does possess the heart necessary to imprint on a new generation of children so parents can retrieve those past adventures as fresh lessons in being kind, generous, and an all-around friend.…

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