“Sing it, Lionel” Always playing third fiddle to the powerhouses of Pixar and Dreamworks, Sony Pictures’ Blue Sky Studios has held their own with the Ice Age franchise and a couple supporters. Their newest endeavor, Rio, looks to try and recreate a bit of the magic from their competitor’s Madagascar, setting the tale in an [...]

“Is my thinking interrupting your vile hacking?” I think Grouchy says it best during goodbyes with his human counterparts in The Smurfs. “I hated it so much … less than expected.” He then caps it off with, “but I did hate it”, sentiments I assumed I’d share before sitting down at my screening and was [...]

“Ain’t no one gonna tango with the Rango” Director Gore Verbinski knows star Johnny Depp’s penchant for fast-talk rambling only too well. After helming the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, he decided to take an odd turn into animation with the PG-rated Rango, taking his lead with him for the journey. Using a quasi-motion [...]

“He who has attained his goal” This year’s New York Asian Film Festival was graced with the North American premiere of a film almost three decades in the making. The critically acclaimed and three-time Eisner Award winning manga, Buddha, from Osamu Tezuka, the “Godfather of Anime”, has been given the big screen treatment from animation [...]

“I vant to siphon your gas” Being that I was not in what appeared to be a vast majority of people who thought Cars was ‘lesser’ Pixar, I can’t say I was too surprised to find I was on the outside of the even bigger group of critics who trashed Cars 2 as a sequel [...]

“I just zip and unzip. I don’t fly.” Upon seeing Buzz and Woody onscreen for the Pixar short playing before Cars 2, my first feeling was disappointment. These abbreviated tales are sometimes the highlight of going to a family friendly animated film, generally heartfelt and funny in a minimal span of time to get audiences [...]

“He must be doing cosplay. He’s dressed like the wanted poster.” And like most anime/manga I have the pleasure of seeing in film form, I’m still scratching my head over Gekijouban Trigun: Badlands Rumble. A new iteration on characters created in the mid-90s and brought to television in 1998, it’s over a decade later and [...]

“Tell those musicians to play some action music because it is on” The phrase sophomore slump wasn’t just coined out of the blue; it is a very real description for a good number of sequels overall, but especially the realm of cinema. Very few follow-ups to praised work ever earn a place to be mentioned [...]

“See you later. Enjoy your life of privilege.” What do you get when you mix Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory with The Santa Clause? Why another redundant holiday flick to tickle the kiddies and leave Mom and Dad clueless to the appeal, of course. Between the coronation of a new Easter Bunny, the betrothed [...]