Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022) - A Unique and Mesmerizing Animated Film

Maybe I was a bit hard on 2022's line-up of Animated Movies. To be honest, going through this year, what feels like an absolute dry spell for animated cinema, it has me looking back at the previous year, kind of with rose-tinted glasses. I'm looking back at movies like The Bad Guys and even Lightyear, and just thinking about the stuff I liked, kind of wishing that something new will come in 2023. We've had a fair selection of movies, to be fair, but it really seemed like 2022 was just this big explosion of animated experiments in cinema, stuff that we haven't seen before, and will probably never see again. It kind of makes sense, considering the major events happening in 2020 and 2021, but it does seem like 2022 had a particularly bad swing, but still ran a home run, if that metaphor makes any sense. It should have been evident what kind of year 2022 was going to be, when the first selection of animated films were released, The House, Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wilde, Turning Red and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.

Apollo 10½, at it's core, is a look back at life in the 1960s, and what it was like for a kid to grow up there, specifically in the Houston area in the late sixties, during the turmoil of the war, political unrest and the conflict with the Soviets. This movie follows two major perspectives at this time, a child's perspective of being surrounded by the excitement of the space race, and being in the middle of such a culturally significant time, and a fantastical, pseudo-alternate history story of a young boy being enlisted in a space program to head to the moon in a rocket that was accidentally made to small for the Apollo 11 mission. The mix of reality and fiction lends itself to a very fascinating movie, with the nostalgia of the sixties being front and centre. Now, I am not a sixties kid, I stated in my last post I just turned 25, so I'm really more a 2000s kid. However, I myself am feeling a bit nostalgic for the 2000s era. I'm remembering it a lot as the era of massive movies, engaging television, and video games galore. I imagine if I did some nostalgic look back at the 2000s, it would probably be akin to how this movie does it.

And I mean that in more than one way, because this movie does not romanticize or sugar coat the sixties that much. It was a tumultuous era, it was full of issues and practices that would not fly today, dangerous games, no massive concern over safety, they do not hide the fact that this era had its ups and downs. It's not like when Disney looks back at what he was nostalgic about, it is very upfront about the kind of things that went on in the late sixties, and all from a child's perspective. It can feel a bit like hand-waving or giving lip service to these awful things, but honestly the movie itself puts it best, when you're a kid, the bad stuff usually seems to be confined to the television. It isn't really a celebration, nor is it condemnation, it is just the era, and I love that.

The acting is top notch, Milo Coy, the actor for the main character, did an excellent job, and of course, Jack Black was always great as the narrator and older version of the lead. There is also a good mix of familiar names, and lesser known names, which is always nice. That being said, some of the sound mixing was a bit wrong. There were times the narration was drowned out by a loud sound that probably should have been in the back, like I get they wanted to emphasize how loud the sound was, but I feel like there was some way you could do that without getting in the way of the narration.

Where the movie shines the most though is the animation. Richard Linklater has done animated films before in the past. He usually makes experimental, rotoscoped animation. Rotoscoping is a form of animation where you draw over what is already filmed, like animating a filmed person or animal and making them something else. Ralph Bakshi did this for the 1970s Lord of the Rings movie I previously reviewed, but if you want good rotoscoping, that is of high quality throughout the entire movie, this is a good movie to check out. They don't just do the lazy thing and only animated the characters, when everyone is watching a movie they also go over that with a bit of rotoscoping, so it looks like part of the universe and not completely out of place. Linklater also did Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, both movies I want to check out some day, if this movie is any indication, I think those films will be worth checking out.

Apollo 10½, is a truly remarkable movie. I think this should have been the point where we knew that 2022 was going to be an interesting year for animated movies, maybe not a good year, but an interesting one regardless. It's kind of a shame I didn't get around to doing a First Impressions on it. I ranked this movie as Number 3 on my list of the best animated movies of 2022, which, honestly may have been a bit generous, I would definitely say that The Sea Beast is a better movie, and since I have to put Puss in Boots: The Last Wish on that list now, I'd probably rank this at Number 5 currently. Still, it is a really good movie, with wonderful visuals, a nostalgic feel and some excellent acting. It really is something special, and I give it a solid recommendation. I don't think it will be a lot of people's favourite movie, but it is one that will stick in your mind.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - A Charming Film if a Little Rudimentary

2023 is a bit of a milestone year for me, because as of July 2nd, 2023, I am now twenty-five years old. Old enough to be justified in having a quarter life crisis. Being serious, it's kind of amazing that twenty-five full years have passed, it's weird to think about time, how it passes and effects us, and twenty-five is kind of a big year for me. As it happens, 2023 is also a milestone year for The Walt Disney Company, officially founded on October 16th, 1923, The Walt Disney Company turns 100 years old this year. It's really not everyday you see such a major company and part of pop culture become one-hundred, and to celebrate both milestones, let's go way back. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was not the first animated feature ever made, nor is it the oldest surviving, but it was Walt Disney's first original feature length production, it is one of the most important feature films ever made, and I thought, to commemorate 25 years of me and 100 years of Disney, why not take a look at it.

Snow White is the iconic Disney fairy-tale, literally it is the one that started it all. Snow White is the classic story of the princess whose wicked step-mother wants to kill her out of jealousy, sending a huntsman to do the job, only for him to spare the princess and send her into the forest, where she comes across the home of the Seven Dwarfs. It is your standard fairy-tale, no real bells or whistles, and as a basic story it is done rather well. There are a lot of scenes that don't really serve a lot of purpose, and could be cut, but the team was smart enough to tie these scenes with musical numbers, I mean we don't need to see Snow White and the forest animals cleaning up the Dwarfs' house, but tie it into a song number and it works. I think a lot of people may have issue with how basic the story is, it does leave a lot open for questioning, specifically the ending, but I can let it slide because... well it is a fairy-tale, and fairy-tales are simple stories at their core. I dunno, if you can suspend your disbelief that Snow White can communicate perfectly with animals but not that the Prince can show up to break the sleeping death spell, I don't know what to tell you.

Some might also take issue with the simple characters, well, two of them anyway. Everyone loves The Dwarfs, their charming personalities and character traits also being their names is what everyone remembers most, and everyone also loves The Queen, her design prior to the peddler disguise is brilliant and of course the actual disguise itself and how she acts while disguised are iconic to everyone. The big point of contention for people would be Snow White and the Prince, and honestly, I don't really agree. Snow White is a better character than I think a lot of people realize, like yeah, she does become something of a mother to the Dwarfs, but she's also playful and does have her stern and serious moments as well as her teasing moments. As for The Prince, while it would be nice to have seen more of him, ultimately this movie is called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, this story is about them. It harkens back to what I said about The Little Bear Movie, somethings don't need to be deep and complex, what is enough is enough, and though simple this story and characters may be, I think they're enough.

Part of that is simply because this movie gets by a lot on charm, Snow White is just a charming and wonderful character, I don't care that she isn't as deep and complex as Scrooge McDuck or Agent Carolina from Red vs Blue, I'd love to just spend an afternoon picking flowers with this person. Likewise, the songs are all charming, I mean they aren't all fantastic, but Someday My Prince Will Come, Heigh Ho, The Silly Song, honestly no Disney song list is complete without at least one of these, they're just so charming and fun that I can't really help but find myself humming some of these songs on occasion.

There is however, one view of this movie I can respect, the people who don't watch this movie as a movie, but more as a piece of history. That is something I can get, because yeah, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that this is one of the greatest animated movies of all time, I say it up front, it's an animated movie in a basic form, and while I say this wasn't the first animated movie ever made, feature length animation isn't actually that much older than this. Snow White is only about twenty years or so off from El Apóstol which is often cited as the first feature length animated film ever made, sadly that film is completely lost. However, it's always important to have some understanding and respect for the past, we shouldn't be living in the past completely, but we should not be afraid to look back and learn. Ultimately, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a good movie, and I do think it is one of those movies that anyone, cinephile, animation lover or media historian, needs to watch at least once. As a movie, I'm going to say I recommend this one, not highly, but more than slightly. It's an important piece of film history, and even if you aren't a fan of it, it's worth seeing at least once.

First Impressions: Nimona (2023)

 

Well this is a movie that I never thought I'd really get to see. All the way back in 2021, it was announced that the film adaptation of ND Stevenson's graphic novel, Nimona, was being shelved after the closing down of Blue Sky Studios. It was speculated, and I think pretty much confirmed, that Disney cancelling the project had something to do with it's heavy focus on LGBTQIA+ characters, which I did hint at in my previous blog about it's cancellation, and lots of people began to believe after it was revealed that Disney CEO Bob Chapek had funded the Censorship Bill in Florida. So, when it was announced that Netflix was picking the movie back up, everyone who was excited for the movie was thrilled, though I did have some minor reservations... who am I kidding, I was hyped.

Netflix, for all the crap I give it, does take a chance on a lot of their Netflix Original movies, which was very evident in 2022 with the release of so many weird, unique and fascinating movies that were all really good. It actually gave me a lot of hope for Nimona, and quite frankly, I've got to be one hundred percent completely honest with you... you aren't buying this build-up are you? Yeah, this movie was really good! Like, really good, so good I want to break my no swearing rule, it was that good.

To be fair, it isn't the graphic novel, which... you know, that seems obvious, it's a movie, but in the sense that this is almost completely different from the original book. I can't help but bring up Coraline again, another movie that I felt wasn't much the book, but why did I like Nimona instead? Well, at its core, Nimona is still Nimona, the themes and characters are still relatively the same, whereas Coraline's theme was portrayed differently between the book and film, which I think changed exactly what the main idea was. What is the theme behind the Graphic Novel? That villains can be disguised as heroes, and what is the theme of the movie adaptation? Relatively the same thing, at least that's the theme I got out of the book. At it's core, Coraline was just different enough to bother me, while Nimona was just similar enough to not bother me, if that makes sense.

That being said, there are omissions from the book I do miss, like that scientist character that Ballister met at the convention, it was a big character thing for him to actually have a new friend after becoming the villain. Also apparently they changed his last name to Boldheart, which I think does kind of muddy the theme a little it, the entire point was that he was meant to appear as the stereotypical villain, right down to his name being Blackheart. I'm a little indifferent to the change of the climax, it is nicer that on some level Nimona is still in control of herself, and it was very heart-wrenching to watch, but at the same time, giant monster movie destruction is always going to be missed. I also kind of missed a lot of the medieval touches in the book, but it does kind of fit. The book was so medieval that future technology seemed out of place, while the movie was so future that medieval stuff seemed out of place.

To be absolutely fair, there is some differences from the book I did like. For starters, the gay subtext between Ballister and Ambrosius is now officially context, yep, they are one-hundred percent gay in the movie and I love it. They are not shy about it either,  right from the introduction of these two, you can tell they are absolutely in love. Plus, it really does feel like they did simplify a lot of the graphic novel, and for good reason. Like Nimona's backstory is different, but it works and her having a defined backstory is nice, where in the graphic novel we did have to infer a lot. Also, their plan in the graphic novel was a bit complex, so it's nice that the movie has a simpler plan that gives us more time for Ballister and Nimona to interact.

And yes, let's talk about Nimona the character, because she is fantastic. Nimona still does have some LGBTQIA+ and Non-Binary aspects about her character, but something else I picked up was some autistic aspects. The way she describes Shapeshifting, it kind of sounded very similar to stimming, and honestly, I really do think that was intentional. On top of that, Nimona was still the same spunky and energetic character, and her silly side is always on display. Seeing her when she's hurt is genuinely hurting, and when she's having fun, I'm having fun alongside her. Nimona has translated very well into film and animation, and may actually be one of my favourite characters in both literature and cinema, maybe the first character to be both.

Nimona was really good, I think this is in the running for best animated movie of the year. I mean, the only other candidate is Suzume, and honestly, I think it's gonna be a close call. We'll see how the rest of the year turns out, but I'm calling it right now, Nimona is gonna rank very high on my list of the best animated movies of 2023. It was fun, thrilling, genuinely heartbreaking, a solid enough adaptation, and honestly, it's just so good to have this movie out finally. Nimona really needs to be seen, watch it, immediately. Honestly, I do kinda hate that it isn't a Disney film, because I would have loved to see this in theatres, but then again... Disney might not have let this movie be this movie, so I'm happy to sacrifice a theatre experience for a movie as good as this.

Also, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone at Blue Sky, who put a lot of effort into this movie before they were unceremoniously shut down, and thank you to everyone who brought this film back and worked hard to make it such an amazing film. Thank you all, for everything.