Wallace & Gromit: Where Vengeance Succeeds and Were-Rabbit Fails

I have said it before, I am a huge fan of Wallace & Gromit. They were an instrumental part in shaping my love for animation. As a kid, you really enjoy the slapstick and goofy gags, but as an adult, you really do appreciate the cinematography and the writing, as well as the slapstick and goofy gags. So I, like many fans of the Claymation duo, was pretty excited to see that they were not only getting a new feature film, but there would also be a returning villain from the shorts. True, I did have some reservations, avoiding the trailers meant that I was not going to have an opinion on Ben Whitehead until I actually watched the movie, and, y'know there is always that bit of hesitation when a movie for an old I.P. is announced, like that voice in the back of your mind that keeps saying "They better not have messed this up, they better not have messed this up!" and it's always there at the back of your mind. So, with all that said, what did I think of the new Wallace & Gromit movie, "Vengeance Most Fowl"?

I think it's better than Curse of the Were-Rabbit to be honest. Curse of the Were-Rabbit was not bad, but it did have a few shortcomings that really kept me from fully loving it. While I don't fully love Vengeance either, I think with a few more watches I might grow to.

First thing I want to talk about is the movie on its own merits, because I do want to discuss why I think it's good on it's own before I compare it to the previous movie. Vengeance Most Fowl is almost like a love letter to Wallace & Gromit fans in places, lots of small references like Feathers McGraw clicking on the Moon for a Captcha asking about cheese, because the moon is canonically cheese in the Wallace & Gromit universe, or even the farmer from Shaun the Sheep cameoing, they're all really cute nods that aren't intrusive to newcomers. They are exactly as a nod to fans should be, something cute that fans will chuckle at without constantly winking to the audience. On top of that, I do think Ben Whitehead did a good job replacing the late Peter Sallis, I mean he did so in the Tell-Tale games, which I haven't played that much of, but I think he did a really good job in the movie. Plus, the cinematography of this movie, Feathers McGraw was the perfect antagonist to bring back because the camera and lighting work perfectly to make this adorable little penguin one of the most intimidating villains on screen, which is a joke in and of itself. Plus, I really like the diversity of the movie, they don't bring major attention to the fact that Wallace has an Indian neighbour, or that the new police character is also likely Indian or Arab, it just is a thing that is accepted, and that's great.

So, why do I think it's better than Curse of the Were-Rabbit? Well first off, my biggest problem with Were-Rabbit was that, when the third act rolled around, it wasn't as fun as the first two acts, and I believe that is largely because in act three, Wallace & Gromit became just Gromit. Gromit is a fantastic character, don't get me wrong, but a lot of the entertainment and comedy from Gromit comes from his interactions with other characters, and Gromit didn't really interact that much with others in most of Act Three of Were-Rabbit. Here, Gromit is very rarely far from a character to interact with, Wallace, Feathers, even the new Gnome Robot gets some good scenes with him. The scene where Gromit is spying on Feathers as he escapes the zoo, only for Feathers to look his way and wave him off, that was really good.

On the topic of Feathers, yeah, there is a reason he is one of most beloved characters in the Wallace & Gromit franchise, the immediate joke of such an adorable little penguin being treated as such an intimidating presence is, on its own incredibly hilarious. This movie really ups that joke with great camera work and character animation. Matt Groening, in A Grand Night In: The Story of Aardman, called the introduction of Feather McGraw in The Wrong Trousers "Hitchcockian" even noting a specific scene that he has always wanted to ape from The Simpsons. Just imagine, all that admiration from a thirty-minute short film. I can see an argument being made that it's a lot more heavy handed now, where as there was a simple elegance to the introduction in The Wrong Trousers, but I think that it fits. Again, the joke is just so fantastic, there are genuine moments that I was laughing because of how well they played their cards in making this penguin an intimidating menace.

Speaking of the visuals, I kind of prefer the look of this movie to Were-Rabbit too. It looked fantastic, don't get me wrong, but there is just something about Vengeance's animation that vibes with me better. It genuinely felt like perfect middle ground between the original short films and feature length polish, I don't know how to explain it. I think the only nitpick I have with the animation is this very obviously CG explosion at the end of the climax, which looked rather out of place and uncanny. I get why they did it though, it was undoubtedly much easier, possibly cheaper, to do it in CG than to do it all in Claymation, but it just didn't mesh. Still, that is like, the one nitpick of this movie's visual look, the movie looks fantastic, polished and just as charming as the original short films.

I don't want this blog to come off as "Now that this movie is out, Curse of the Were-Rabbit is no longer worth watching" because that simply isn't true. Were-Rabbit is still a really good movie, it just had a few shortcomings that I think Vengeance Most Fowl managed to evade. Both movies are still really good, but if I had to pick which one was better, I would have to pick Vengeance Most Fowl. I feel like Were-Rabbit tried to be a lot bigger than it needed to, while this one was just as big as it needed to be. Still, I must recommend watching the original short films first, just to get a good feel of what Wallace & Gromit is. I still think A Grand Day Out and The Wrong Trousers are the peak of Wallace & Gromit, but I'll admit, this one comes pretty close.

Heaven and Earth Magic (AKA Number 12, AKA The Magic Feature) (1962) - The Weirdest Animated Feature Ever

 

What is the weirdest movie you have ever seen? Not even animated, just straight up the most bizarre, come up with a list is that would help, but I want you to think of the weirdest movies you have ever seen. I'll be honest, my taste in cinema has been pretty... normal is kind of the right word, like if you look at my favourite movies, even the weirdest ones are still pretty normal, nothing to artsy on my list. I have looked at weirder movies before, but nothing that was explicitly an "Avant-garde" movie. Some of the weirder movies I've watched have been more difficult to review than others, and the closest thing I have reviewed to an "art film" would probably be Fantasia. Heaven and Earth Magic is going to be the toughest movie I have ever had to review, because it is, first and fore-most, an art film, and that makes it tricky to review in any normal sense of the word. I'm always up for a writing challenge, so let's see what I can do with this one.

So what is Heaven and Earth Magic? It is an avant-garde independent feature created with cutout animation. There isn't much of an identifiable plot here, but there is one apparently. Director Harry Everett Smith describes something of a sequence of events, but really, none of that really matters. There's something about a watermelon and a dog, a woman and then a skeleton and just a bunch of random things put together that somewhat loosely transition into each other, which is more like things appear and disappear as the scene morphs into another. A lot of what happens reminds me of those animated sequences in Monty Python's Flying Circus, I really would not be surprised if Terry Gilliam took heavy inspiration from this movie.

The cutout animation is very interesting, a lot of it also reminds me of Jan Švankmajer's work. Somethings move smoothly, others move much more choppily, and it's not really that distracting. I think the only complaint I have about the visual style is that sometimes it is very difficult to really see what is going on. I don't know if it's the camera or what background was used or the images he chose, but the dark areas are too dark and can lead to some of the images becoming blended with the solid black background. This movie is also in black and white, and I always confuse it for a movie from the 1950s, not that black and white cinema completely died out in the 1960s, but it's around here that I start believing that black and white becomes more of a choice for directors rather than what was most common, I dunno this movie's look just gives me vibes of the 1950s, but I guess that says more about me than this movie.

The audio is a mix of sound effects, bell rings, idle banter, animal noises, dripping sounds, sloshing noises, carnival barking, there's no real spoken dialogue. This isn't as egregious as something like... Revolution 9 by The Beatles, the most uncomfortable musical experience I've ever had, but I can see how it might make some viewers uneasy. I don't think it's too overly stimulating though, like I would mostly have to pause the movie more because of just how weird this movie is, not really how much noise was happening. It's not at the same level as the Raggedy Ann and Andy Movie, but depending on your noise sensitivity, what noises specifically overstimulate you, or just how well you handle random noises with no real rhythm, it may be a bit much. I'd recommend watching the first few minutes, seeing how you handle it and continuing from there if you're up for it. I wasn't too over-stimulated by this movie, but I am aware I don't speak for everyone.

I have always been of the belief that art is, more than anything else, a form of communication. Sometimes that thing your saying can be as simple as "The sky is pretty at night", or maybe it's complex. I do have to wonder what the purpose of Heaven and Earth Magic really is. Is it just an experiment in the odd and bizarre? Does it say something about cinema or animation? The movie wasn't even initially titled "Heaven and Earth Magic", so what is the title in reference too? Sadly, Harry Smith passed away in 1991 and the person who gave the movie it's more known title, Jonas Mekas, passed away in 2019, but the truth is we probably wouldn't get straight answers from them anyway. This is definitely a great movie to speculate about, but is it a good movie in and of itself?

The problem with art films is that they are made for a very specific audience, i.e. not your average movie goer. So they can be a fun little adventure for some people to take off the beat and path, but for most people it's only going to that, something different. I am not into art film, again my whole view of art is that it is a form of communication, but I can't say this movie is "bad", not because I really like it, but more because it kind of defies labels of quality. I really do have to wonder how much this influenced animators like Terry Gilliam or Jan Švankmajer, like this had to have been influential in its own little sphere, your favourite animator's favourite animation sort of. So, I guess I have to fall back on my standards of "Do I like it?" and "Do I Recommend it?". In answer to the first question... I guess? This isn't a Ruby Gillman situation where I want to like it but can't help but be critical of it, it's more of a "This isn't my cup of tea so I don't even know how I feel about it". That being said, at no point did I ever want to turn this movie off out of boredom or disdain, it was more of a "I reached my limit for this type of thing and need a break", which does also sort of answer the second question.

This is another movie I have to give a Slight Recommendation to under the condition that I know it will not be for everyone, granted it's only just over an hour in run-time so if you can stomach weird art-film stuff, it's not too long, and if it sounds like something you'd be interested it, you can find a copy on YouTube or their might be a DVD available somewhere, though the Harry Smith Archives site priced it at fifty dollars so maybe stick yo YouTube. To be fair, the movie is also in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, and for what it's worth, I will definitely never forget about this movie, so I guess I do have to recommend it on some level, but only slightly.

El Apóstol; The First Animated Feature and What It Could Have Been Like to Watch It

 

The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving animated feature, however, animated cinema has existed for an entire decade before. In 1917, Argentine animator Quirino Cristiani put together El Apóstol, or The Apostle, released in Buenos Aires on November 9th, the film was a political satire that featured the Argentine President of the time Hipólito Yrigoyen, and it was well received by critics at the time. It had  some controversy, and the film was made with cutout animation. The movie is also completely lost, as most of Cristiani's work was destroyed in two separate fires, with El Apóstol being destroyed in a 1926 fire at the studio of the film's producer, Federico Valle. Lost media is truly fascinating, because you have to use your imagination to really figure out what it could be like, so I thought it would be fun to imagine, take some guess work, speculate even.

The big thing that needs to kept in mind is that, this movie is directly influenced by Argentine history, or Argentine Current Events at the time. So in order to really guess at what this movie could have been like, I have to answer a few questions; Who was Hipólito Yrigoyen? And the most important one, what is the plot of this movie? I'll be honest, Argentinian history is not entirely my forte, I don't even know which things I should refer to as Argentine or Argentinian, needless to say I am a bit out of my depth here, but I wanted to speculate and talk about lost media and animation history, so that's what I'll be doing now.

So, first question; Who was Hipólito Yrigoyen?

Hipólito Yrigoyen, was the two-time president of Argentina, serving from 1916 until 1922, and then again in 1928 and 1930. He was of the Radical Civic Union, or Unión Cívica Radical, which is a Centrist and Liberal political party in Argentina. Yrigoyen was first to be elected under the Sáenz Peña Law, which guaranteed secret and compulsory voting. He was also a nationalist president, convinced that Argentina had to have control of it's transportation, energy and oil, as well has manage its own currency. He also decided to keep Argentina out of World War I and was nicknamed Peludo, which translates of "Furry" or "Armadillo"? Someone correct me on that. Things didn't entirely go well as his second term ended in a military coup in the September Revolution, which was mostly started when the Yrigoyen government took power from the legislature and cut off support for the Conservative, and this lead to what is called the "Infamous Decade", why does world history have to be so messy and problematic? Okay, I think I'm making this more complicated than I should be, to put it basically, Yrigoyen was the leader of the Radical Party in Argentina, and was outed in his second term in 1930.

With that context, what is the plot of El Apóstol?

So I am basically going to be reading the plot summary off of Wikipedia here, I would have loved to read the books Wikipedia cited, those would be Giannalberto Bendazzi's 1995 book "Cartoons: One Hundred Years of Cinema Animation" and his 2017 book "Twice the First - Quirino Cristiani and the Animated Feature Film", however I am unable to read or acquire either book at the moment. I do apologize for this, I would love to do a more thorough detailing of this topic, because it deserves proper detailing, but I have limits, and a lot of that is budget and availability. I won't quote Wikipedia word for word, but I'm going to be fully transparent here. Maybe I'll rewrite this if I get a chance to read those books.

Anyway, as said before, El Apóstol is a satire based on Hipólito Yrigoyen, dubbed "El Peludo", where he has a dream about speaking with the gods of Olympus and using Zeus' lightning bolt to destroy Buenos Aires, cleansing it of immorality and corruption. I imagine this would have been a very dialogue heavy movie, because I skipped over a bit of stuff, but the gist is there. So this begs the question, what is the movie really saying?

I think this is where my limited resources can bite me in the butt here, because the small Wikipedia summary only gives me that, the summary. I have to wonder if the movie is portraying Yrigoyen as having delusions of grandeur or as being reckless and careless, maybe both? Maybe it's saying that his goals are only possible in his dreams, or that he will end up destroying Argentina? I think the only way I could really know for certain is if I saw it in Argentina at the time.

That brings me to my ultimate conclusion, I don't think I would like El Apóstol if I saw it today. There is a certain disconnect between me and Argentinian politics and history that I feel would really keep me from understanding this movie. It kind of reflects my views on Momotaro, which my affection for was entirely based around its historical significance, rather than it being a great, or even a good movie. Momotaro was also propaganda that reflected the views and political scene at the time, and likewise there is a pretty decent disconnect between then and now, and I believe there is probably a bigger disconnect between American audiences and Argentina than there is with Japan.

Should El Apóstol be found? Well I think it's unlikely it will be found, the only known copy of the movie was destroyed in a fire in the 1920s, but if there is a chance, I do think it is worth uncovering, again for the historical significance more than anything else. That being said, I can't help but think that maybe it's not a bad thing we can't watch this movie. It's practically mythology at this point, and seeing the reality would probably destroy a lot of that. I can't imagine this movie is something that would really resonate with modern audiences, either outside of or within Argentina, but at the same time it would give us a look at animation history and Argentinian history, so maybe it would have some value at the end of the day.

This was a big effort for me, and I can't say I'm super satisfied with the end result, but I got to stop working on it at some point, or I'll just keep working on it until I die. If I get the opportunity I'll probably revisit this topic in the future, but right now, I hope I spread a little knowledge about animation history, and I can safely say, I will never do a blog like this again.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) - An Oldie, but Absolutely a Goldie

 

You know, it seems rather fitting to do a review of this movie, after all Lotte Reiniger was one of the recent recipients of the Winsor McCay Awards at the Annie Awards. Beyond that however, animation history has always fascinated me, and there was one aspect that I have always wanted to talk about. The Adventures of Prince Achmed is the oldest surviving animated feature film, it is not the first animated feature film, but as of today, it is the oldest surviving. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs gets a lot of credit, but by nearly ten years, Prince Achmed has the lead over Disney. It's a movie that has been overlooked by most animation fans, in fact, the only animation reviewers I know of that have made videos about this movie are AniMat and Anim8Ball, so those who are more into animation history will know of this movie, but like with most other movies of similar significance, I have to ask, is it worth watching beyond the historical aspect?

So, a couple things of note before I get into the review proper, as the 1926 release year would suggest, this is a silent film. Silent films have a different pace to them than talkies do and they can be quite jarring for modern audiences, what also doesn't help is that because the movie is possibly Public Domain in the United States (Question Mark), you can find different prints online, including some that aren't translated, the one I watched for this review was uploaded by the channel Enhanced Cinema, but there is a translated version available from the channel Rueda Books & Arts, both of them are available for viewing in HD quality, though I'm not sure which is flipped properly. Before anyone asks, no the Enhanced Cinema upload does not have the translation in the Closed Captions.

The story is a loose adaptation of the One Thousand and One Nights stories, particularly, "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perī-Bānū", "The Ebony Horse", and "Aladdin". An African Sorcerer creates a flying horse and shows it to the Caliph on a celebration, and offers it in exchange for the Caliph's daughter, the princess Dinarsade. However, Prince Achmed objects to this, and the Sorcerer tricks him onto the horse and sends him away, where he lands on the magical island of Wak Wak and meets the Fairy Pari Banu. I would go on, but to describe the plot is to basically describe what happens in the entire movie. As someone who is partly familiar with silent cinema, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "The Phantom of the Opera" are two of my favourite movies of all time, they are quite different from modern cinema, but the plot is very well done here. If you are familiar with silent cinema, this shouldn't be to out of the ordinary for you, but if you are a newcomer, I can think of more jarring films to watch.

The animation of this movie is incredible. The animation style is Silhouette animation, which is pretty much stop motion with shadow puppets. Despite this, or maybe even because of this, the characters are distinct and well detailed, and while there are some choppy movements, I feel like that was an artistic choice to represent something specific, like speed or something, because the rest of the motion in the movie is very fluid. You can almost see some of the foundations of what would become the Twelve Principles of Animation, and there is even some really great depth in this movie. Reiniger used a very early form the the Multiplane Camera for this movie, and it looks spectacular. While Disney and his crew really mastered the Multiplane Camera, it's very clear that the instrument was already well used at the start. Plus, you also get a lot of effects made from wax, which offers some visual distinction from everything else, in fact I'm sure there were other materials used to create different effects in the movie, like the Genie from the lamp, who looks like they were drawn in with chalk to create that otherworld ghostly effect. I think the shadow puppet style works in favour of the film, as the plot is not unlike the old tales that would have been told through shadow puppetry.

With all this talk about the plot and animation, you may be wondering about the characters, and the truth is that the characters are pretty basic. Not that they're bad, especially Prince Achmed who is an identifiable and likeable character, but they don't get a whole lot of depth or nuance, and that is fine. Not every story needs a really deep character, not every story needs a Zuko. It's really weird to me that more basic characterization is stigmatized, especially in early cinema. I mean, it's great that we have nuanced looks at different characters, but at the core, this movie is a fairy-tale, a simpler story. So I don't see the basic characters as knock against the movie. We have our hero, our villain, our sidekick, our damsel, our mystical ally, it all works, and I do want to see these heroes succeed, the ending climactic battle was a very tense and exciting moment, and I wouldn't have been invested if the characters were bad. They're basic characters, but not bland or bad characters.

I am really glad I decided to give this movie a watch. The Adventures of Prince Achmed is a marvelous feat of animation and it holds up really well. Sure, if you're not into silent cinema, you might not get into this movie as much, but if you can respect a well done story with well done characters and fantastic animation and effects that helped shaped the history of animation, I would definitely give this movie a watch. Plus, even if you're not that into it, it's only just over an hour long. I can think of movies that are similar to this that came out much later that haven't held up quite as well (Cough Sleeping Beauty Cough), and you really do have to give some respect to this movie. It is the oldest surviving animated feature, just a shame we can't see the first ever animated feature... wouldn't that be something? Anyway, The Adventures of Prince Achmed is absolutely a fine piece of animated cinema, and Lotte Reiniger definitely deserved that Winsor McCay award, though honestly, she probably deserved it much sooner. I can absolutely give this a Recommendation.

Editorial: Ten Bad Posters for Animated Movies

Movie posters really don't get that much credit. The movie poster is another form of advertisement for a movie, and unlike a trailer it has to give you a feel for the movie in one image. So while it is absolutely nice to see some posters get an extra amount of effort and care put into making them look nice, representitive and appealing, it's also really funny to see when that just straight up did not happen. So, yeah, today I'm looking at posters for animated movies that ultimately just don't really work. Why? Because I've always been of the belief that knowing why something doesn't work is just as important as to knowing why something does. When you look at bad art and know why you don't like it, you can incorporate that into your own art. So, let's see what we can learn from these ten examples of pretty mediocre and lame attempts at advertising.

I really want to stress this is not a ranked list, just a list of examples.

10. Kung Fu Panda 2

You know, I can forgive the first Kung Fu Panda movie for having a silly poster because, yeah, let's be real it sounds like a silly movie and that was probably why people were interested in it. It's just that beneath the surface of the silly Kung Fu movie for kids, was actually a very deep movie. So, Kung Fu Panda 2 comes out, and what poster do we get? Something that literally screams "We're the exact same thing the last movie was". In fact, it may actually be worse than that because ultimately, since the depth and nuance of the last movie was a bit of a surprise to people, now it seems like this movie is going to have even less of that, because just look at it, if this poster doesn't scream "The same but less" than I don't know what does.

9. Horton Hears a Who

You know, DreamWorks face barely works for DreamWorks movie posters, it works even less for what amounts to a lesser Pixar/DreamWorks movie studio. No offense to Blue Sky, but they did not have the best filmography before they were shut down. Anyway, this poster is hilarious, like change the title to "Harold and the Elephant" and you have a movie about a man who is having a psychotic episode trying to escape an imaginary elephant who is also a sex offender. Look, I'm just saying, making faces like that while behind someone is not something you do unless you're thinking about slithering in-between that person's buns.

8. Princess Mononoke

What does a movie about the war between man and nature and a looming threat of a dark entity really need to sell itself? A woman riding on the back of a wolf, that's what! Okay, truthfully, I can see this being appealing, like someone might look at this poster and think, "Wow, who is this badass riding the back of a large wolf?" and on that level, I can see this poster being good, but again, a poster needs to be some kind of representation of the movie itself, and I'm fairly certain that there's something a lot deeper in this movie than a woman riding on the back of a wolf.

7. Kubo and the Two Strings

You know, DreamWorks face barely works for DreamWorks movie posters, it works even less for... Actually I think the biggest issue with this one is that it just looks like a very generic action movie.

6. Zootopia

Ah yes, Zootopia... Zootropolis. Crowded shots for movie posters are usually a bad idea, but at least they have the main characters as the most prominent in them. In this poster, Nick and Judy are shoved off into the side, not even in the front, they're behind two random characters. This crowded shot does make this place feel like a big city, but this look like a poster for a slice-of-life film, not a comedic mystery. Even then, this poster doesn't really make me want to explore the Zootopia world, it makes me remember why city life kinda sucks, overcrowded and noisy.

5. Missing Link

There is an awful trend of DVD covers just being close-ups of a character's face, it honestly kinda looks like Laika was just gonna cut out the middle man by making this the poster so they could make an easy DVD cover with minimal editing. On the bright side, the actual DVD covers are a step-up from this.

4. Tangled

Well this looks like the most generic adventure Disney has ever given us. We got a movie about Rapunzel, so why not have a poster that focuses on her long hair? Maybe her climbing out of the tower? Maybe her tying up the other characters? There is another poster with her and Flynn and the lantern festival thing, that was a beautiful poster, so why is this the poster I will see in most places? It just... looks so generic and bland.

3. Ratatouille

This is kind of the Kung Fu Panda principle, where it looks like they're making a silly poster to advertise what is in actuality a much deeper movie. One thing though, this is Pixar, you know, Toy Story Pixar, Incredibles Pixar, A Bug's Life Pixar, silly movies with depth is kind of their bread and butter, so why not instead of a poster that is essentially just "You're probably wondering how I got here" as a still image, why not have a shot of Paris? Remy looking over the beautiful night sky in Paris with his idol's restaurant in the distance? Why go in this direction?

2. Kiki's Delivery Service

Okay, we got a movie about a witch who is trying to adapt to life in a small Japanese town, what is the best image to advertise this movie with? I know! Kiki slumping over the counter of a bakery. Thankfully other posters had the right idea and used an image of Kiki flying over a city, which is definitely a better image. I dunno, I know this is a more slice of life movie, and it's based on a slice of life book (Which is actually a really good book by the way), but I just look at this poster and think, "So this girl delivers bread, wow...".

1. Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken

I... really should not count this one since, as of writing this, this movie isn't even out yet, but my immediate reaction to seeing this poster was, "Oh gosh, that is bad". It is simultaneously too much, and yet too little at the same time. There's a big battle going above, and a character just chilling out below, I mean, what? It really does appear that DreamWorks has no idea how to market this movie, because nobody really knows exactly what it's about, and this poster really doesn't help, hopefully the movie will be good, but this is easily one of the worst movie posters I've seen.

The movie poster is an important part of the movie going experience, they are often one of the first images we see of the newest movies, and in and of themselves are works of art. There are so many movie posters out there that are as enticing as the movie trailers, just with one still image. There are lots of pieces of art that I feel a lot of people overlook, like Movie Posters, Video Game Box Arts, Album Covers, and I want us to learn from it all. If you were making a poster for a movie, what kind of things did you see in these posters would you not do? Is there anything in these posters you would incorporate into your own work? Looking at and studying bad art is just as important as studying great art, and I think that is ultimately the thing I want you to take away from this post. These posters may not be great, but we can still learn from them.

Něco z Alenky (Jan Švankmajer's Alice) (1988) - A Truly Fascinating Film

 

So... I decided, because I'm a glutton for punishment, to do a review on each Disney Live-Action Remake, and now I'm forced to watch each an every one of them. As of now, I have to go through Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which I am not looking forward to, but that gave me the urge to check out another take on the Alice in Wonderland story, one that is also from the mind of an animator known for the dark and the disturbing, only this one is actually dark and disturbing. Jan Švankmajer is a Czech animator, mostly known for his short films such as The Last Trick and one of my favourites, Dimensions of Dialogue. His work has influenced multiple others from The Brothers Quay to Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. He works mostly in stop motion, but he also incorporates live actors, puppets and cutout animation in his work, and his work is... something else. If you like surrealistic, dark and abstract animation, Jan Švankmajer's short films come with a recommendation from myself. In 1988, he tried his hand at making a feature film, titled "Alice", or "Something from Alice", and it is... fascinating.

This review is going to be a bit different, because this is just such a unique piece, it kind of defies traditional analysis, not to say it is a wholly untraditional film, it still follows the basic story of Alice in Wonderland, but rather than Alice dozing off in the field and seeing a rabbit outside, a taxidermy rabbit comes to life in her room, in fact there's a lot of things like that. The caterpillar for example is a sock with eyes and teeth, and the lizard Bill appears more like a taxidermized reptile with a different animals skull. The rest of the movie is very grungy, dirty and rusted, and all kinds of random things are used as puppets, including cutouts, skulls and raw meat. Yeah if you're absolutely terrified of stop motion animation already, you may want to stay away from this movie because it will make your fear a lot worse. Even Alice sometimes looks absolutely afraid of some of the things in this movie.

Speaking of which, Alice is played by Kristýna Kohoutová, and she does a pretty good job. She looks genuinely curious and weirded out at points. I mention this because, she is the only person in this entire movie that speaks, it's like she's reading the story as we're watching what is going on, which leads to the fascinating choice of having most of this movie be silent. Dialogue only comes in when it is important, and for the most part we have to infer what Alice is thinking, which becomes more interesting when she's in doll form, yes, for a good chunk of the movie, Alice is a live actor interacting with all these puppets, and other objects. They almost never show her in the same shot as the puppets, so this isn't like King Kong or Jason and the Argonauts, but I still believe that everything is in the same room, thanks to the directing and editing.

However, I can see someone having an issue with the editing, as the film is rather slow-paced, and there are some weird editing choices, like whenever Kristýna narrates a character's dialogue, when the dialogue is being said we see the character, but when she says "Said the character", it shows a close-up of her mouth, which I swear zooms in closer and closer as the movie goes on. It is also very Jan Švankmajer in the editing, which is difficult to describe, but if you're familiar with his work, you already have kind of a feel for how his films are edited. If you aren't a fan of his style of films you may not like this one all that much. You may also not like the background music, because there is none. You just hear an almost endless ticking sound, and that is the closest thing to background music you get. I quite enjoy the lack of background music, it lends itself to the eerie and uncomfortable atmosphere, which I think is intentional, since many of the films by Jan Švankmajer have that very eerie, odd and uncomfortable atmosphere to them.

Jan Švankmajer's Alice is a really odd movie, but it's just so fascinating that I had to talk about it. I really did like it, it's one of those movies like Raggedy Ann and Andy or Felidae where I really don't think I've ever seen something like it before, and don't think I'll see anything like it anytime soon. However, like those movies that does come with the caveat that... I'm not really sure how to recommend it. On the one hand, if you love animation, this is a must see, I found a version on YouTube with a translation in the closed captions, so if you want to check it out, that is probably your best bet, since I've heard that Jan Švankmajer's work is hard to find if you're not in Europe. That being said, this is not really a movie I would recommend it casual movie goers or anyone who isn't really familiar with the animator's previous work. If what I said interests you, I'd recommend checking out some of the short films first, and if you liked them, then I'd recommend this movie. Honestly, this movie is truly fascinating, and I do think that if you're an animation fan it is worth check out at least once. This is another case where I'm giving the movie a Slight Recommendation, but you should not take that as this film not being any good, it's just for a more specific audience.

TV Impressions: Pingu (1990-2000, 2003-2006)

 

So, people in the Animation Twitter Community have been sharing shows they've been watching recently. One is sharing their One Piece thoughts, one of my Twitter Friends is sharing her thoughts on The Owl House and Avatar, so I figured I'd share some thoughts on what I've been watching. Recently, I have gotten the entire series of the original "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?", it's a fun if really dated bit of animation. I've been working my way through Amphibia, made a deal with a friend that I'd watch it if they watched DuckTales, so I've been chipping away at it slowly, but I'm liking what I have watched so far. I've also been casually watching The Red Green Show, that is a live-action comedy show, a big piece of Canadian pop culture, it is a bit of an acquired taste and of its time humour, so I don't know if a lot of it will go over well with modern audiences, but I find it to be a fun little blast of nostalgia. Also I've been watching a lot of Pingu, and that is surprisingly the most interesting of the four shows, also I've been sick recently so I just want to write something quick and hopefully fun.

So, why have I been watching Pingu? Well, easy answer is I got that nostalgic itch. You know the feeling, the feeling you get when you remember something from your childhood, a movie, a show, a song, a video game, and you have the urge to check it out, even just for a minute, because you desperately want to reconnect with an easier, less stressful time in your life. Be wary of this itch my friends, your favourite childhood entertainment may not actually hold up as well as you remember, we all have that one thing that we loved as children, but as adults we just cannot get past the flaws that are so intrinsic and obvious that we wonder how stupid we were as kids to accept it. For me, sad to say, that was Jak and Daxter on the PlayStation 2, the double jump mechanic is just broken and it frustrates me, and Daxter is one of the worst video game characters ever made, but I'm getting off topic. Pingu is one of those were my enjoyment has lessened, but not faded.

I mean, what really is there to hate about Pingu? It's just a simple little slice-of-life series about this little Penguin and his friends and family, and the odd adventures he gets up to. Each episode is less than ten minutes, and the language isn't even comprehensible, it's all mutterings and noises and the occasional, but frequent, "Noot Noot!". It is such a simple series, and yet it makes for really good comfort viewing. Just something to put on when you are drained, tired, sad or whatever, and just need something that isn't overly hilarious, but can still put a smile on your face. I'm venting aren't I? Regardless, Pingu is a little kids show, it is not meant to be super deep or anything. So why, after I have scratched that nostalgic itch, do I still watch it?

Well, firstly, I am a huge fan of stop-motion animation. Again, I grew up with Wallace & Gromit, but I also grew up with this show. Stop-motion animation is probably my favourite form of animation, no disrespect to traditional hand-drawn or computer generated animation, but having done all three types (Stop-motion, hand drawn and both Flash and ToonBoom) I think I know what my preference is. I think a lot of what makes Stop-motion, especially claymation, so uncanny to a lot of viewers is absent here. Stop-motion can be uncanny because we're looking at almost human puppets moving in an almost human way. Pingu has no humans, it is all penguins, a seal and the occasional other animal, and frankly the puppets are really adorable. I could watch a ten minute video of Pingu and Pinga playing and feel the same as watching a thirty second video of a kitten.

Really, that is all Pingu is. It's just this Penguin having some fun days, like going fishing and dealing with a pesky seal stealing his bait, or going to a funfair, or getting lost in an ice cave. There are big adventures, for a kid anyway, and there are small adventures, and all of them are driven by just how likeable Pingu is. Pingu is playful, curious, excitable, he's a kid. He can also be a right little pain in the butt, but clearly he never means to be a bad kid, and he often does know when he messed up, like in one episode where he shirks responsibility for incubating his mothers egg, and there are times where Pingu does actually get disciplined for his actions. Though he mostly gets scolded and made to right his wrongs, there are two episodes where Pingu's punishment is physical. One episode where his mom spanks him and he runs away, and another where his mom straight up smacks him in the face. The latter episode is infamous and some people may even cite it as one of the worst episodes of the show. I, can't agree, not that it isn't absolutely awful seeing Pingu get smacked, but because his mother clearly felt remorseful afterwards, like she knew she overstepped. That being said, this was more early season, which makes this a good opportunity to talk about this show's history.

So, Pingu originally aired from 1990 to 2000 by Trickfilmstudio in Switzerland. Then, it was acquired by HIT Entertainment and a further two seasons were produced from 2003 until 2006. This lead to some changes, mostly is the tone. The original Pingu seasons could get very negative, Penguins got angry and would threaten Pingu, Pingu's Dad had a temper on him, one episode had Pingu's dad deliver a letter to a penguin and evidence suggests that the letter was notifying of a relative passing away. There was also hints about poverty, which lead some viewers to believe the show takes place during or after a war. The HIT Era of the show has less of this edge, and even looks brighter. They apparently changed the original clay puppets to resin casts, it just gives everything a sheen to it, I do kind of prefer the grungy look of the original seasons, but I won't deny that the HIT era seasons look good. That being said, I do kind of also prefer the stories in the middle seasons, mostly three and four. They aren't as negative as the first two seasons, and aren't as bright as the last two seasons.

So, why did I do this? I don't know, I guess I just wanted to talk about Pingu. I have this weird thing where I like to talk and share information about things I like, I think it is called being a fan of something and wanting it to not be an obscure thing I can only talk to a handful of people about, or maybe it's just a neurodivergence thing, I dunno. Fandom usually doesn't seem to want the thing they like to actually have a fanbase, but anyway, I've been enjoying my time with Pingu, and learning new things about it, for example, replacing all the words in Camilla Cabello's "Havana" with Pingu noises improves the song by 100 percent, and the song "7-11" by Eskimo Disco is actually not bad, even if the band name is a bit... iffy. In all seriousness, I do think Pingu is a fine, comfortable show to watch. It is not bingeing material though, after a while the Penguinese can start to grate on you, plus, many of the episode compilations on YouTube tend to have the same episodes amongst them, so be prepared to skip over a lot of them if you chose to watch the show this way. All-in-all, Pingu has flaws, but overall, it's just a comfort watch for me, and I think it's a good show for little kids as well.

Well, that's that out of my system, movie review next Saturday on the First.

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) - A Fun and Charming Mystery with an Iconic Duo

 

I love Wallace & Gromit. When I was a kid, my Dad had the first three shorts on VHS, actually we still have them. A Grand Day Out is my favourite of the three, the absurdity and imagination of it was probably one of the key sparks that ignited my love for animation, alongside SpongeBob, Disney and Eddsworld. So, in 2005, when I saw the TV Spots for the Wallace & Gromit movie, of course I was excited. I don't remember if we went to see this in theatres, we might have, but I don't remember. All I remember seeing from the movie at that time was the advert that had a montage of characters getting slammed into things after the narrator said "Smashing". That is a weird thing to remember. However, is this lack of memory because the movie wasn't that great, or because I was a wee lad in a time long ago that not many people in my life could remember?

(EDIT: My Dad has confirmed that yes, we have gone to see this movie in theatres. I was very young at the time so it is most likely that is the reason I did not remember if I did.)

Wallace & Gromit were a series of claymation shorts following a middle aged man named Wallace and his highly intelligent dog Gromit. Wallace works the odd job, but his passion mostly lies with inventing and tinkering with gadgets, and cheese. It's essentially the classic dynamic of the zany guy and the down to earth guy that has to bail him out of the trouble he's caused, think Daffy and Porky in the Duck Dodgers short or early Family Guy Peter and Brian, actually I wouldn't be shocked if Seth Macfarlane initially based Peter and Brian off of Wallace & Gromit. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit is not much different, it follows Wallace & Gromit as they work as a humane pest removal agency. After one successful job, Wallace gets the idea to attempt to rehabilitate the rabbits so they would dislike eating vegetables, which unfortunately works a bit too well, as after a lab mishap, Wallace ends up becoming a massive Rabbit monster which terrorizes the town just days before a vegetable fair. While the duo try to trap the beast, another man, a hunter named Victor Quartermaine, also tries to hunt the beast, and kill it. The plot is very much in the spirit of the classic shorts, I could see this plot working in a 30 minute short, or even as two shorts. It would take a lot of rewriting, but I could see it working. So, the question is, does this plot work as a feature? Honestly, yes and no.

I really liked the mystery of the movie, and how they kept throwing red herrings to misdirect you. As soon as the viewer can put the pieces together, they stop trying to hide the reveal and it becomes... something? There's some classic monster movie elements, and pretty fun climax, there's also a romantic subplot that features prominently in the movie. Not that the third act is bad, but it was here I mostly felt indifferent to the movie. I think it's because most of the third act is just Gromit, the villains and the townsfolk, and Gromit is a great character, but he doesn't really interact with anyone outside of Victor's dog for the most part. A lot of what makes Wallace & Gromit charming is Wallace & Gromit, so when it is Wallace & Gromit, it can be as fun and charming as the original shorts, but when it's not, it is still fun, but not as much. You might think the extra characters would add something, but they don't really. The original Wallace & Gromit shorts are actually quite barren and devoid of people, I mean, they were thirty-minute claymation shorts that probably had a small budget, so there really couldn't be that many other characters in the shorts. I don't know if the extra characters were an issue to write, but they don't actually contribute much, save for the Vicar, who hands down has a lot of the best scenes in the movie.

On the topic of "Issues", the production of the movie was a bit of a nightmare from what I have heard. In fact, DreamWorks kept trying to make the movie more "Americanized" and even tried to recast the late Peter Sallis as Wallace. Peter Sallis and Wallace are like Jim Henson and Kermit, Tom Kenny and SpongeBob, Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, not an irreplaceable role, but if you don't get the right actor, fans will notice. Thankfully, Aardman were adamant that Sallis played Wallace, and I think that was the right call. They did get some good talent as well, with Ralph Fiennes and Helena Bonham Carter, the casting is solid and they all do good performances. I also want to give a shoutout to Julian Nott who did a very fine score for this movie. I even heard bits of the classic Wallace & Gromit theme during the climax music, that was a nice touch. Of course, production by Hans Zimmer is just icing on the cake.

Claymation, and most stop motion really, has a reputation for being uncanny, off-putting and even scary to many viewers. On the one hand, I get it, it can be weird to watch. However, if you can out aside any of those strange feelings, the animation of this movie is quite excellent. This was Aardman's second movie they did with DreamWorks, the first being Chicken Run, and it's clear they took advantage of the bigger budget, and fancier equipment. There are camera pans and shots that would never have worked on a budgeted short, but look fantastic in a movie. Good camera motion is always something that blows my mind in stop motion, because you have to move the puppets and the camera at the same time, and it has to look right. Plus, I actually really like seeing the textures on the puppets, I dunno, it just makes it feel more real, I can't explain it. I do think some of the characters have some weird designs, I am not a fan of characters with really big lips unless they're meant to be non-human, but as a whole, the visuals are quite nice.

As a Wallace & Gromit fan, I have my issues with the movie, but it is nice to see one of my favourite duos in animation get a big budget feature length adventure. If you're new to Wallace & Gromit, I'd recommend you check out the original shorts, those are A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave, plus A Matter of Loaf and Death, which came out in 2008. I'd save this movie for after you've seen the shorts. I think the attempt to make a "Bigger" Wallace & Gromit short was admirable, but when you take something as simple as Wallace & Gromit and make it bigger, somethings just won't always sit right. Still, it does retain a lot of the charm that made Wallace & Gromit work, maybe at the cost of the simplicity. As a fan, I had some fun with this movie, though I don't love it as much as the original shorts, if this movie is on, I wouldn't mind killing some time with it. If you like Stop-motion animation, British Animation or want to try something a bit different, I can safely say I recommend this movie.

First Impressions: Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (2022)

When it comes to animation, it is hard to deny that it is predominantly a medium that is played safe. South Park is popular so let's make cartoons along those same lines, SpongeBob is popular so let's make cartoons along those same lines, Disney's having a surge in popularity, let's make The Swan Princess, Anastasia, Quest for Camelot, hey that movie that dude has been working on since the sixties? Let's rewrite and re-edit it so it fits better as a Disney-like movie. Every era of animation has their safe trends, the eighties had toy based cartoons, the nineties had gross-out cartoons, the 2000s had anime inspired cartoons and cartoons with a hyperactive and/or naïve lead in a more serious world, and the 2010s have cartoons that start cute and light-hearted before becoming much darker and more serious. Even in animated movies, I've talked about this before how most animated kids movies feel very formulaic and don't really offer anything too much outside of the box. So when a movie comes around that is a much bigger risk than something like Minions 2 or Paws of Fury, what can I do other than talk about it?

Marcel The Sell With Shoes On is a very risky movie, it is a mockumentary where the lead characters are stop motion animated characters interacting with a real live cast. Essentially it's another Special Effects Movie, and it's a riskier kind of movie because this is not the kind of movie you see in theatres anymore. Mockumentaries are not very common, you can name This Is Spinal Tap, but what other popular mockumentaries are there? On top of that, they are usually never animated, the only one I can think of that was is Surf's Up, and that one was Computer Generated. This movie is a risk, and that is what I love about animation, sometimes it is still able to take risks. Steven Universe was a risk, BoJack Horseman was a risk, Toy Story was a risk, and Marcel The Shell With Shoes On is a risk.

Of course, not all risks pay off, movies are called "Risks" for a reason, so there needs to be more than the risk factor. Thankfully, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On has fun moments of humour, some really great emotional moments, and it's all tied together with one of the best and most adorable leads I've seen in an recent animated movie. Marcel is a fantastic character, seeing how he solves problems, how he deals with all the things that go on around him, his hope and optimism become worry and fear, and his little quips and interactions with Dean, the secondary lead, all make him so believable, that sometimes I just forgot that Marcel was an animated character, I genuinely believed that this was a real documentary about a real character at some points. It is kind of like those old Canadian P.S.A.s about the House Hippo, you know it isn't true, but there is still that part of you that likes to believe that there are House Hippos in a nest of discarded mittens and old lint scraps in your closet feasting on chips, raisins and the crumbs from peanut butter on toast.

It feels like a real documentary, and I think that is the biggest strength to the movie. Being a movie trying to emulate the feel of a documentary, it allows for more kind of interactions and movements that wouldn't be in a traditional movie. Movies try to show an idealized archetype, to either a positive or negative end, but since the crew was trying to emulate a documentary, it allows for Marcel to feel like a real, living character with his own personality and character, unlike someone like Zak from FernGully who feels like a stereotype who only exists within the confines of the movie, or the characters of Arctic Dogs who are just one dimensional tropes who go through the motions that are expected of said tropes. Marcel feels real.

Do I think this movie is going to be big? Well, I don't want to create false hope, but since the director of this movie, Dean Fleischer Camp, has been announced as the director of the live action Lilo & Stitch, if that turns out well, I do feel like this movie could become a very popular cult film, maybe not to the same level of The Nightmare Before Christmas, but at least more popular than something like The Thief and the Cobbler. I would love to see what Dean Fleischer Camp does in the future, and honestly I'd love to see what he could do at a studio like Laika, wouldn't that be something? As for Marcel, I went in expecting a cute movie, and I got a cute movie that offered quite a bit more. I would very much love to see more risky animated movies get released, because stagnation is the enemy of progress, so if you are able to watch Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, I do highly recommend you check it out.

King Kong (1933) - A True Cinematic Landmark

Hey! This isn’t an animated movie, what gives? Well, I wanted to spend some time to talk about a side of animation that is often overlooked by animation reviewers, special effects. For the next four reviews, I am going to talk about movies that are most notable for their special effects, starting with the movie that quite possibly pioneered the entire special effects industry, the film that changed cinema as we know it, and without it, there would be no Jurassic Park, no Ray Harryhausen, probably not even computer effects as we know them. Today, I will be looking at 1933's King Kong.

Planning on making a picture, Carl Denham wants to shoot on a mysterious island, and brings along his crew, including the First Mate Jack Driscoll, and a struggling actress named Ann Darrow. While there, Ann is kidnapped and offered as a sacrifice to the mighty ape, Kong. The crew, mostly the first mate, rescue her and Carl has the idea to bring Kong back to New York as "The Eighth Wonder of the World". The plot moves along quite nicely, though it does take a little while to actually get to Kong. I feel like the slower pace is just a thing with older movies, but to be fair, it does build up to Kong quite nicely. The introduction of Kong was super cool, with the music and Kong ripping away at the trees. The plot does take a little bit to get going, but overall the plot is well done. They also place in a romance subplot, though it is kind of quick and rushed. Jack just kind of admits he likes Ann and that's really it. I did buy that they liked each other, but a little bit more time developing the relationship would have been nice. Then again, that also could have meant we'd take even longer to get to Kong, but I did enjoy spending time with the characters.

The characters were quite fun, Carl is great in a very blunt and somewhat blunt and direct kind of way. He’s a little like Scrooge McDuck in a sense, where you like him, but you’re also aware that he’s a bit of a cad and probably not the best guy to be around. Ann is also a nice character, she starts the adventure full of excitement and joy, and as the movie carries on, she becomes more afraid of the beasts around her, to the point that she is practically traumatized by the end. I also really like Kong, he has the curiosity and mannerisms of a young kid. He plays with the broken jaw of a dinosaur and peels away Anne’s clothes like she’s a Barbie doll, you can’t help but feel that Kong is just an oversized child at points, which of course makes us sympathize with him when he is taken from his home and shot down at the end. That being said, not all of the characters were great, Jack was a bit of a bland character, just a hard-ass with a soft spot, this could have also been why the romance angle was fairly weak. Then we get Charlie the cook and the Natives. To be fair, there are worse portrayals of Chinese and Black people in film, but this is definitely a 1930s production. So, viewer be warned.

One thing I really want to point out is the soundtrack by Max Steiner. The music in this movie is excellent, it hits the right tone of exciting and tense. I’m really hoping they put this soundtrack on vinyl or CD because it is fantastic. Perfectly fits the mood and compliments each scene it backs.

And of course, we have to talk about the special effects. These were groundbreaking effects for the time, and they have inspired so many animators and filmmakers. Peter Jackson, Ray Harryhausen, even Tomoyuki Tanaka who created Godzilla. These effects inspired so many big things, and in many respects they still hold up. The stop motion looks fluid and the little details they add make the puppets look so much more real. The ground moving under Kong as he falls down, and the wind blowing through his fur are just the perfect little touches. Plus, when they had to build a giant Kong model for close up shots, it looks fantastic, the model work for the head, hand and foot, looks fantastic great, it's kind of impressive to think they would build massive props like that back then. On top of that, the matte paintings were so good, I could barely tell they were there, and when they had a live actor in the background of a stop motion scene, the way they achieved the effect of having the actor move naturally was ingenious, projecting the frames onto a miniature while they animated everything around it. That being said, some of the rear projectioning has not held up well. The scene where the crew walk passed the dinosaur they just drugged and shot reminded me a bit of Blue’s Clues, with how Steve would just kind of faux-walk and the panning camera would make it look like he was moving. Still, that is to be expected with old effects, someday our insanely produced Marvel movies will not hold up to snuff, it is just how effects work, and that lesson can also be applied to video games, but now I’m getting ahead of myself. It's easy to think that it was only mind-blowing back in the 30s, but these effects are still pretty great. While it's true that this movie would have been even more mind-blowing back then, I'd argue that it's still kind of mind-blowing today.

Overall, a lot of people will say this is one of the greatest movies ever made, and quite frankly, I could not agree more. The movie was exciting and thrilling and when we think about the influence it had in our modern effects and how much of a cultural impact this movie had, I think King Kong is a movie that everyone needs to see, filmmakers, artists, animators, special effects crew, moviegoers in general. King Kong is one of the greatest movies ever made and I’m glad I decided to kick off this Special Effects Movie Marathon with it. Even if some of it has aged poorly, the stuff that has held up still holds up really well. If we think about all of the mind blowing movies that came out after it, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Night at the Museum, all of them owe quite a bit to this movie. It pioneered special effects, it's a fantastic movie on it's own, quite frankly I don’t think I can recommend this movie enough.

First Impressions: The House (2022)

 

Netflix, Netflix, Netflix. I have made my thoughts on Netflix quite clear in the past, they peddle a lot of crap under the "Netflix Original" brand and if they don't shape up they are going to go down the same tube as Steam, with really the key difference being that Steam is a store-front, having Steam is free and buying your games is what costs you. Netflix is a service, you pay for the service of watching movies and TV "for free", which is a whole argument in and of itself but that is irrelevant. Netflix has released some good movies in the past, Klaus and Arlo the Alligator Boy were good movies and could have really meant something for Netflix, if they didn't share the same spotlight as trash like Pets United, Duck Duck Goose and Vanguard's dumpster fires of animated movies. It really does say something that a lot of the big animation reviewers I follow like Cellspex and Animated Antic, rarely even talk about these movies with a few exceptions. Netflix has gone from the king of the hill to desperately sticking its name to anything to stay on top.

So I consider myself obligated to look at The House, a brand new anthology film brought to us by Netflix and Nexus Studios, a studio that is most likely known for music videos and a couple short films under their belt. I can't really find a full list of their work, not even on their official website, but it does look like they aren't strangers in the industry. The House caught my eye from Cellspex, who tweeted about it and said she was glad to see another animated horror entry. On top of that, it was a stop-motion feature and an anthology film, both of which I am eager to talk more about on this blog. So we have another entry where I'll be asking the question, does this sink Netflix's reputation even lower? Or can it help save them?

As mentioned prior, The House is an anthology film, consisting of three stories that revolve around a peculiar house. I guess I'll give you my initial thoughts on each story and then give a more general overview of the movie.

Our first story follows a poor family of four as they are given the opportunity to move into this fantastic new house. However, things start to go strange as they spend their first night in the house. I do have to say that the atmosphere was delightfully unsettling, with all the little ways that we can tell the parents are getting a bit too sucked into this world. It's almost like a Twilight Zone episode in a way, I'd actually really be interested in seeing what an animated Twilight Zone series would be like, but regardless this was a good first story to the movie. I really can't go much more into it without spoiling it, so while I do have some nitpicks, those delve into the spoiler zone, and unlike Onward, my feelings about this segment do not hinge around one big reveal.

The second segment follows a developer, who is an anthropomorphic rat, as he preps the house for a showing. The atmosphere in this one is perfect, the white noise of the place is all that you will hear in the background for most of it. The hum of electronics and the sounds of the street perfectly give us the setting and the mood. Anxiety is the main mood of this segment, and it can make this a bit of an uncomfortable watch, and there is also a segment where the lighting is a rapidly flashing array of colours like a really bad rave. It also has a really strange musical dance sequence, which was actually kind of cool. The music was actually pretty good and stop-motion dancing is usually going to be a fun sight, especially for fans of this form of animation. I'll be honest, I sort of skimmed through this one, the anxiety was a bit too much for me, but still, this was a neat little segment with an end that I genuinely did not see coming.

Our final segment focuses on the house surrounded by a flood, while the landlady, who is an anthropomorphic cat, wishes to fix the place up for more tenants while the ones she has are unable to pay rent with money. Then a strange friend of one of the tenants arrives and completely upends her plans. This one is a lot more sad bleak than the other two. While the first one was more of an unsettling horror and the second one was more of an anxious one, this is more of a bleak one. Even the ending doesn't come off as a happy one. It is not really the unhappy ending of the last two, but not the happiest either.

You know, it's kind of amusing in a way that this is the first movie I see of the year. In the last bit of 2021, I was getting antsy, I wanted to move out and get a place of my own, and 2022 is the year I plan to start planning. I feel like this movie has the overall these of materialism, how the things we want can consume us. It's somewhat fitting that the final story has the happiest ending of them all, showing us there is a way, there is hope. There is hope. However, that is just my interpretation, so take that with a grain of salt.

I do have to say that the animation of the movie is excellent. I feel like Stop-Motion animation is getting more recognition now-a-days, with the popularity of Laika. That being said, stop-motion is often pigeon-holed into one of two categories; a stop motion movie is either a horror or horror adjacent movie, or falls into the realm of uncanny and unsettling visuals. I do like Laika because they did try other non-horror genres with Kubo and Missing Link. That being said, the directors of these segments definitely knew how to use the visuals to their advantage, with the first segment having a soft look to it that made the actual story a lot more unsettling.

Overall, I did enjoy The House. I can't say it is one of my favourites, and I'm not anticipating it to be one of my favourite films of the year, but it's a well made movie that I do think does deserve some recognition. I will give it the caveat that this is not a movie for kids, I hate that I have to give that caveat but it is what it is. I think my only point of contention is that every article I've looked at said this film was a dark comedy, and I really don't see it, but that may just be me. I don't think this movie will bring up Netflix's reputation for myself, but I don't think I'll be too bent out of shape over people giving it tons of praise and acclaim. It's no Klaus, but it's in the same boat as Arlo the Alligator Boy, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you want a good, unsettling movie, I give this one a recommendation.

Isle of Dogs (2018) - One of the best films you may not have seen

2018 was the year I began to take animation more seriously, and tried to watch all the animated movies that were released in theatres, even if I knew they would suck. From this, I ended up with a lot of surprises, such as Early Man and of course Into the Spider-Verse, but even with all of the great animated features, Hell movies in general, released in 2018, one remains my favourite of the year, Isle of Dogs, which had one of the emptiest theatres of any showing, not THE emptiest, that award goes to UglyDolls, which was dreadful, but this one was still pretty barren, and it's a shame too because it really is one of the greatest animated features I've ever seen.

In a, honestly pretty dystopic Japanese future, dogs have been banished from the island due to an outbreak, and sent to a place called "Trash Island", which is exactly as it sounds. One young boy named Atatri braves through the island of garbage to find his dog, who was the first to be sent to the island. However, there is a conspiracy going on that the mayor of the precinct had the dogs intentionally infected and desires to destroy any and all opposition, including poisoning a scientist who has found a cure for the dog disease and staging it to look like a suicide. No, this movie's plot has no ties to any current events happening currently, no government that is oppressive to any group of living beings, no pandemic sweeping the nation, none of that at all, heh heh...

Well, there's no going back now.

That aside, the movie's plot moves really well. A lot of the information of the movie is given as flashback, and I think that was a brilliant move. It means that very little is left to be exposition dumped, only what has to be. I think this movie offers a good example of something that has to be exposition dumped on the audience, the scene where Atari's dog, Spots, is explaining that he has to give up his duties. On top of brilliant moves like that, there is also a good amount of foreshadowing, and a good use of montage to cut down on the large amount of travel the characters do.

Now, I am terrible when it comes to identifying character, and it's a bit tougher here because, with the exception of the dogs and two humans, the entire cast speaks Japanese, untranslated and unsubbed. I don't think it's any surprise that I failed my highschool Japanese class.

I don't have any issue with the film being predominately Japanese, most of the important sutff is translated in some way so audiences won't be lost, and you can still get some idea of what the characters are saying. Obviously, Atari is ranting about something, or the servant is scolding him. It is also very clear that Chief is kind of the defacto leader, even though he says they're all the leader, and it's kind of amusing that the other dogs are pretty tired of him.

I must also comment that the acting is incredible in this movie. I could barely tell Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton and Bill Murray were in this movie, and they have pretty distinct voices. I do kind of forget that these characters are dog puppets, but in the end that really is high praise to the actors.

Let's also not forget the animators, as someone who has done stop-motion animation, it takes a long time. My animations are a couple minutes long at most, so I can't imagine how long it would take to shoot a 101 minute long film. Plus there are so many little details, like paper flapping in the breeze, rats running around, and things they really did not need to animated, but did anyway to give the movie that feeling of being believable. One scene that really has to be complimented is the sushi making scene, I think fellow animated movie reviewer Animated Antic shared some behind the scenes video on how that scene was made, and it is just so smoothly done that you can only tell it's stop motion by the textures and lighting. If I had to nitpick, I will say I am not really fond of how they show any Television images in the film, they're obviously two-dimensional images, but the heads are still animated like they're three-dimensional puppets and it's really uncanny. It's kinda like watching Robot Chicken puppets interact with two-dimensional flash characters, there's a disconnect that makes it weird to look at.

Of course, there is a bit of controversy surrounding the film. Of course, since it heavily focuses on Japanese humans, there has to be some focus on their culture. Personally, I don't get it, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see the film as too bad in that regard. I think a lot of it is that we don't focus too much time on the human characters, we focus a lot on the canines, and it is clear that not all of the humans agree with the anti-dog propaganda. I feel like people are putting too much emphasis on this aspect because, it's obviously a heavily fictionalized story and it's not looking at a major aspect of Japanese culture, as far as I'm aware. I also don't think the view of "The white character saves the day is valid", she obviously didn't win at all, she was almost kicked out of the country until Atari showed up. Again, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't think this is, too bad of representation, it's better than The Aristocats... Why Paul Winchell.. why?

Honestly, it was nice to talk about a movie I love this time, especially after such a... flaming mess that was the Felix the Cat movie. This movie really is wonderful, with an engaging plot and characters, stunning animation and some of the best cinematography and background score of any movie I've ever seen. If I can steal some lines from Animated Antic's review of this movie; This is something that people who love movies should see.

It really is an incredible movie, and I really hate to think of it as a movie very few people have seen, or even as a flop. Apparently nobody is exactly sure what the budget of this movie was, but it made about 64 million at the box office, so it's clear a lot of people did see it, which is good, but I really think more people need to see it. It's a marvelous movie that is most certainly on my list of must see animated films.