animated film
(If you’re looking for Luc Besson’s 2024 film Dogman, click here.) Dav Pilkey’s two stream-of-consciousness, ADHD-fueled book series Captain Underpants and Dog Man seem to follow the rules of great improv comedy; the word “no” doesn’t exist in these universes (except when some authoritarian figure says it), and anything that can happen will happen. Want a […]
Read More
Look. I grew up on the Garfield comic strip, as my parents were Washington Post subscribers when I was a kid. My oldest sister had a scrapbook filled with early Garfield strips, back when he was a little more svelte, not the rotund, jovial character everyone knew from the mid-‘80s onward. My parents bought me […]
Read More
Here we go with another Trolls movie. Which means another moral to whip at us, another opportunity to mash pop standards together and repackage them for modern ears, another soundtrack to sell. But what’s great about Trolls Band Together is that even the movie itself seems to know the franchise is wearing out its welcome; […]
Read More
How do you make formulaic plots and stories attractive and vital? It’s a question director/co-writer Jared Stern and co-writer John Whittington have answered with DC League of Super-Pets, their cinematic spin on the “disparate characters come together to defeat evil” children’s film chestnut. Focusing on a ragged team of pet store rejects who suddenly find […]
Read More
A children’s animated film which captures the snappy cool and dash of Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight and his Ocean’s Trilogy? I’m a sucker for heist films, so it’s not a question of “Sign me up,” but more “Give it to me. Now.” The Bad Guys – based on a series of children’s books by […]
Read More
The Spine of Night is a film that lives in the animated sequences of Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy. Very dark, brooding, mythic, violent, colorful, and nastily unforgiving. The good do not flourish here; only those with power stand a chance at existing in this world. Even more so when said power comes from a supernatural plant, […]
Read More
There are so many things to admire about the emotionally-charged Onward, Disney/Pixar’s latest offering. Themes of grief, single parenthood, sibling relationships, and broken families trying to put things back together accompany a sharp social commentary about how much of our world we take for granted every day. The nimble voice cast and vivid animation more […]
Read More
Abominable, the latest offering from DreamWorks Animation, has a lot going on in its 97 minutes. It also requires you to sit through every one of those 97 minutes due to photos included in the end credits. Yet the film doesn’t make you feel like it’s an obligation to do so; instead, you want to […]
Read More
It’s been a pleasure watching Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (Jay Baruchel) grow. Formerly the awkward, misfit son of a village chieftain, he’s found his place in their little Viking microcosm of Berk as a dragon master. As life evolves for him, he’s constantly thrown into different roles with little time to react or find sure […]
Read More
I’ll say this: Coco is the first movie which made my oldest daughter cry. Not out of fright, considering the film’s full of literal skeleton characters, but because she got the film’s point: the dead are not gone from us, as long as they’re not forgotten. In a year in which we’ve lost one of […]
Read More