animated film

When the trailers started showing for The Secret Life of Pets, I was immediately hooked by its promise of hilarious visual comedy. Household pets are seen passing the time during their owners’ workday by getting together for parties, using human-intended appliances for their own daffy purposes, partaking in the ultimate refrigerator raid… And what’s not […]

Hearing early word about a supposedly “great” film tends to color one’s perceptions of what they wind up seeing. Frances Ha and Mad Max: Fury Road are two examples for me where hyperbolic statements led to heightened expectations, which in turn led to disappointment. In the case of Anomalisa, said hyperbole actually works to the […]

If Shakespeare said “What a piece of work is man,” then what a wondrous work of art is Inside Out. It may not be a valid scientific explanation for why the human mind thinks the way it does, and it may be an oversimplification for the depths of the human brain, but it sure does […]

And so the “Goodness, these animated movies are wonderful!” streak of imaginative, highly-recommended children-oriented films comes to a screeching halt with DreamWorks Animation’s release of Home. Scattershot in its execution and harebrained in its intentions, Home so desperately wants to be that next big thing that the kids’ll be talking about for years to come; […]

What is Song of the Sea about? Is it a children’s tale of adventure and excitement rooted in Celtic folklore? Or is it a metaphor for how we deal with a mother dying in childbirth? Maybe it’s about finding one’s purpose in life. Better yet, it’s about the bond between a young boy who resents […]

(If you read nothing else, know this: stay until the credits are done.) Big Hero 6, Walt Disney Animation Studios’ follow-up to the runaway smash hit Frozen, is awesome. For me, it’s Frozen for boys, an almost anti-Frozen, if you will. Male-centric, non-musical, set in a slightly futuristic landscape, and the main character is poor. […]