animation
On 09-09-09, the movie 9 came out. It’s about a bunch of little mechanical rag doll-looking characters that roam around a post-war earth where battles between humans and robots resulted in the destruction of humanity. Shane Acker, the director of the film, created 9 from a short film he made as a UCLA student.
Visually, this is probably one of the best looking CG animated feature film I’ve seen in a while. It’s about time an animated CG feature strayed away from the "plastic" shaders that is overly used by Pixar and DreamWorks. It’s been over 10 years since Toy Story came out and Pixar/DreamWorks are still giving us CG movies that look like those little toys. Fortunately, the movie 9 has the balls to try something visually new, at least in terms of the mainstream CG feature length films. If you like Blur Studios’ game cinematics, you’ll love the imagery in 9. Tim Burton’s producing role on this film seemed to influence some of the character’s and environment’s designs. Simply put, you can see the “Burton Style” that is seen in Nightmare before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. It has dark hues, Goth, simple designs, great detail mixed with old school Disney charms.
The plot was good in the beginning of the movie when there’s a lot of discovery and suspense. However, by the end, it was a little dissatisfying as the main character doesn’t seem to grow at all. Throughout the movie, the audience is presented with two main viewpoints on how to live life by either curiosity or fear. We’re supposed to cheer for curiosity, but I thought the character who was supposed to be afraid was simply being cautious. In the end, some characters learn facts, but what fun is knowledge without “more” friends to share them with? Still, it’s a good watch.
Rating: GOODNESS
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Hayao Miyazaki's latest film is set to be another childhood classic
Hayao Miyazaki is the creative force behind brilliant fantasy films such as Spirited Away (2001) and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), and his latest animated feature, Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea, is a gentle film with the same kind of heart.
In Ponyo, Sosuke is a thoughtful, five year old boy, living in a cliff top house with his capable mother, both of them perpetually waiting for his sea-faring father to come home. One day, while playing by the sea, Sosuke rescues a magical goldfish and decides she is his new best friend. He names her Ponyo, and a sweet and wonderful journey begins.
Ponyo is clearly aimed at a young audience, and is closer in feel to Miyazaki's whimsical My Neighbour Totoro (1988) than the much darker Princess Monokoke (1997), the latter of which is not suitable for small children unless you're one of those people who took their kids to see Sin City (2005). In Ponyo, the tone is quietly wondrous, the emotional journey very gentle, and the adventures small and full of childlike delight. No epic battles or tough choices, but Ponyo isn't that kind of film.
The characters are vintage Miyazaki. Sosuke is a sensible, supportive boy, who develops a heartfelt devotion to the exuberant, headstrong goldfish girl he rescues. Sosuke's mother, Lisa, is the kind of adult who frequently populates Miyazaki's films, with her matter of fact acceptance of magic in the world, and her understanding of children's need for wonder. Nobody does cute children like Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, and the character designs in Ponyo are adorable – from the energetic Ponyo to the serious Sosuke.
As with all of Miyazaki's films, the environmental themes are prominent. The undersea scenes are magnificent, and the sense of awe at the power and diversity of the ocean is effectively conveyed. Messages about friendship, acceptance, and helping others are also woven lightly through the film.
The animation is old school – hand painted cells rather than computer assisted imagery. The style reminded me of animation from the 1980s, with its simple shapes and colours. While less impressive than the gorgeous animation of Spirited Away or the blow you away Appleseed Saga: Ex Machina (2007), Ponyo's handcrafted feel contributes to the sense of a gentler, simpler time and place.
While not as epic and fantastic as the stories I generally prefer, Ponyo is a sweet and beautiful film that deserves to be an animation classic for small children.
Ice Age 3 Is Pointless, Obnoxious And Rarely Funny
In this third installment of the highly popular "Ice Age" series, our friends Manny, Ellie, Sid, Diego and Scrat return in a supposed adventure including, you guessed it, dinosaurs. This time, after Sid finds three baby dinosaur eggs, he is later kidnapped by exactly that... a dinosaur... a creature thought to be extinct. Soon, Sid, Manny, Diego, Ellie, and newcomer, Buck are off an adventure to rescue her. By the way, did I mention that Ellie is pregnant and expecting a baby mammoth in the near future? That only leads to further complications. Meanwhile, Scrat is still after the darn acorn and this time, stumbles upon possible true love. Overall, though the plot sounds intruiging, it ended up being too much for me. The humor was dull and very loud. I wanted to take a nap while watching the film, as it was just so obnoxious and dull.
Fortunately, the stars voicing the cast were enough to keep me from falling asleep. Ray Romano voices Manny and does a teriffic job with what he was given. Having years of experience with comedy behind him (take "Everybody Loves Raymond," for example) he was the one character who did occasionally cause a laugh or two from me. Queen Latifah returns as Ellie, Manny's adoring wife, and she does it perfectly, with just the right touch of spunk, while at the same time portraying a very delicate character. John Leguizamo and Denis Leary also hop in the cast, and they add enough to it for me to successfully say that "Ice Age 3" has perfected its voice casting.
I was in a small town when I viewed this movie. The theater I went to barely had room for a concession stand, let alone enough supplies for a 3-D showing. I saw this in 2-D, and though some may say that's the reason it wasn't as good for me... I must disagree. The visuals and animation are still the same, no matter if they're popping out at your face or stuck to the screen. Dreamworks tries so hard to tromp Pixar, but they just can't. It's like Satan trying to overthrow God. He lost. Badly. I'm not saying that this is a horrible movie. But the animation was typical and average and not anything really worth commenting on.
The main problem I had with this film was its loudness. Now, I'm not talking about actualy physical, deafening loudness (there's Transformers 2 for that). More so, I'm rather saying that I could tell so hard that Dreamworks tried to make this hilarious. And some one-liners were quite funny. But when you serve up a plate of stale food, it all adds up to one big mess. Rather, this film tried to serve up a plate of rather hilarious jokes that were really old and stale, and with these types of jokes being tossed at me every other second, I wanted so badly to plug my ears and tune it all out. It was simply obnoxious.
"Ice Age 3" is more than likely going to entertain the little ones. In fact, I went with my family and two other small toddlers, and they all enjoyed it immensely. Maybe it was just me. The crude/mild sexual humor stretches its family-friendly limits an inch or so, but it is a mainly clean flick, if that's what you're looking for. Unfortunately, the movie itself was not too clean story-wise, and ended up being very messy and cluttered as well as loud and over the top. Things started to pick up towards the climax, but not even those last 20 minutes or so could save the film from the previous hour of stupidity and boredom we had to suffer through to reach that point.
Alex Zuckerman - The New Animated Film You Should Never See If You Value Your Eyes!
I...
Buh....
Okay, wait, no. I got this. Hang on. Yeah. No.... Yeah!
See, it's... Okay.... It's an allegory for our own cultural apathy. The characters just go through the motions, an overwhelming sense of emptiness and unfeeling permeating their every word, mouths moving with no regard to what's spoken from them because it doesn't matter at all what they're saying. It's just noise to fill the silence.
The alien invaders, too, have no emotional stake in their quest to conquer Earth. Indeed, at the very end, finally defeated by a collection of pop culture memes like ninjas and Chuck Norris, they merely take their turns walking into the protagonist's chainsaw as he halfheartedly puts an end to their meaningless existences. Then, when asked what the heroes will do next, he blandly concedes that they will continue on as they have done, killing all others who stand before them as the universes falls into oblivion with a sigh and a shrug. The atonal singing book ending the piece goes further to allude to an absence of a harmony that never could have been.
The art itself evokes this same sense. Everyone is, for the most part, a static image, a two-dimensional figure that serves no purpose but to be. Their limited movement, unblinking eyes, and propensity for simply phasing through door frames that are too small to allow their passage without ducking down suggests that this is a universe created by and maintained by a god that simply doesn't give a shit. To drive the point home, the sky even appears to be decorated with countless massive, floating razorblades.
Yes, I truly understand the underlying message of this work and feel that it has given us a lesson that we should all take the time to seriously reflect upon.
This movie, placed over 1000 years in the future, is about a young girl named Nausicaa and her quest to restore harmony to the world that is now overrun by the “toxic jungle”. She learns that the jungle is vital to the survival of the earth after so many
Nausicaa (of the valley of the wind) is a completely hand drawn full length movie created in Japan directed by Miyazaki. This movie, placed over 1000 years in the future, is about a young girl named Nausicaa and her quest to restore harmony to the world that is now overrun by the “toxic jungle”. She learns that the jungle is vital to the survival of the earth after so many years of pollution and braves Tolmekian soldiers, poisonous plants, stampeding Ohm, and giant insects in order to protect it. The strategic use of music throughout the movie brings the watcher on a rollercoaster of thought while invoking emotion to match. The antique backgrounds and cartoony characters give a unique contrast and energy that is rarely seen in animated films.
Soundtrack is often a key point in movies, including, not only music, but the dialogue. Often the music runs while no one is speaking and, sometimes, quietly in the background as a character talks. This music is meant to evoke specific feelings during different parts of the movie, such as when they want to build suspense the writers use a quiet pounding sound and then, at the moment they want you frightened, they play a harsh loud noise to make you jump in your seat. In Nausicaa suspenseful music is not as key as music that makes the watcher feel empathetic. By using calm almost childlike songs they relate moments where you should feel for Nausicaa and her cause to childhood memories. The songs sound almost like nursery rhymes without as many words, often the songs play without much singing. On the other hand the suspenseful music (the slow pounding sound) is used when people encroach on the valley Nausicaa and her people live in. This background sound tends to lead you toward wondering what is coming and then, as the music changes to warlike or back to childish, you see what the music had you waiting for all along. The dialogue in the movie is well played considering the movie was created for the Japanese culture, and thus, language to be spoken.
The backgrounds of movies that are videoed with live actors tend to be blurred or phased out. In animated films, like Disney’s, they are often drawn with the same cartoony look as the characters. Before Disney died, however, the backgrounds were wonderful pieces of art, looking much more realistic than the characters that danced in them. In Miyazaki films the characters don’t only walk among the antique background, they interact with it. Nausicaa rides her glider over the toxic jungle, she and her glider have a very animated look that contrasts with the, almost museum worthy, jungle and clouds. This contrast helps draw more attention to the characters without making the background a blurred mess of colors. The only downside to this is when something is going to move the watcher is aware before it does because it is animated differently from the rest of the background, cartoony amongst detailed pieces.
Overall Nausicaa of the valley of the wind is a wonderful movie. Well placed dialogue and a constant stream of emotions that will keep the watcher intrigued and wishing for her success. The message of the movie is well hidden but still strong so that when its watched you are not aware of it but if asked later will probably come to mind. Amazing animation, as expected, from Studio Ghibli (Miyazaki) and an enchanting array of characters. To give it a rating, I’d have to say, of 10 out of 10.
Pokemon the First Movie? Cliffhanger much!?
Before viewing
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"The First Movie"?? "THE FIRST MOVIE!?!?" What the hell??
Okay, let me start from the beginning. It took me a while to find this movie, not because it's rare, but because there are so MANY ****ING SEQUELS IT'S NOT EAST TO FIND THE FIRST ONE. After about half-an-hour o searching, I found the first movie, which is LITERALLY called "Pokemon: THE FIRST MOVIE".
What the hell is THAT? That's like if they called the first ord of the rings "Lord of the Rings: don't worry we're going to have a SH*T LOAD OF SEQUELS!"
it's BULLSH*T! Now, to be honest, I wasn't much a Pokemon guy when I was growing up.
I as more into the video game (SEGA) category. I have some decent knowledge of what the whole deal behind Pokemon is, so don't worry, I'm not writing blind.
After Viewing (all who hate yelling, do not read)
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THIS IS THE WORST ***KING MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!
It sucks @$$, it sucks balls, it just... SUCKS!
Okay... fr those of you unaware of the "genius" plot of Pokemon, here's the general story. (I don't know the exact story, so here's my generalization)
Pokemon are basically creatures that you capture in some strange balls and you make fight eachother. But the balls turn big when you catch one, and small so they can fit in your pocket. So why didn't they just call them Pocket monsters? It would make a lot more... wait a second
Pokemon = Pocket Monster
You've GOT to be kidding.
Ok,ok back to the review. So there are these scientists looking for the ultimate pokemon (mew, who we will get to later). And other scientists are making a CLONE of Mew. What do they call it? Mewtwo...
Nevermind, so it goes to our main characters, Ash, Misty, and Brock. Typical anime characters in my opinion. Anyway, they get an invetation to a tournament (psst, it's a trap), but unfotunantly can't go due to an extremely unrelated scene of a hurrican that randomly pops up. WTF... So Jessy, James, and Meowth (our gay badguys)
dress up as, um, vikings...
to sail them across. They of course make it in a really bad scene where the boat tips over and they have to use pokemon to swim across, again, IN A HURRICANE.
They get to the tournament and, like i said, it's a trap. Mewtwo captures the pokemon, makes clones of them, and uses them for some sh*t like, you guessed it, destoying the world because he's to emo to realize what we will talk about later.
Ash saves the pokemon (the originals) and the Pokemon/Pokemon clones fight to the death. B*tch slapping, tackling, and punching. you know, FOR KIDS. During all this madness, Ash makes a STUNNING realization.
"Fighting must be... bad"
Bravo Ash, you finally conjured up the brains to figure it out.
They keep saying sh*t like "fighting is BAD" "DON'T FIGHT" yadayadayada blahblahblah. They keep going on, and on for about an hour until Mew shows up. But here's the thing, Mew is mentally retarded, and NOT in the good way. They are of course, equal and Ash (being the SMART one that he is) jumps right in the middle of two beams. Unfortunatly, he didn't die, he just got turned into a statue. :(
All the Pokemon cry and... oh god, don't tell me. They ARE, they're using their tears of unfathomable sadness to bring him back to life...
WHAT A LOAD! is that what you want to teach your kid!? That if a loved one dies, you just have to cry hard enough to bring him back!? What if they did that in the Lion King? They would have ONE MOVIE. Well, he get's up and Mewtwo stops being Emo, takes his clones and get's the hell out. WHAT AN ENDING.
Ugh, I'm F*cking done watching this movie
I'm the CinemaCritic, I review it so YOU don't have to watch it
