It’s so nice to see something uniting the entire world, especially when that thing is a hatred for artificial intelligence. Per Aspera Ad Astra is a Chinese kids’ movie, released for the lunar new year, with some very big Chinese stars at its core, all about the importance of our …
Children under age seven, in Japanese culture, are considered “of the gods,” which means they have the purest connection with the divine, until they inevitably transition into the mortal realm, taking their first few steps into adulthood. Such is the case for the titular protagonist of Little Amélie or the …
The animation medium allows a plenitude of experimentation. In this sense, it is possible to represent and narrate any story the writer’s head wishes to, using the technique and animation conventions to develop that specific story. One of the most popular and eccentric subcultures in the world is the furry …
This November, Pixar’s Toy Story turns 30. That number feels impossible to me. Released on November 22, 1995, just twelve days before I was born, the film became a fixture of my childhood, then my adolescence, and, honestly, my entire life. For years, I watched it nearly every day. It …
The new Disney+ series Marvel Zombies builds on a single episode from season one of What If…?, What If…Zombies?, which first imagined a world where Earth’s Mightiest Heroes had become its greatest threat. Directed by Bryan Andrews and written by Zeb Wells, the four-episode miniseries introduces a new group of …
I stumbled upon Demon Slayer when it first premiered in America back in 2019, thanks to a friend who was obsessed with anime. While I cut my teeth on series such as Pokémon, Digimon, and Sailor Moon as an adolescent, it had been decades since I actively chose an anime to watch in my …
The first episode of Mike Judge’s King of the Hill aired just a week after my first husband and I got married. We were big Judge fans from years of Beavis and Butthead, and we thought that this new show looked interesting. I always loved it and appreciated the way that the Hill family cared about one another. A few years ago, I rewatched the first season and was …
Pittsburgh-based filmmaker and 3D animator Julian Glander plots his own Florida project in the whimsical coming-of-age movie Boys Go to Jupiter, an animated debut feature now playing in U.S. select theaters that inventively blends the allure of a retro mobile game with the disarming monotony of a sleepy suburb against …
Julian Glander longs for a slow day. Like Billy 5000, the brooding teenager hustling for cash through a food-on-demand app, who’s at the center of his feature directorial debut Boys Go to Jupiter, the director has been on the grind lately, promoting the theatrical release of the neon-tinged animated musical, …
There’s something curious – and even a bit uncomfortable – about seeing one of the names responsible for creating some of the most iconic Cartoon Network series – and, consequently, a big part of my childhood – heading down such an… adult path. Fixed, written by Genndy Tartakovsky (Hotel Transylvania) …
I Am Frankelda (Soy Frankelda) is the debut feature by Arturo and Roy Ambriz. It is also the first stop-motion animation feature ever produced in Mexico. Mexican cinema has a growing animation industry, it is internationally recognized, with names such as Jorge R. Gutierrez (Book of Life & Maya and …
Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon has been one of the most fascinating workshops for the medium since their 2009 feature debut, The Secret of Kells. Wolfwalkers by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart is only their fifth feature since Kells. Nearly every work of theirs went on to get an Academy …
Animation and sci-fi are two of the most eye-popping genres in the history of cinema. However, in the recent couple of decades, these two genres have become quite popular on television as well. From Stranger Things and The Legend of Vox Machina to Westworld and Arcane, streaming platforms and traditional networks are not shying away from …
Bold, primary colours take centre point within the animated tale Death Does Not Exist (La mort n’existe pas) which convey the film’s blunt messaging effectively. Political in nature and economic in scale, the film lays bare its stance within its opening sequence leaving no doubt about its eat the rich …
There was a period when Fox Animation Studios was producing high-quality animated kids’ films. The studio gave us Anastasia in 1997, and a few years later, gave us Titan A.E. A pull quote on the special edition DVD of the film proclaims it as “the movie Star Wars fans have …
All eyes were on how James Gunn planned to start the DCU. When it was revealed the starting product would be Creature Commandos, some people scratched their heads. Is this animated series able to jump-start a new universe? It was a strange start, simply because (similarly to Gunn’s The Suicide …
J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings saga struck such a colossal nerve when it was first published because it was a reaction to the loss of the first World War. The displacement of the muddy, modern conflict into a deliberately regressive story of magic and magical creatures …
DC Comics has no shortage of quality animated material. This includes numerous direct-to-DVD films (the most recent being the Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earth trilogy). While those have offered mixed results, one corner of DC that has remained popular is its animated television content. HBO Max’s shows, such as …
The theme of “artificial intelligence,” particularly in cinema and television, has been one of the most intense, controversial debates in recent years. As with most polarizing topics, opinions tend to be extreme and lack depth, creating opposing views of “AI is good” versus “AI is bad,” as if all uses …
Animation is often seen as a genre for children, but that is because it is a genre for imagination. It’s a way of visually expressing stories that cannot be realistically or safely acted out. The stop-motion Memoir of a Snail, which has surprisingly won Best Film at this year’s London …