Film

Review: Monsters vs. Aliens 3D

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Monsters vs. Aliens 3D/ dir. Conrad Vernon & Rob Letterman/ 2009

Yesterday was that day in Seattle. The day when the sun came out and it was finally warm enough for folks to be active. It was a good day to be outside,  so I spent the majority of it outside. First at Alki beach, people watching and sketching, then enjoying a nice 8 mile run up Lake Washington blvd, ending with a bbq at a homies’ crib. But before I did all those things, I began my day with a trip to the movie theater to watch  Monsters vs. Aliens 3D.

Suffice to say based on this trailer, I was kinda excited to see this movie:

I actually meant to see it last week, but I had to finish watching a certain memorable anime series…

So what’s the verdict on Dreamworks’ newest animated feature?

A few years back there was another animation studio, I believe the name of that studio was Pixar, they made a movie about monsters as well. Anyway, you should probably stick with the Pixar movie. Hit the jump to read the rest of the review. Continue reading →

Review: BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad (anime)

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BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad/ dir. Osamu Kobayashi/ 2004-2005 (26 episodes)

beckseattle1I started the Art of the Cartoon blog this past January. When it first debuted, my marquee header was a little different, and my good friend and running partner, Angel, thought the anime character on my marquee was Koyuki, the main character from BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad (It was actually Naota from FLCL, but anyway).

After one of our runs, she played the opening song from the series on her car stereo and went off on what a good series BECK was. She mentioned it was about starting a rock band and how they got through struggles. This caught my attention and I was intrigued by what kind of series about a rock band would impress her.

A month later I saw BECK the complete series on sale at Fry’s Electronics. I was tempted, but I did not pick it up (money’s tight y’know). Over the next couple of weeks, I kept going back to Fry’s and staring at that set (there was only one left) wondering if I should pick it up before it was too late. It wasn’t until after my birthday, and a break from school that I finally decided to pick up BECK, and see what the fuss my homegirl was talking about.

So how was it?

Flawed. Actually, there were a LOT of flaws. HOWEVER, when a cartoon series is so powerful that it makes me do this:

sigh

You know that something went immensely right. In fact, watching BECK reinforced the reasons why I decided to get into the field of animation in the first place. Hit the jump for the rest of the review…
Continue reading →

The Lost Tribes of New York City

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The past couple of posts about cheesy early 90’s cartoon series have been fun, but I really wanted to focus this time on the “animation as an art form” aspect of this blog. 

I present to you The Lost Tribes of New York City by filmakers Andy and Carolyn London. 

A very creative aproach at urban anthrolopology, I must say. Using New York’s own everyday inanimate street objects to convey the people that inhabit said city made me smile a bit. It was a shrewd way of showing the voices that we overlook when thinking of NYC.

Still, I do wish it had a little more subtance. Instead of just showing us the voices we miss, I wanted to know WHY these voices were overlooked and WHY we should care about the overlooked citizens of NYC. But that’s just me…

It’s still a really dope animation.

Bold Decisions that defined Film Animation

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Background note: This whole post was inspired by a comment by probrown1896, “Wall-E’s first dialogue-less 40 minutes are the finest 40 minutes in film animation, ever.”

walle

This got me thinking “Was it?… I know it’s up there in the finest moments of film animation, but finest “ever”?… I racked my thoughts to see if I could think of a better sequence. Like probrown stated,  I could “come up with dope scenes/sequences but I can’t think of 40 straight minutes.”

Then late last night it hit me what was wrong with my thinking. It was the “40 straight minutes” line  that got me tripped up. I was trying to come up with ONLY 40 minutes, and I believe that its not fair to judge films on snippets and sequences. For example, even though Wall-E‘s first half was SPECTACULAR, honestly the 2nd half was less than inspiring, the movie was still great mind you, but still I had to take into account the film as whole. Compared to say Nausicaa, which didn’t have the long awe-inspiring sequence, but was a little bit stronger and more consistent as whole. But all this is subjective (like all the reviews we do), so I tried to flip the script and make this objective. Here’s my attempt:

I went back and re-watched the sequence from Wall-E, still good as ever btw. Looking back though, it really  wasn’t “40 straight minutes.” There were more moments that stuck out more than the all-out 40 minutes. And apparently, even though, animation wise, it was still technically good, crisp, and posed well, Kung-Fu Panda was even more crisp, more fluid, and more well thought out in terms of animation (according to some animation students and teachers I asked) hence the reason why KFP won all the Annie Awards and Wall-E got nothing. 

So what made those first 40 minutes of Wall-E so memorable and one of the finest moments in film animation? Continue reading →

Review: Watchmen (Film)

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Watchmen/ dir. Zack Snyder/ 2009

watchmenposterfinalWell it was a fun week of blogging. Watchmen week comes to its conclusion with this review of the live-action Watchmen film. 

Many thanks to those who came to dinner at Sea Garden to celebrate the birthday of a certain Art of the Cartoon blogger. Many more thanks to the 10 folks who also came out, waited in line in the freezing cold for about 3 hours, just to indulge my geek ego and watch the midnight showing of Watchmen. 

Now for the main event.

The Review

Ever since the end movie credits started to roll I have been trying to think of what to put in this review. At the very end, I just sat there trying to process what just happened on the big screen and in my head doing a quick comparison to the legendary comic book. Here are some of the questions that raced through my mind when Watchmen was over:

“Was it complete? Were the characters okay? Did this capture the essence of the graphic novel? Were the changes significant or were they easily overlooked? Did the film feel right? Was the original messages from the comic book also on the big screen? Should I take into account those who have not read the book? Do I compare this to the book? etc….”

For those who want the bottom line, here it is:

Go see this movie.

Be forewarned. You should read on though, because the reasons why you should see this movie is different from what you would expect. (I will try to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but there may be some minor spoilers ahead… hit the jump!) Continue reading →

Sultan the Warrior…

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Check out this trailer for the upcoming Indian Animation (as in the Country India) Sultan the Warrior…

WHAT ….THE FU@K…WAS THAT!?

I can’t hate on the animation though (I sooo want to though…..). These are folks I might be working with in the future, I don’t want them saying, “why  you hating on our animation?”

You have to admit, it’s hilarious that the main dude’s facial expression never changes (I can watch this trailer over and over for the unintentional comedy that is the dude’s face). 

Oh and one last note, A.R. Rahman, the same dude who did the music to Slumdog Millionaire, did the music to this piece of…wonderful animation (grits teeth). Interesting….

This could all be just me though. Have a good laugh!

Review: La Maison en Petits Cubes

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La Maison en Petits Cubes (House of Small Cubes)/ created by Kunio Kato/ 2008 (Japan)

La Maison en Petits Cubes (House of Small Cubes) won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film this Year. Fresh off the heels of the best acceptance speech ever (sorry Geo, the Man on Wire disappearing coin was good, so was Sean Penn’s sentiments on Prop 8, and the Heath Ledger win was moving, but this dude thanked his pencil, and the domo arigato mr.roboto made more sense after I watched the short film, all acceptance speeches from now on should handled by Japanese men):

I decided I had to take some precious time off of work and school to give this short film a look and review.

Synopsis

La Maison en Petits Cubes tells the story of a man living in house surrounded by water. As the water rises he must build another level to his house to stay dry. One day, he loses his favorite pipe in the water. As he descends into the waters through different stories, he relives the scenes of his life.

The Review

Subtle and simplistic, yet oh so very powerful. I was riveted more by the 11 minutes of this short film than I have by some full length animated features…

(hit the jump to read the rest of my review, and the video of La Maison en Petit Cubes) Continue reading →

Review: Coraline 3D

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Coraline/ dir. Henry Selick/ 2009

coraline-movie-poster-1Being an animation student has inspired me to see anything and almost everything animated. I’ve known about Coraline for a couple of months, and I really wanted to see it when it first came out on February 6. I mean how can you go wrong with the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and based on a novel by Neil Gaiman! Here’s the trailer that got me hooked:

Life gets in the way many times and I didn’t get a chance to see it that opening weekend. I heard that the box office numbers for that opening weekend weren’t as big as LAIKA (the animation studio that produced the film) hoped for. And that a dismal showing of this film could spell doom for this Portland , OR based company. I made it a point to see the film, even if I was by my lonesome. Luckily that didn’t happen. Many thanks to the cutest newlyweds in Seattle (maybe a lil too cute), Daps and Cherry, for a journey that started with brunch, went through Coraline and a trip to Fry’s Electronics, and ended with Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations: Philiippines. (BTW, “Best Pig Ever” according to Anthony Bourdain…that’s high praise). 

On to the actual review: WOW…(hit the jump to continue): Continue reading →

The NEW Devastator

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Devastator was the first “combiner” transformer. It took six constructicons combined to make the dreaded Devastator. I was excited when I heard they were bringing the combiner Devastator (as opposed to the stupid tank from the first live-action Transformers) to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Here is comparison of the original Devastator and the movie version (thanks to Gizmodo).

devastator2009

My first reaction…eh….

We’ll have to see if this NEW Devastator is going to rock. My nostalgia for the original overbears my critical judgment on this matter. I will always treasure the original G1 designs. But lest I point out, many folks were critical of the first live-action Transformers designs, and I have to say they turned out pretty well. I’m going to have to trust the animators on this Devastator thing, so I’ll hold off judgment.

What do you think?