One of the things I love about GKids Films, a distributor of Asian animated films, is the absolute variety and high quality of each production they release in the U.S. The films they release range from stop-motion (My Life as… Read More ›
animation
A Conversation with director Morgan Holub. [Real to Reel Film Festival]
“Reel Conversations” highlights filmmakers featured in the 21st Annual International Real to Reel Film Festival. On this episode of “Reel Conversations,” Thomas Manning speaks with Morgan Holub, writer, director, producer for Lost in Place. Lost in Place is a sci-fi… Read More ›
A Conversation with director Tianze Fan. [Real to Reel Film Festival]
“Reel Conversations” highlights filmmakers responsible for some of the official Real to Reel Film Festival Selections. Here, on “Reel Conversations,” Thomas Manning speaks with Tianze Fan, director of short film Con Amore. Tianze Fan is a 3D animation major student… Read More ›
Get your action-adventure fix anytime with the home release of “Scoob!”
If you’re one of those folks who prefers physical media, get excited because one of the first 2020-slated films to hit Premium VOD is finally hitting shelves: WB Pictures’s Scoob!. In this soft-reboot of the beloved series, audiences are invited… Read More ›
Front row seats just opened up for “Trolls World Tour” and it’s at your house.
2020’s been one series of surprises after another. You’d run out of fingers trying to list all of the unexpected events and I’m here to present you with another: Trolls World Tour is a near-perfect exploration of cultural appropriation and… Read More ›
Though you may weep, be not afraid to embark on “Marona’s Fantastic Tale.”
Screened at a variety of global festivals before seeing a limited release in 2020, Anca Damian’s Marona’s Fantastic Tale (L’extraordinaire voyage de Marona) is unlike anything I’ve seen so far this year. The story itself is fairly simple: a dog,… Read More ›
LEGO & DC connect for another Shazam adventure: “Magic & Monsters.”
Chances are fairly high that, at some point in your life, you’ve either played with or watched a LEGO product. It could one of their thousands of playsets depicting everything from medieval periods or NASA shuttle launches to Gotham crime… Read More ›
If you grew up on Hanna-Barbera cartoons, don’t wait on watching the easter egg-filled “Scoob!”
Beyond telling an engaging story, animated children’s features have two goals: captivate the target audience and be clever enough so the parents don’t want to murder themselves on the 58th viewing. By all marks, Warner Brothers Animations’s Scoob! succeeds in… Read More ›
Animated adaptation of Chinese tale “Ne Zha” asks children what we owe each other.
Myths and legends, stories like those of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round, Robin Hood, and Paul Bunyan and those of gods, goddesses, demons, and immortals, are often given the adaptation treatment in cinema. These stories are often… Read More ›
Animated horror flick “To Your Last Death” only feels like murder.
Within the horror genre, there are countless sub-genres that exist to define the genre as a whole: slasher, ghost stories, torture porn, revenge thrillers, psychological horror, etc. However, one area that doesn’t really seem to have any sort of traction… Read More ›
Pick up “Spies in Disguise” on home video and join Team Weird.
When the world seems literally about to fall apart, what we need is to remember that we’re all in this together. That, perhaps, the way we’ve been doing things hasn’t been the right way all along. As humans, we tend… Read More ›
For love and loss, our journey continues ever “Onward.”
If the opportunity was presented before you to spend one more day with someone you’d lost, what would you be willing to do? Where would you be willing to journey? What tasks would you be willing to undertake just for… Read More ›
Travel into the unknown as often as you like with “Frozen II” on home video now.
When the teaser for Frozen II first dropped, if you’d told me that that film would become one of my favorites of 2019, that I’d find myself revisiting it frequently, its songs on repeat willingly and purposefully, I’d have likely… Read More ›
Class 1-A proclaim’s “I am here!” in Funimation theatrical release “My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising.”
Finally coming to American shores is Funimation Films’s latest theatrical event, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising, the second theatrical release for the widely popular My Hero Academia anime series. First released in December 2019 overseas, the film’s inspired by the… Read More ›
Feel-good anime “Ride Your Wave” is a visual joy with a mix of old and new romantic themes.
If you’re still looking for romance the week after Valentine’s Day, or perhaps if you’re desperate for something warm and colorful to beat the winter blahs, Masaaki Yuasa’s new anime feature, Ride Your Wave, might be just the pick-me-up you… Read More ›
When it comes to “Spies in Disguise,” Team Weird FTW.
What if James Bond, but he’s a pigeon? This crazy premise doesn’t sound all that enticing, but what if I told you that’s just the lede for 20th Century Fox’s animated spy action-adventure family film Spies in Disguise. First time… Read More ›
“The Curse of the Monkey Bird” pairs the familiar with the modern for an undeniable fun Looney Tunes adventure.
A pig and a duck ride an elephant into the jungle. No, this isn’t the set-up for a joke, it’s the basis for The Curse of the Monkey Bird, the latest in a series of Looney Tunes cartoons set for… Read More ›
“Frozen II”: Bigger, Bolder, Colder.
In 2013, you couldn’t turn on a radio without hearing Idina Menzel belting “Let It Go” and, by 2014, Halloween looked like an army of Elsas and Annas coming to pillage your candy. As much of a pop culture phenomenon… Read More ›
By blending traditional art styles with modern animation, the Chinese folktale “Legend of the White Snake” takes on a new life in the GKIDS release “White Snake.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the “Legend of the White Snake,” it’s an ancient Chinese folktale dating back centuries. Rooted in oral history, the tale has been translated into song, print, television, and film many times over. In it, a human… Read More ›
Photorealism may not suck you into “The Lion King” (2019), but the bonus features in the home release showcasing just how impressive the undertaking was just might.
On paper, adapting The Lion King for a new generation of fans seems like an absolute no-brainer. First released by Disney in 1994, the original Lion King blew the minds of audiences and critics alike as the story and songs… Read More ›