I was only nine years old when the first “Ice Age” came out in 2002, but my memories of it are very fond. While it hasn’t aged as gracefully as I’d hoped in recent years, I still regard it as one of my favorite childhood movies because of its great character dynamics and clever Looney…
The dog days of the summer schlockbusters are upon us and soon we will be inundated with mediocre and below average films such as the new “Ghostbusters,” another “Ice Age” installment and the dismal “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” among others. Trying to fight this deluge, though, is the animated feature from Universal Pictures…
From the opening frame to its final musical note, When Marnie Was There evokes bittersweet recall of childhood memories; a love-letter to breezy seaside holidays, passionate yet fleeting friendships, and the anxiety of growing into an adult world. Animation studio Studio Ghibli almost seems to have selected these themes to reflect their own farewell. In…
I normally do not hold much hope for sequels that appear more than five years after the first installment (“The Two Jakes” comes immediately to mind). And although they fared alright with “Monsters, Inc.” and “Monsters University” (a prequel technicality), the same feeling came over me when I heard Pixar/Disney was releasing Finding Dory, a…
No one has been a bigger critic of films based on video games than this author, but on the other hand, no one is as appreciative of a decent product than him, as well. And while Angry Birds (directed by Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly, both longtime graphic artists, but each making their directorial debuts)…
Ratchet & Clank. Another more than appropriate film title — well, at least the “Clank” part. I have written in the past that movies inspired by video games usually fall into two categories: Bad (“Doom,” “Super Mario Bros.,” “Tomb Raider”) or terrible: (“Mortal Kombat,” “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li,” “Max Payne”). Recently, “Hitman: Agent…
There is something satisfying about five thirty-something men going into an afternoon screening of an animated “children’s” film that features talking animals, and noting other audience members of a similar age. That was my experience of Zootopia (re-named “Zootropolis” in the UK), as myself and four friends of a similar age found ourselves in a…
