There is little that tugs more insistently at my heartstrings, cinematically at least, than a film that genuinely means well and falls short. And so it is with WELCOME TO MARWEN, a showcase of CGI and of Steve Carrell’s dramatic chops, but of little else. The story is based on the life of Mark Hogencamp,… Read More »
SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Just when you thought the Spiderman franchise might have finally run its course of endless reboots comes SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE, a film that that reinvigorates both animation and the super-hero origin story. Told in a wry, raucous style, it dares to explore complicated themes of family ties and personal responsibility while slyly poking fun… Read More »
EARLY MAN
Click here for the KMR interview with director/co-writer Nick Park. The filmmakers at Aardman have carved out for their studio a specific niche among animated films. Theirs is a humor that is sly, unafraid of a pun, and equally fearless in its embrace of the silly for the sake of silliness. It is a universe… Read More »
LOVING VINCENT
The subjects of Vincent Van Gogh’s masterpieces come to startling, vivid, and enchanting life in LOVING VINCENT, a film of enormous beauty and sharp insight. Created by rotoscoping actors, and then painting each animation cell by hand in oils, the result is an immersive experience of how the artist saw the world while also questioning… Read More »
THE RED TURTLE
We are reminded in THE RED TURTLE how superfluous words can be. This animated fable from Studio Ghibli, aimed more at adults than at children, is a thoughtful film about the cycle of life, and a sublime cinematic achievement. A masterpiece, in fact. Starting with a shipwreck, it tells the story of a castaway marooned… Read More »
LONG WAY NORTH
LONG WAY NORTH uses deceptively simple animation to tell an epic adventure. At its center is Sasha (Christa Théret), a spirited and determined 15-year-old set on restoring her family’s honor, and the legacy her of her beloved grandfather, Oloukine (Féodor Atkine) an arctic explorer gone missing on his last expedition. It would be a monumental undertaking… Read More »
TOWER
On August 1, 1966, a sniper took aim from the observation deck of the tower on the University of Texas campus at Austin and reigned 90 minutes of chaos and terror on the people below. TOWER, a partly animated documentary by Keith Maitland, tells that story in real time from the perspective of the eyewitnesses… Read More »
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS
KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS continues Laika’s string of arresting, unconventional stop-motion animated films that are both sophisticated and enchanting. Like PARANORMAN and CORALINE, KUBO is audacious enough to tackle serious subjects and to do so with no pretense about the finality of death, or the reality of evil. Taking its cue from Joseph Campbell’s… Read More »
SAUSAGE PARTY
It’s just as well that Seth Rogan’s animated comedy, SAUSAGE FEST, is R-rated. That would be because the most awkward question a parent might have to answer after his or her child has seen this metaphysically dense romp wouldn’t be about the specific mechanics involved in the bonding between Brenda (Kristen Wiig), a bosomy hot… Read More »
ICE AGE: COLLISON COURSE
The Ice Age series has always gone more for the heart that the funny bone, though there is no denying that Scrat’s eternal and Sisyphean struggle both to acquire and to retain the acorn he’s been chasing through the four previous films has, in equal parts, both hilarity and a keen commentary on the noble struggle of humankind against a basically unfeeling universe.