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 »
2017 Mammoth Lakes Film Festival — Shira Dubrovner Interview
Shira Dubrovner left behind a successful career in the film business to return to Mammoth Lakes and, eventually, to found the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, now in its third year (May 24-28) It was one of the things I asked her about when we spoke on May 18, 2017, but it wasn’t the first. That… 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 »
FINDING DORY
FINDING DORY, the eminently worthy sequel to 2003’s FINDING NEMO, is essentially one long chase. In this it shares much with last year’s blockbuster MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, including the sense that nothing is impossible, including testing the laws of physics to their limits, and a strong message of feminine empowerment, as exemplified by that… Read More »
HONEYGLUE with James Bird, Anya Remizova, and Adriana Mather
When I spoke with James Bird, Adriana Mather, and Anya Remizova on May 25, 2016, the first thing I wanted to know about was the clichés that they wanted to avoid in this story of young lovers facing their own mortality. It was only natural that we would discuss the spiritual influences that inspired Bird,… Read More »
BLING
BLING is a perfectly sweet, perfectly gentle, and perfectly harmless bit of fluffy animated comedy that will delight kids whose ages fall in the single digits. True love is the theme, and the difficulties of overcoming both self-doubt and Oscar (Jason Kravitz), an evil supervillain, provide the obstacles as mechanical whiz-kid Sam (Taylor Kitsch) spends… Read More »
Chris Butler & Sam Fell Bring PARANORMAN to Life
When I spoke with Chris Butler and Sam Fell on July 27, 2012, the conversation was a wonderful mix of whimsy and erudition as they explained the finer points of bringing a stop-motion film to life. The two shared the directing duties on PARANORMAN, working from a script by Butler. What I was most interested in,… Read More »
Ravi and Geeta Patel Want You to MEET THE PATELS
I have rarely laughed as much as I did when I spoke to Ravi and Geeta Patel on August 13, 2015, it was by Skype, with me in San Francisco, Geeta in North Carolina, and Ravi in Hollywood, but the rapport made it seem like we were all in the same room. The subject was… Read More »
Mark Burton and Richard Starzak — Puns, Cryptomnesia, and Dreams with SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE
Aardman Animation. For hordes of animation fans, you don’t need to say anything else about a film in order to get them to pack a theater. I, however, will add that the latest from that storied studio, the SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE, is everything that not just a great Aardman film should be, but also… Read More »
SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE
Four decades ago there was a Monty Python sketch in which Graham Chapman and Terry Jones discussed why a flock of off-screen sheep were hopping about on their back legs, attempting (badly) to fly, and doing something in trees that appeared to be nesting. It appeared that they had been led to believe that they… Read More »