SNAPSHOTAfter being in space for around 20 years, Rocko and his friends attempt to conform to an even more modern life in O-Town, where coffee shops are on every corner, food trucks offer multi-layered tacos, touch-screen O-Phones are being upgraded on a near-constant basis, an instant-print kiosk has replaced Rocko’s Continue Reading
Animation
The short and the short of it: A cat, a bird and Catastrophe
SNAPSHOTWhen a little bird suddenly drops dead in its cage, all eyes are on the cat. Desperately he tries to make everything right again but actually making everything worse in the progress. (synopsis via Laughing Squid) Have you ever wondered how quickly can a situation get out of control? Wonder Continue Reading
Animated Aladdin revisited: Outtakes of the masterful Robin Williams at work as the genie
The late great much-missed Robin Williams was a master of his comedic craft and his role as the manic, hilarious, oneliner-spitting genie in the 1992 animated movie Aladdin was one of his most memorabl roles. And for good reason. Every scene that Williams’ bombastically-hilarious blue-toned genie is in is a Continue Reading
Christmas in July … watching Yogi Bear’s All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper
First airing, in seasonally-appropriate style, on 21 December, 1982, Yogi Bear’s All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper was the third and final festive special for Jellystone Park’s favourite pic-a-nic loving resident. (Yogi Bera is voiced by the legendary Daws Butler) Gathering together a panoply of Hanna-Barbera characters from the well known likes Continue Reading
Christmas in July: Lucas the Spider makes some festive friends
Lucas the Spider is freaking adorable any time of the year. But there’s something about Christmas, a time of peace, goodwill and togetherness (and stripey festive peppermints), that makes him even more adorably sweet as he tries to befriend a fly to be his buddy at the most wonderful time Continue Reading
Stranger Lambs: Shaun the Sheep’s Farmageddon gets very zeitgeist-y
SNAPSHOTWhen the intergalactic visitor – an impish and adorable alien called LU-LA – crash-lands near Mossy Bottom Farm, Shaun soon sees an opportunity for alien-powered fun and adventure and sets off on a mission to shepherd LU-LA home. Her magical alien powers, irrepressible mischief and galactic sized burps soon have Continue Reading
More than just toys: How Toy Story beautifully explores issues of abandonment (video essay)
No one likes to be abandoned or neglected. It cuts to the very core of our self-worth and lovability and the even the prospect of it, quite understandably, leaves us quaking in our existential boots. The same goes for the toys of Pixar’s Toy Story series, says Isaac of The Continue Reading
Weekday movie poster art: Toy Story 4
I love movie posters and I love and adore the Toy Story series of films, the latest of which Toy Story 4 is a brilliantly-worthy addition to films 1, 2 and 3, and so, the creation of posters by a group of artists celebrating what I would argue is Pixar’s Continue Reading
Movie review: Toy Story 4
Belonging is one of the most fundamental needs we have as a species. If you’ve been any attention at all to Pixar’s superlatively-good Toy Story series, you will have come to appreciate that it’s pretty fundamental to toys too. Time and again in Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Toy Continue Reading
As heartfelt as it gets: Director of UP, Pete Doctor explains the creation of its poignant opening sequence
The opening sequence of 2009’s UP, which is, if you do the maths, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is one of the most moving and beautiful pieces of cinema out there, absolutely and utterly, in any genre, hands down. That may be seem like an extravagantly hyperbolic claim but Continue Reading