Tag Archives: animation

2015 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films: Best to Not-Best

February 11, 2016 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Bear Story!

Each year since 2009 my wife and I have paid a visit to Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not. Usually we do both sets as a one-day double-feature date, but a non-negotiable scheduling conflict cut into our window of opportunity. We saw the live-action shorts two weekends ago, and caught the animated shorts this past weekend.

Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Animated Short Film nominees, in order from “So Many Feels” to “Had Drawbacks”. They’re probably available on iTunes or other streaming services, but I honestly haven’t checked. Links are provided to official sites where available if you’re interested in more info. Enjoy where possible!

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Indiana State Fair 2015 Photos, Part 4 of 5: The Art of the Fair

August 20, 2015 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

State Fair Clonetrooper!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides and big-ticket concerts by musicians that other people love. My wife and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context. We’re not as thrilled about carnival rides as we used to be, and the State Fair almost never invites musicians I like. In between snacking experiments, our day at the fair tends to be all about sightseeing…

ART! It’s everywhere at the State Fair! It’s in the buildings or along the streets, it’s made by kids or by adults, it’s made of traditional media or of food, it expresses a thought or teaches a lesson or celebrates an idol or all of the above. These, then, are random examples of those very things that caught our eye.

Naturally we had to lead with Clonetrooper helmet. Its display-case roommate looks vaguely Legoesque, but I could be wrong.

Right this way for more things made by people! For things’ sake!

“Inside Out”: Oceans of Commotions from Notions of Emotions

July 3, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Inside Out!

Two women on the go and an unforgiving canyon. It’s just like Thelma and Louise except this time men aren’t to blame for everything and they didn’t cut off the ending.

Pixar has wowed us before, but this is the first time they’ve adapted one of my wish-list items into a major motion picture. With their new spectacle Inside Out I finally got that Parks and Rec/The Office crossover I’ve been imagining in my head for years. Amy Poehler’s Joy basically is Leslie Knope — she has the unlimited zest, the relentless positivism, the stubborn refusal to accept dissent, and the disturbing attachment to large binders. Phyllis Smith’s Sadness and Mindy Kaling’s Disgust represent for an animated Dunder Mifflin exactly as they would in live-action, but without the guys around to get in their way. It’s probably for the best that NBC didn’t force the showrunners into a crossover years ago, and instead let it happen organically when the time was right. I’m just thrilled that it came to pass in my lifetime.

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C2E2 2015 Photos, Part 7 of 9: Last Call for Costumes

April 29, 2015 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Shining Twins!

The Grady twins from The Shining, roaming the McCormick Place halls forever and ever AND EVER.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I went to C2E2 and took photos! Other chapters in the series:

Part 1: Costume Contest Winners
Part 2: The Rest of the Costume Contest
Part 3: Edge of Deadpoolverse
Part 4: Mighty Marvel Costumes
Part 5: More Comics Costumes
Part 6: Mystery Science Costume Theater 3000
Part 8: Stars of Comics and Screens
Part 9: Random Acts of C2E2ing

Today’s feature: our last usable cosplay pics — characters from gaming, animation, and pop-culture potpourri.

Right this way for just a few more costumes, and then I promise I’ll move on!

Moving Away from Evergreen Terrace

April 12, 2015 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Simpsons DVDs!

Guess which season saw the introduction of a new box design. And guess which set I hate most for ruining everything.

Obsessive completists who collect physical media and refuse to give up on The Simpsons received heartbreaking news this week when longtime producer Al Jean revealed Season 17 would be the final DVD/Blu-ray set produced. In numerous back-and-forth discussions with fans on Twitter, Jean cited poor sales in a world where streaming media has become the preferred viewing option for a lot of former disc buyers. It’s not hard to argue the diminishing aesthetic returns on later seasons may also have contributed to America’s growing consensus as to exactly how much of the show deserves to be archived in their own homes.

For anyone with the true collector mentality, this cancellation poses a special form of anguish: a no-frills Season 20 set was rush-released in 2010 as an anniversary merchandising tie-in. Anyone who’s bought them religiously since Season 1 will now have a eternal gap between 17 and 20 that can never be filled through legal means, to say nothing of the unreleased 21 through 60. Granted, you could pay to watch those online via Amazon, or indulge in the Simpsons World app if you care to watch the show on certain devices. You could store said device on the DVD shelf between 17 and 20, and argue till your face is Homer-pants-blue that it’s close enough. You’d be wrong.

For my wife and myself, it’s another stumbling block to our once-fervent Simpsons fandom.

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My Super Awesome Cinderella Reboot Pitch

March 10, 2015 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Walt Disney's Cinderella

The young woman whose life was changed forever by a first date and some pretty shoes.

[It’s a hidden gem from the MCC Archives! The following entry was originally posted on November 19, 2012, with zero awareness that Disney would someday do something new-not-new with Cinderella. Fast-forward two years, and their live-action remake is coming to theaters this Friday, March 13th. The prophecy has come to pass!

I have no plans to see their version unless someone mails me a ticket, but it’d be great if they totally followed my outline and proved me a genius out of time. Based on the last trailer I saw, they declined my pitch and theirs will instead be a Gus van Sant shot-for-shot homage with no twists allowed. This entry, then, captures the marketable joy of What Might Have Been.]

* * * * *

This weekend I revisited Walt Disney’s twelfth animated classic Cinderella for the first time since the late 1990s. Of all the numerous Disney films our family has owned in multiple formats, this is one of several that rarely saw repeat viewings even when my son was a toddler who insisted on watching every animated movie over and over again until I hated it.

As with many older Disney films, parts of it have aged better than others. I’ll admit I had trouble staying conscious all the way through. Even if I’m alone in this struggle, the film is now over sixty years old and therefore in need of a gratuitous overhaul on shallow principle. In the spirit of today’s remake-happy medium that thrives on second-hand ideas, the following notes are my suggestions to downconvert this one-time children’s favorite for the modern, unsophisticated audience that Hollywood executives so dearly crave.

Right this way for notes to make the greatest Cinderella of all times!

2014 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts: From Best to Not-Best

February 1, 2015 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Feast!

Each year since 2009 my wife and I have made a day-long date of visiting Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not.

Presented below are my rankings of this year’s five Animated Short Film nominees, from the greatest to the most head-scratching. It’s my understanding all five nominated animated shorts can be viewed on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and other similar sources. Links are provided for official sites or the next relevant thing available. Enjoy!

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Yes, There’s a Scene After the “Big Hero 6” End Credits

November 16, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Big Hero 6!

We’re gonna go save the world just as soon as this kitty is sufficiently petted.

When The Walt Disney Company acquired Marvel Entertainment in 2009, fans on all sides wondered what sort of corporate synergy we’d see between the two in future projects. For the most part the companies have kept their logos in separate spaces, but Big Hero 6 represents the first truly co-op experience: a Disney animated film based on a Marvel property, albeit very loosely (whose creators, Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, later became part of the think tank responsible for Ben 10). Sharing between Disney and Marvel came easily to them this time, most likely because the characters had become instantly obscure and tossed in the back of the Marvel IP closet, upsetting maybe five or ten fans at most. If a reboot went wrong, they had nothing to lose.

Someone somewhere spotted them on a list, figured they were practically a blank slate, dusted them off, shined them up, upgraded them for a younger audience, deleted all the X-Men connections that got them published in the first place, and now here we are with the next Walt Disney Animated Classic — the all-new, all-different Big Hero 6.

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MCC Home Video Scorecard #3: Histories Rewritten

November 6, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Disney's Lone Ranger!

Coming next fall to The CW: Winklevoss and Wonka! They’re loose-cannon buddy-cops, hot on the trail of Mike Teavee and the Facebook Staff!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: the recurring feature that’s me jotting down capsule-sized notes about Stuff I Recently Watched at home. In this batch: an expensive tale about Massive Explosions of the Oooold West; an epic from the end of China’s Warring States period; a World War II short story about the time they almost killed Hitler; and an animated sort-of adaptation of a famous novel about an honorary teen pirate.

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MCC 2014 Pilot Binge #21- 22: “Jane the Virgin” vs. “Mike Tyson Mysteries”

November 2, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Gina Rodriguez!

I haven’t forgotten about this very special project, but I had a certain viewing/posting order in mind that would’ve put some thematic coupling to these entries. That plan was derailed when two of the pilots on the master list were not available for viewing On Demand, my primary source of after-airing catch-up. I’m in the process of making special arrangements to see those two without resorting to pirating or (ugh) buying them on iTunes. That leaves me with two pilots I’ve watched in the past month that share absolutely nothing in common except that I haven’t covered them yet. Maybe this works if we all agree to pretend Jane the Virgin and Mike Tyson are mismatched buddy-cops who have to get along for the sake of their jobs, and that there are high stakes and…I don’t even know how to finish this sentence in any remotely entertaining manner. The two series are like comparing apples and Edsels. I give.

Onward, then:

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MCC 2014 Pilot Binge #19: “Star Wars Rebels”

October 20, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Star Wars Rebels!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…the Keystone Kops were alive and well and still wearing useless helmets.

Star Wars Rebels is the first of two animated pilots on the project list, and one of the very few that my wife and I had planned to try anyway. She’s a longtime dedicated Star Wars fan with an Expanded Universe emphasis, as are some of my oldest internet cohorts. Together we watched nearly every episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars until its abrupt cancellation. We number among the many thousands of fans waiting impatiently and vainly for closure on the life of former Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano. Regardless, we’d look and feel weirder if we didn’t give the new show a try.

Far as I can tell, nearly everyone who’ll love any media product with the words “Star Wars” on it has given the show an A for existing. So far to me, it’s Firefly for kids. There’s some good and some less-good in that.

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Wizard World Chicago 2014 Photos, Part 4 of 7: Animation Costumes!

August 27, 2014 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Team Rocket!

Jesse and James fire Meowth, welcome new sidekick Ash. Meet the all-new, all-different Team Rocket!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

This weekend was that time again: our annual excursion to Rosemont, IL, for Wizard World Chicago. My wife and I took plenty of photos as usual, many of them usable. We’ll be sharing those over the next several entries, but I’m still too fatigued from the experience to figure out how many entries these will take.

I’ve been dealing with con crud all week long and struggling to reactivate all portions of my brain, but the math finally came together for me: we’re looking at seven entries in all for the WWC 2014 photo parade. Part four of those, then: characters from cartoons and anime. Enjoy!

Right this way for your favorites from Japan and/or Saturday morning…

Gen Con 2014 Photos, Part 5 of 6: Last Call for Costumes

August 18, 2014 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
Khal Drogo!

Not taking Khal Drogo seriously would prove to be his last mistake. After the scene of carnage, his friends divided up the contents of his pockets between them.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife and I attended Gen Con 2014 and took pictures as usual.

Parts One through Three were the Costume Contest winners and contenders. Part Four was cosplay in the exhibit hall, the other halls, the other rooms, out and about, and wherever. Part Five: more of those, but the last usable ones in our collection. If you’re not shown here, either our destinies didn’t cross on that fateful Saturday, or we crossed at mistimed moments (really sorry I missed Pirate Harley Quinn), or we have a tragically blurry pic of you that’s not worth anyone’s upload time. Better luck next year, maybe?

For those who know every fictional character ever invented, this entry shall be your geek-culture playground, as it contains the largest number of “WHO DAT” cosplay moments. If you recognize any of the unnamed folks in these pics, now’s your chance to label them with pride.

Right this way for the last of the famous international cosplayers!

“How to Train Your Dragon 2”: Training Day is Over

June 21, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Hiccup and Toothless!

My son and I were part of the Dragon Training 101 graduating class that considers How to Train Your Dragon the Greatest DreamWorks Animated Film of All Time. In those basic studies we learned that dragons respond well to a combination of generosity and teamwork, that even the scrawniest Viking can surprise you, that Scottish Viking fathers are stubborn but negotiable, that Old World prosthetics were surprisingly advanced, and that cinematic dragons have come a long way since Dragonslayer, Dragonheart, Dungeons & Dragons, Eragon, Dragon Wars, and even Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, where those mighty beasts received fifty-eighth billing, ranking well below CG mermen, nameless wizard henchmen, and a guy who turns into a rat. So How to Train Your Dragon was a tremendous PR boost to a once-honored race of monsters that deserve better than Hollywood usually gives them.

The How to Train Your Dragon 2 intermediate course had much to live up to in our minds, both as a sequel and as the next rung on the ladder of dragon-training success. We feared whether this would be a worthwhile study or one of those unaccredited, fly-by-night scams that hopes you won’t be able to tell their “dragons” are just really ugly dogs with paper wings taped to their fur.

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Will “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” Be the Best Even-Numbered Film in the Series?

May 9, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Caesar!

Anyone wanna tell them “No”?

Today marked the premiere of the first full-length trailer for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, the next entry in the apocalyptic series that’s so far been rebooted twice for theaters, this time with a bit more success. The new one comes from director Matt Reeves, who previously tinkered with disaster in Cloverfield; features MOCAP king Andy Serkis once again as Caesar, lord of the apes and probably their best public speaker; and includes human roles for the likes of The Gary Oldman, Fringe‘s Kirk Acevedo, and Jason Clarke, who was Zero Dark Thirty‘s friendly interrogator but seems much more stressed out here in this trailer than he was on the war front.

This way for the trailer and my pet theory about the numbering…

“Mr. Peabody & Sherman”: Wibbly Wobbly Timey-Wimey Ruff

March 26, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Mr. Peabody and Sherman, DreamWorks

Midlife Crisis Crossover calls Mr. Peabody & Sherman the greatest adaptation of a Jay Ward Productions cartoon in cinematic history!

Seriously, consider the competition: 2000’s live-action The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, which had precisely one (1) funny joke that I recall with traumatized clarity to this day; Brendan Fraser as Disney’s George of the Jungle, which was a merchandising showcase disguised as kiddie slapstick farce; and Brendan Fraser again in Dudley Do-Right, which had no reason to live. Thankfully Hollywood came to its senses and refrained from giving us Brendan Fraser as Tom Slick, Aesop’s annoying son, and Super-Chicken’s sidekick Fred.

DreamWorks neatly sidestepped any more Fraser pain by taking the CG-animation route and barring him from participation. In another risky deviation from the formula of the other three films, director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) and his crew also chose to make their film funny. I applaud this bold, non-conformist stratagem.

This way for another Wayback adventure!

“Star Wars: the Clone Wars” Season 6: Ranking the Story Arcs

March 25, 2014 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Jar-Jar Binks, Mace Windu, Star Wars, Clone Wars Season Six

Our Hero and his new partner, Mace. #TrueDetectiveSeason2

My wife and I were previously disappointed when Cartoon Network pulled the plug on Star Wars: the Clone Wars for what I imagine were the worst of reasons, which wouldn’t be out of line with their past history of greedily motivated cancellations. We were surprised and a little excited when Lucasfilm announced that season six would be released on Netflix, not even a month after we finally became official subscribers.

Though many fans put life on hold and held a thirteen-episode Season Six marathon as soon as they woke up on release day, we didn’t complete our own leisurely runthrough till this past weekend. She’s the hardcore Expanded Universe enthusiast who’s frequently taken issue whenever the animators have wantonly disregarded the novels in every other episode. I’m a more casual SW viewer who’s liked many episodes, but I’ve had my own recurring peeves about the series since season one. Together we have our opinions as to how the four arcs in this season worked out. Of those four, I most enjoyed the one that I thought I would give me convulsions, and the one I ended up loathing the most convinced me the Cartoon Network execs weren’t entirely off-base for once.

This way for the opinions of a pair of happily married madpeople!

2014 Oscar-Nominated Animated Shorts: a Brief Rundown

February 17, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Mr. Hublot

Behold the complex world of Mr. Hublot.

Each year since 2009 my wife and I have made a day-long date of visiting Keystone Art Cinema, the only dedicated art-film theater in Indianapolis, to view the big-screen release of the Academy Award nominees for Best Live-Action Short Film and Best Animated Short Film. Results vary each time and aren’t always for all audiences, but we appreciate this opportunity to sample such works and see what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences deemed worthy of celebrating, whether we agree with their collective opinions or not.

Presented below are my thoughts on this year’s five Animated Short Film nominees. Shorts International, which masterminds these theatrical releases, strongly discourages the nominated filmmakers from posting their works online for free, but it’s my understanding they’re available on iTunes, Amazon, and/or Video On Demand. If you live in a large city where they’re playing in theaters, this year you’re treated to silly framing sequences starring an animated ostrich and giraffe who work as stand-ins during Oscars ceremony rehearsals. Voices are provided by Red Dwarf alumni Kerry Shale and Mac McDonald.

Enjoy where possible!

And the nominees are…

“The LEGO Movie”: If You Build It…You’re Awesome!

February 12, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Batman, The Lego Movie

Arguably the best Batman film since The Dark Knight.

Because sometimes you need a break from Oscar season.

I had sky-high expectations for The Lego Movie as a veteran player of their first several video games — both Lego Star Wars, both Lego Indiana Jones, both of Lego Harry Potter, the first Lego Batman, Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, and the most epic of them all, Lego Lord of the Rings. They’re inventive, unpredictable, witty beyond all expectations with a keen self-awareness that frequently lampoons the very intellectual properties they paid good money to license. And those were just the cutscenes.

Walk this way for a few more blocks…

My 2013 at the Movies, Part 2 of 2: the Year’s Least Worst

January 10, 2014 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Matt Damon, Elysium

The Bourne Upgrade. District 18. Green Zone 3000. Good Will Exploding. And so on, and so on.


Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Once again January is National List Month, that magical time of year when everyone’s last twelve months of existence must be dehydrated, crammed into enumerated little packets, and lined up on the shelf in subjective order for re-inspection. The final tabulations reveal I saw twenty-five films in theaters in 2013 and one via On Demand while it was still in limited art-house release…

And now, the countdown concludes:

13. Elysium. Some say the 99%-vs.-1% feud will end in negotiations; some say in explosions. Neill Blomkamp’s sophomore extrapolation of the effect of humanity’s self-hatred on its own future stops asking questions halfway through and solves nearly everything with chases and showdowns between Matt Damon’s everyman underdog imperfect sinner Average Joe antihero and Sharlto Copley’s cyborg Snidely Whiplash. In some respects this deserved to be ranked a lot lower, but something about Blomkamp’s vivid underclass aesthetic and leftover District 9 effects cachet boosted it a tad unfairly over the other popcorn-film competition.

This way for #12 through #1…