The Artist Airidescence is a multimedia anarchist creator whose work has picked up significant attention on social media. Their ongoing anarchist raccoon art series has been popular enough to warrant sold out print runs on Etsy. Recently, in collaboration with scholar Zoe Baker, they have produced an animated short film entitled Pastries, Freedom, Love: A Malatesta Story based on […]
Prehistoric Planet Review
Almost a century ago, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle showed The Lost World (1925), a film filled with prehistoric creatures, to a meeting of the Society of American Magicians, and impishly refused to disclose the origin of the film. Willis H. O’Brien’s stop-motion dinosaurs were impressive enough to convince at least some of the audience that […]
London Film Festival 2015: Anomalisa
Standing in the queue for the London Film Festival’s mysterious secret screening, all the talk was unsurprisingly concerned with what lay ahead on the mammoth screen at the Odeon in Leicester Square. Packed together like cattle, there were murmurs of The Hateful Eight or, perhaps most widely suspected, The Danish Girl. But of course you can’t second guess the […]
Dimensionality Evokes the Perception of Life in Persepolis
For this essay, my professor asked us to analyze how a given animated film uses dimensionality to formally and technologically give the movie a sense of life. I chose write about Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi’s film Persepolis through Thomas Lamarre’s theories of animation as outlined in his book, The Anime Machine. Key themes of animation […]
Eisenstein Goes Plane Crazy
For this essay, my professor asked us to find discuss an animated Disney short film through the lens of Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Quotes in this piece are taken from the translated compilation of Eisenstein’s notes in Jay Leda’s 1988 book, Eisenstein on Disney. Sergei Eisenstein, a Marxist filmmaker and theorist, had a unique relationship with […]
The Golden Age of Arthur Comes to an End
A nostalgic, familiar sight as Arthur and his friends are sitting in class with Mr. Ratburn, studiously paying attention as the curmudgeonly teacher drones on about math. But something is off. None of the characters look quite right. Their outlines are bolder and there’s almost no subtlety to their expressions. And now they’re moving, but […]
Holmes, Hébert and the Stereoscope
For this essay, my professor asked us to choose a 19th century optical toy and discuss its relevance to animator Pierre Hébert’s essay, “Cinema, Animation and the Other Arts: An Unanswered Question.” I chose to talk about the Holmes stereoscope. Most of the images herein are stills of Pierre Hébert’s various animated works. In his 1859 […]
Summer Box Office Saturated with Explosions
A decorated gladiator steps out into the sun, brandishing two swords while donning finely detailed armor. Around him, hundreds of men and women line the seats of a massive arena, wildly screaming his name. He walks forward to address his opponent, a Roman slave whose character design is the product of meticulous behind-the-scenes scrutiny. After […]
Is Story Still King? An Examination of Pixar’s Future
Among the fabled Pixar legends, which include the “Black Friday” Toy Story reel, the cancelled Newt project, and the reason why Cars 2 exists, there is the story of one quietly life-changing lunch. In 1994, a year before Toy Story came out and birthed the digital animation craze, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and […]
Chris Bishop, Co-Writer of Award-Winning Animated Short Caldera
The flowing figure of an enigmatic young woman floats down through sapphire blue water pierced by rays of faint sunlight. The young woman’s black hair streams behind her as she leans forward to touch the looming form of a giant, peaceful turtle. A quietly haunting tune compliments the scene as it accentuates the flood of […]
Kung Fu Panda 2
I can safely say that I haven’t had as much fun watching a movie in a while as I did when I saw Kung Fu Panda 2. As a sequel to the much-lauded Kung Fu Panda, it succeeds on every front, and as a piece of cinema, it makes for a compelling, dramatic addition to […]
Termite Terrace Trounces the Mouse House
Walt Disney Animation and the Warner Bros. Animation are longtime rivals who sported very different philosophies when it came animation. The stalwart, good heartedness of Disney’s shorts stood in contrast to the wild, nihilistic nature of Warner’s universe. Their respective facilities, business outlooks, and differing collections of talent and staff infrastructure all lent to two […]
The Iron Giant
Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant mixes adult themes about over-encroaching governments and biting political commentary with humor, heart, and a true soul. To say this film is anything less than one of the preeminent animated films of our time is to do it injustice. I do not believe any movie has been able to so deftly […]
