It is all too rare these days to see an animated film that does not look like anything else out there. It is far, far rarer to find an animated film that reminds you of why you fell in love with animation in the first place.
I am happy to report, with my clumsy typing fingers trying to be coherent at way, way too early in the morning, that "The Secret of Kells" is such a movie on both counts. It is not only one of the most truly unique animated films from the past decade, it also puts my faith back into the medium.
A surprise nomination for Best Animated Feature (which was full of good contenders this year: "Up", "The Princess and the Frog", "Fantastic Mr. Fox", "Coraline") in the 2010 Academy Awards, "Kells" is somewhat reminiscent of "The Secret of Roan Inish". Both films successfully achieve the "incredible legendary fantastical things co-exist with day-to-day mundane things, just go with it" feel that is so distinctive to Irish folklore. (To the point where a few reviewers found the combination of a Catholic monastery and a forest full of pre-Christian mythical creatures a little off-putting. Whatever, dude. I was totally cool with it. Maybe you have to be Irish to get it?)
The film is the result of a decade-long labor of love. I highly recommend watching the director's presentation in the special features. He shows all the character and production design drawings he could find, parts of the film's storyboards and "color script" (small paintings that track how the use of color in animation can enhance the mood of the story throughout the film, ie violent reds during the barbarian raids, peaceful greens during the scenes in Aisling's forest), pages from the "series bible" (the production was spread over several countries --some of which happily represented themselves by the other refugee monks at Kells in the film-- so a large collection of notes detailing the style of the film was essential), and lists several of his favorite works of animation that inspired the look of the film. There are visual nods to everything from ancient Irish art to "Samurai Jack" and "Okami". And the film is extremely intelligent as well; the creators show that they really did their research (leave it to TV Tropes to seek out all the references.)
"Secret of Kells" is right up there with "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Blade Runner" (and "Land Before Time", of course) as one of the most exceptionally beautiful films I have ever seen. There is a sequence late in the film that is such a stunning triumph of hand-drawn animation that you wonder if this scene alone is what they spent most of those ten years upon.
At this point, I should really hopefully just be able to say, "Secret of Kells" is wonderful and you should watch it. Since it is available on Netflix instant watch, you should watch it right now. Like, right now. Like, instead of reading me struggling to express my love for it in words, right now.
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Pink Dinosaur of the Day! Technically, I hit the fifteenth pink dinosaur a while before this guy, but I couldn't resist:
So recently, I watched and enjoyed a beloved, critically acclaimed, gorgeously animated film that involved John Lasseter about a boy who has just recently become a man. He and his single mother are getting him ready to move off to the far-away land of college. The movie really isn't about the man, though. It's about the objects he owned and loved as a child who come to life when he isn't around. The objects are upset because they don't know if their owner is going to leave them, throw them away, or take them to college with him. Eventually, the objects decide to reunite with their owner, and they get into various misadventures in the process. At one point, they find themselves in a building where objects are mistreated by humans and have gone a little nuts because of it. They meet other objects who tell them they're worthless junk without their owner, and they almost meet a tragic and horrifying end in a garbage dump. Thankfully, their owner finds them and brings them to a place where they will be loved, cared for, and -best of all- where they will be used and needed. The film ends with the man driving off to college.
So yes, I re-watched "The Brave Little Toaster".
But I also finally saw "Toy Story 3". My above summary is by no means meant to be a knock against the movie. Far from it. This thing right here, this is how you end a trilogy. It's almost unspeakably good.
I've been thinking we should all just treasure the fact that we live in the era of Pixar. So many CGI animation studios, since it's so "easy" to make an animated film nowadays, toss a bunch of random movies at the wall, hoping one sticks. They don't even have to be "good"; if you want, you can basically become a giant techno-organic machine that regularly spews out movies about Fairy Princess Barbie or whatever. Pixar is one of the few animation studios out there now that treats the art of animation as just that: an art. Something special to be done with love and care or not at all. Every feature they've made has become more and more daring (compare how "talky" the first "Toy Story" is to it's sequels). You can especially see this in their shorts - "Day and Night", which accompanies "TS3", is as brilliant and surprising in it's humor and animation as a classic Tex Avery cartoon.
I'm glad I brought up Barbie here because in "Toy Story 3", Pixar does things with her and Ken that are screamingly funny in a way the creators of the Mattel-approved Barbie movies will never understand. The fact that they go ahead and explore the rather lousy existence of Barbie's long-suffering mate is by itself one of the reasons to go see it. He is a male character -- but he is also essentially an accessory to a toyline directed at girls. (It's well worth it to point out that Barbie herself is based on one of the dolls from the "We girls can do anything!" time period.) He has no role outside "Barbie's boyfriend". Really, the only way his subplot could possibly be better is if somehow the equine Village People cover band Big Brother Ponies were involved.
Now, aside from Ken and a couple of antagonists who I won't spoil here, there aren't too many interesting new characters. I suppose this was intentional, it gives the characters we already know room for their team victory lap. And a celebration is essentially what this is, for both Pixar and the toys. You can tell the writers are going to miss the hell out of these characters, so they made sure everyone gets their own little character moment (my favorite of these is a scene involving a tortilla that is so clever and hilarious and unexpected and wonderfully animated that I won't dare ruin the fun by explaining it here). It's like getting the band back together for one last amazing show.
Taken as a whole, the "Toy Story" trilogy is where you can say that the Pixar family is absolutely perfect, just as overall terrific as they will ever be. So it doesn't matter that "Toy Story 3" is (as a few people have... well, not really complained, but pointed out) just a big fanservicey pat on the back that ends with Andy explaining how wonderful all the characters are. They really are wonderful. You've got to be pretty confident in the audience's love for the toys to have such a long scene like that at the end of the movie. That's how you can tell that Pixar knows they're at the top of their game right now. They've earned this touchdown dance.
Now, speaking of that ending. For all the reports of big burly guys bawling their eyes out during the end of "Toy Story 3", I have to say that I didn't think it was sad -- except in the sweetest of ways. Overall, the movie doesn't quite have the same emotional resonance of "Toy Story 2" (which is, let's face it, the finest fantastic film to meditate on mortality this side of "Blade Runner", and it will take a lot for anyone to come up with as great and terrible an emotional kidney-punch as Jessie's backstory). But I love how the writers had the stones to take the themes introduced in "Toy Story 2" and explore them much farther. (And I can guarantee that I would have had a very different reaction to that last scene if I happened to be one of the people who "grew up with Andy" and the toys.)
All that and the second-best Gypsy Kings cover of a Disney song.
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I had the pleasure of seeing "Toy Story 3" at the beautiful old Magic Lantern Theater in Bridgeton, Maine (pictured above). Someday, I'll have to do a post on my memories of the old Wollaston Theater. When I do, I'll hold up the Magic Lantern (heh) as an example of an old theater resurrection done right.
Admission is very cheap, there are only three screens but they are quite large, the theaters are roomy and two of them sport adult-only balconies. We actually sat in such a balcony for "Toy Story 3" and it was quite the experience. The kids in the lower decks didn't bother us at all (not that they would have), and the only other people there with us were two older couples. I don't know if I'd recommend the balcony unless the under-21 crowd *really* bothers you, because you're seeing the film from kind of a weird angle and the lower portion of the screen is "chopped" a little. That, and I had just watched "Matinee" the other night...
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Watercolor of the Week!
Speaking of things that make me cry (click for big and the story)
If you're as angry and sad as I am and you can draw at all, please consider donating a sketch card to Kelly Light's Ripple Project. I've donated three cards so far and they'll be up for sale sometime in the next month. All proceeds go to support animal rescue organizations.
Just starting with a handy reminder that it's Pumpkinhead and Cocoa Cats season. If you are a Beer Snob and you also enjoy Peeps, good luck finding these.
Coraline - Funny story. Right before I was about to settle down and watch "Coraline", some friends called and asked if I wanted to go see "The Orphan" with them. I declined. I dislike horror movies. They returned and we shared opinions of the films we'd seen.
Turns out that "The Orphan" did not contain anything half as creepy as "Coraline".
"Coraline" is an amazing film, especially from a technical standpoint. (Stay tuned after the credits to see a behind-the-scenes look at one of the cleverest effects.) It is definitely worth watching. During the day. With all the lights on.
Because, you see, Neil Gaiman wrote this story after he discovered a direct mainline to every child's (hell, every person's) creepiest and most Freudian anxieties. (And by "Freudian anxieties", I don't mean "the whole thing is about sex" [which isn't even really what Freud was all about anyway], I mean "I had to read Bruno Bettelhelm's The Uses Of Enchantment in Psych 101 and I can't UN-read it".) In a decade or so, expect to hear the kids whose unsuspecting parents rented this for them saying to each other, "Remember 'Coraline'? Holy s**t, that movie messed with my head as a kid!" (See also my generation's "Return to OZ", "The Mouse and his Child", "Watership Down", and so on and so forth. Mind you, I'm not saying it's a bad thing for a kid to get freaked out by a movie...)
Night Watch / Day Watch - A pleasantly confusing dark fantasy film in two parts. It goes in some refreshingly strange directions. The second film is actually better than the first and is that rare sequel that actually rewards you for paying close attention to the first film. I highly recommend it...
But ye gods, that ending. :(
SPOILER TIME I'm not really cool with long movies that end with the hero going "I wish none of this had ever happened." And then they cut back in time to the beginning where the events of the story were set in motion, only this time they don't and the characters just go home or something instead of on the adventure. So, in short, the entire movie didn't happen.
That's an acceptable ending to, say, a twenty minute episode of a Disney Afternoon series. It's a giant middle finger in my face when it's used to conclude a four-hour-long fantasy saga that I might have been little more emotionally invested in.
Blade Runner: the Final Cut - Every few years or so, you need to watch an older movie to remind yourself how awesome it is, and this new director's cut of "Blade Runner" is the perfect excuse. This is a gorgeous film and if you have somehow never seen it, you've got to go add it to your queue immediately. It's astonishing how well this movie has aged; it's twenty-seven years old and it looks better than some movies made last year. The city in which "Blade Runner" is set is still one of the best fictional cities ever created and I'm fairly certain it was all created with practical effects. It make a huge difference when things that cannot exist in reality occupy physical space. (Yes, I know how weird this sounds coming out of an animator. Once again, I do not dislike CGI. When it's used intelligently and not with and attitude of "ooh shiny, we're using CGI!")
The script is fabulous as well, but this was the first time it struck me how deeply depressing the theme of this movie is. (Sometimes third time's a charm when it comes to finding a work of fiction's Big Theme.) More observant viewers have probably noticed this before, but this was the first time I realized that "Blade Runner" is all about death. More specifically it's about how utterly horrifying it is to be a human, because it means that you're terribly aware of your ultimate demise. Heavy stuff to have in my head right before bedtime after two glasses of White Zinfandel. Anyway, "Blade Runner". Still one of the best fantastic fiction films ever made.
Dark City - It doesn't look like it from here, but I actually gave this and "Blade Runner" a lot more "room". Once again, great fantastic fiction film, great-looking fantasy city for a setting, smart, imaginative story - and another depressing theme.
This time, it's another reason why it's utterly horrifying to be a human: the unreliability of memory. You may remember that awesome place you spent your early childhood with crystal clarity, but what if you go back there and it's not there anymore? How can you ever convince people it was ever there in the first place? And as you get older, how can you form any meaningful new memories at all if everything and everyone seems to change so fast? And if you can't trust your memory, can you ever really trust yourself?
Now, "Blade Runner" dealt with this idea a little as well - in one particularly sad scene and not much else after this. "Memento", another film I adore, dealt with this very extensively. But "Dark City" takes this in a very unusual direction, and if you haven't seen this film yet, go for the director's cut. It lets the story unfold on it's own. The theatrical version (stop me if you think that you've heard this one before) had an opening narration that just explained the whole mystery right up front so the audience wouldn't be scared or confused.
The Fall - I had no idea what this was about and was pleasantly surprised. The fantasy sequences are very well done and, refreshingly, consist almost entirely of practical effects. The framing story is actually done very well. (Personally, I think the "amazing fantasy adventure is actually just a story being told to/read by some kid" is one of the laziest storytelling tropes of all. If your movie isn't "The Princess Bride" [which basically parodies the concept] or "The Neverending Story" [which gets downright meta with it], don't bother.) It helps that the little girl character is a genuine honest-to-goodness little girl. Everything's new to her; she asks questions about things that adults wouldn't even worry about and the concept of personal space is as alien to her as the concept of personal property. It's incredible how much of a difference this makes.
Incidentally, while this film is by no means okay for young children, it is rated R in America for reasons I can't fathom.
The Bear - I was vaguely reminded of this film by "The Fall"; both films contain nightmares that remind us that stop-motion animation can be the creepiest film technique and both films just step back and let their characters act natural. In "The Fall", we finally get a little kid who acts like an actual little kid. In "The Bear", we have animal characters who act like genuine animals.
I hadn't seen this movie since I was very young and I only remembered being vaguely creeped out by it. The dream sequences notwithstanding, I think I understand why: the bears don't talk. There isn't even a narrator. There's no reassuring human voice calmly putting the animals' behavior in terms we can understand. There's hardly even any music. The film feels practically like a documentary rather than the fictional drama it is and the effect is amazing. It's a stunningly beautiful film and really demands a cleaned-up DVD release.
Incidentally, this film is rated G for reasons I can't fathom. Weird.
Now, of all the rescued LaGremlinLand articles, the following has been postponed and rescheduled the most. It's probably the one I feel the most "meh" about:
Never Mind "Another Brick in the Wall-E", Here's "Little Davey in Slumberland"
(Modified from a feature originally posted at LaGremlin Land on 6/4/02.)
This is pretty awesome for something I stumbled upon by accident in college. (As with all former LaGremlin writings, no drugs were involved. Except coffee. Lots of it.) While this isn't going to be the next "Dark Side of OZ", it might at least be the next "Siamese Fantasia". That is to say, we're gonna talk movie/CD syncs.
What You Need: The CD "Before These Crowded Streets"; the movie "Little Nemo in Slumberland" (sadly, it is very hard to find a good copy these days, but every video store used to have one); a CD player that lets you repeat a CD without screwing up. (I'm a traditionalist here. I'm sure a Magical Tiny Machine That Holds Music would work too.)
Plot Summary: (well, you aren't going to be able to hear the dialogue) For whatever reason, this movie is fairly obscure unless you are a Miyazaki completest. I'm a "Nemo" cheerleader. There really are some fantastic visuals in this movie. The animators managed to get the look of McCay's illustrations spot on. This Total Media Bridge review sells the film very well; I'd thought I was the only one who liked it.
Nemo is a perfectly normal kid by day, but every night he has very strange dreams. After the circus arrives in his hometown, his dreams become more intense until finally the people in his dreams invite him to visit their world, Slumberland. There, Nemo must aid King Morpheus in protecting Slumberland from the Nightmare Demons.
Goaded by a nasty little green gnome/clown/thing named Flip, Nemo learns that Morpheus has a demon imprisoned beneath Slumberland. They accidentally allow it to get loose and kidnap the King. Now Nemo and his friends must journey to Nightmare and save him.
How to Do the Sync: Set the CD to repeat and pause it. Start the video. The Tokyo Movie Shin... Shaw... Somethingorother title card will appear. Un-pause the CD when the red "V" part of the "M" in the studio logo starts to fly offscreen. If you're doing it right, Nemo's room fades into focus when Dave begins to sing in "Pantala Naga Pampa". Enjoy.
