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Badmouth » animation http://www.badmouth.net Look, Ma! No pants! Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:04:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Ponyo http://www.badmouth.net/ponyo/ http://www.badmouth.net/ponyo/#comments Fri, 14 Aug 2009 05:21:56 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/?p=1642 Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle mixed adventure and unique charm with deeper ruminations on culture and environmentalism that reward older viewers in ways younger fans are likely to miss. Ponyo ain't one of those. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/ponyo/feed/ 5 Green Lantern: First Flight http://www.badmouth.net/green-lantern-first-flight/ http://www.badmouth.net/green-lantern-first-flight/#comments Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:31:22 +0000 John Marcotte http://www.badmouth.net/?p=1608

Green Lantern

Green Zone

The Green Hornet

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/green-lantern-first-flight/feed/ 2 Animated Spider-Man Is Simply Spectacular http://www.badmouth.net/animated-spider-man-is-simply-spectacular/ http://www.badmouth.net/animated-spider-man-is-simply-spectacular/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 03:18:41 +0000 Patti Marcotte http://www.badmouth.net/?p=1333

top five stupid spider-man plots

Spider-Man 3

Fantastic Four: The Mad Birth of the Silver Surfer

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/animated-spider-man-is-simply-spectacular/feed/ 8 Wonder Woman http://www.badmouth.net/wonder-woman-2009/ http://www.badmouth.net/wonder-woman-2009/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:42:33 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/?p=1079 [rating:3] Director: Lauren Montgomery Starring: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Virginia Madsen, Rosario Dawson Wondercon offered an opportunity to do the roundtable interview thing with the makers of the Wonder Woman DVD hitting stores today. The Q&A sessions came a couple hours before the new movie was screened for convention attendees, so the assembled web writers hadn't seen the production yet. Fortunately, the obsessiveness with which the animation of comic icons is tracked online meant that my fellow interrogators knew to ask about the violence. The movie starts with brutal war in ancient Greece, and the whole film contains enough violence, and a few sexually risque lines, to have earned the movie an R in its initial cut. Yeah, think about that for a minute: A Wonder Woman cartoon scoring an R. No, I don't know what the hell is wrong with the world, either. What the hell is wrong with the world, after the jump. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/wonder-woman-2009/feed/ 5 Coraline http://www.badmouth.net/coraline-2009/ http://www.badmouth.net/coraline-2009/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:04:05 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/?p=1026 [rating:3.5] Director: Henry Selick Starring: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher Animation director Henry Selick (James & the Giant Peach, Nightmare Before Christmas) brings to life the creepy adventure story, Coraline, by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, Stardust, The Graveyard Book). That's a pretty impressive combination, and it works as well as you'd expect—the movie is inventive, well-crafted and it makes excellent use of the silly 3D glasses they pass out at the door. It doesn't feel like the “must-see” movie of the season, but you've got talented, solid storytellers crafting an inventive world that unfolds for a charming main character. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/coraline-2009/feed/ 8 Wall*E http://www.badmouth.net/walle-2008/ http://www.badmouth.net/walle-2008/#comments Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:24:17 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/?p=836

[rating:5] Director: Andrew Stanton Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger Pixar's Wall*E continues an amazing run of top-flight entertainment marred only by the execrable Cars, a misstep already made up for with last year's charming Ratatouille. Wall*E does right exactly what Pixar always (minus one) does right. What's more interesting about this film is the two specific risks it takes as the Emeryville animators continue to push themselves and their audiences. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/walle-2008/feed/ 0 Justice League: The New Frontier http://www.badmouth.net/justice-league-the-new-frontier-2008/ http://www.badmouth.net/justice-league-the-new-frontier-2008/#comments Thu, 27 Mar 2008 01:19:40 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/justice-league-the-new-frontier-2008/ [rating:4] Director: David Bullock Starring: David Boreanaz, Kyle MacLachlan, Lucy Lawless, John Heard Justice League: The New Frontier is a direct-to-video project with an impressive pedigree: Dave Bullock, the director, and Darwyn Cooke, who wrote and drew the comic on which it's based, are veterans of Warner Brothers' better superhero cartoons of the last decade—The New Batman Adventures, Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League—and they brought together a great team of cronies from those shows. Cooke's The New Frontier takes on DC Comics' “Silver Age” heroes in their original context—the late 1950s, at the dawn of the space race and that era of prosperity and optimism that faltered with the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam. The title is drawn from JFK's inspirational speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. Kennedy's call to greatness and hope and vision, at the edge of the Space Race and an era of real-life heroes, is the perfect match to Cooke's wonderfully old-school approach to superheroes. Before they were made “grim and gritty” to reflect our own debased and morally muddled reality, costumed heroes represented unalloyed optimism and virtue. Cooke throws in real issues, dealing with the Cold War, the horrible racial violence against the struggle for civil rights, and the idea that governments can betray us for their own darker, grander visions. Yet still he gives us a world in which anything seems possible, and hope is not something to be inherently ridiculed. It's a better world than ours, and it should be. It's freakin' got Superman in it. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/justice-league-the-new-frontier-2008/feed/ 1 Bee Movie http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/#comments Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:10:19 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/

[rating:4] Director: Steve Hickner & Simon J. Smith Starring: Jerry Seinfeld, Matthew Broderick, Renée Zellweger , John Goodman Jerry Seinfeld spent the nineties producing the most original and entertaining sitcom of a generation—but what has he done for us lately? The release of Bee Movie demonstrates that Seinfeld has not lost his ability to lampoon the mundane details of daily life and relationships, and, untethered from even the tenuous grip on reality his NBC sitcom maintained, can deliver a fanciful story with the same kinds of wild sways of story logic, but on a grander scale. I'm saying, Bee Movie is pretty damned good. Caveat: Despite the kid-friendly designs and the merchandising, this isn't particularly a story for little kids.

It's not too adult in the “nightmares for a week” or “Mommy, what does 'blowjob' mean?” sense—it's just largely concerned with lampooning the grownup world. While it held the attention of the all the under-seven children littering my screening, it didn't have them howling with laughter. In what has to be a first for animation released in the last 20 years, there is not a single fart joke. There is also not a single juvenile character. But hey, the thing is rated PG, and that's just what it is—not unsuitable for smaller children, but definitely not playing to them, either. It's playing to the rest of us. Put it between the closer-to-kid-friendly Simpsons and the not-so-friendly-to-anyone Family Guy. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/bee-movie-2007/feed/ 6 The Simpsons Movie http://www.badmouth.net/the-simpsons-movie-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/the-simpsons-movie-2007/#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:15:41 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/the-simpsons-movie-2007/ [rating:4] Director: David Silverman Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardly Smith, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria So when you bring a long-running television show (eighteen freakin' seasons and counting) to the big screen, should you be satisfied when the result feels just like a TV episode? “The Simpsons Movie” takes the plot a little larger to fill out an 87-minute runtime, to say nothing of the larger screen, but a show that's been topping itself for outrageousness for 400 episodes probably couldn't dazzle on those terms if the climax included Earth being destroyed by aliens. The movie is as funny, as satirical, as absurd as the TV show, and it's up to the viewer to decide whether that's enough to pay $10 to see the same thing that's aired for free all the time. And if you're a little on the fence about that, you might squirm when Homer looks out into the audience and laughs at you for being a sucker. The movie is not "the ultimate Simpson's experience." A lot of what makes the show great — its huge cast of quirky supporting characters — is left aside so that the writers can unfurl a plot big enough to justify a film. At the same time, they unexpectedly narrow the focus down to America's most unusual family. The only supporting cast member who is remotely important to the story, who couldn't have been cut or replaced with another oddball Springfield resident, is saccharine neighbor Ned Flanders. While it's amusing to see apparently every recurring character make a cameo, it's surprising that virtually none of them make more than that token appearance. It's a smart move. Related posts:

]]> http://www.badmouth.net/the-simpsons-movie-2007/feed/ 1 Ratatouille http://www.badmouth.net/ratatouille-2007/ http://www.badmouth.net/ratatouille-2007/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:21:19 +0000 Brian McDonough http://www.badmouth.net/ratatouille-2007/ [rating:5] Director: Brad Bird Starring: Patton Oswalt, Lou Romano, Janine Garafolo After the disappointing detour into mediocrity that was “Cars,” one could fear that perhaps the Disneyfication of Pixar meant that a great era of animation was ending prematurely. This would appear to not be the case, because “Ratatouille” is an enchanting cinematic experience on a par with “Toy Story,” “The Incredibles,” and even “Finding Nemo.” Writer-director Brad Bird, who also did “The Incredibles” and the beloved under-the-radar hit “The Iron Giant,” creates a compelling tale from not the likeliest of subjects: A French rat who finds a way to become a top Parisian chef. Bird’s story bounces all over the place with well-placed surprises and diversions. He masterfully finds ways to give us familiar and satisfying confrontations with catalogue bad guys that feel fresh and surprising, partly because he lets his plot pinball around a bit, making its essential progressions feel unforced. Related posts:

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