has some wonderful moments — but there’s just not enough meat in the middle.

The next film on my viewing list was The Adventures of Tintin. This is a film I really didn’t have much interest in as I knew nothing of the history of the character (it was a hugely popular European comic book during much of the 20th century). Much to my complete surprise the film grabbed hold […]

Rango is the very first animated film from the magicians at Industrial Light & Magic who’ve raised the technology bar in Hollywood so many times over the years that they’ve made it seem commonplace to do so. This first effort has first effort written all over it. The look is typical ILM. In other words […]

Last week I caught the last move of the 2010 season—a film up for an Oscar for Best Animated Film confusingly called, The Illusionist. While commenting about it to others they, of course, think I’m talking about the Edward Norton film from a few years ago. This one is a foreign film about an elderly […]

Disney‘s 50th animated movie, as the pre-show credits point out, is their latest film Tangled. This is essentially a Disneyfied re-imagining of the Rapunzel fairy tale most popularized by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. Disney has a long tradition of taking the basic elements of these stories and recreating them as more interesting family fare as most […]

While traveling for business I managed to catch the new animated sensation, Despicable Me. I saw it last week and just never got around to writing it up which, pretty much, foretells how that’s going to go. Despicable Me is another in a growing list of major animated films in 2010. This one focuses on an aging […]

It’s been 15 years already since we first became enamored with Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang in the very first Pixar movie, Toy Story. Just as we’ve grown up with them, so has their owner Andy, and it’s here that Toy Story 3 brings the story to a wonderful climax that once […]

A young viking befriends an injured dragon to the dismay of most of his village in How to Train Your Dragon. Animated films are often a challenge for many adults — especially those without children. Some are clearly meant for a younger audience, while others offer a much wider appeal. When I saw the previews for this […]

This past week I caught my first official film of the 2010 season and it was quite memorable. The film, A Town Called Panic, is quite a strangle experience but well worth the risk. I’ve come to realize that there’s no way to adequately explain the film as it all sounds absolutely ludicrous on the […]

Finally got around to seeing Fantastic Mr. Fox. This is the stop-action movie adaptation of the popular book by Roald Dahl. It’s impossible to see the movie and not compare it with the more famous Wallace and Gromit as it shares the same style, look, and feel. I should also mention that, try as I […]

I saw Disney‘s A Christmas Carol this weekend and wondered if this was the earliest a Christmas movie has been out prior to Christmas. The movie takes the traditional Charles Dickens story (more or less) and augments it with every technological advantage we have today. It’s animated in much the same way 2004s The Polar […]

I saw the movie 9 this week and the synergy with the date it was released (along with many new wondrous things from The Beatles) is, sadly, one of the best things to talk about with regard to the effort. The most notable positive of the movie is its amazing look. It’s an absolutely fantastic […]