American Dad!, one of the best animated series you’re probably not watching, has a formula that has served itself well since Season 2. The writers set up a scenario that’s a spin on classic sitcom tropes. Then, in the final…
Bullying is one of those subjects that gets talked about a lot in modern media. Yet, from my own experience, it’s very rare that a film, TV show, web series, etc. actually hits on the lasting impacts of bullying. I’ve…
Bravest Warriors is an animated web series from Pendleton Ward, the creators of Adventure Time and The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack on Cartoon Network. The show follows four futuristic teenage heroes who work as soldiers for hire. They warp throughout…
Nostalgia is a risky thing to build a film around. Are the memories you have indicative of the experience everyone else had with the subject in question? Will the subject translate to a wide enough audience to be accessible? Wreck-It…
I’m a sucker for quite a number of things involved in this story. Tim Burton pictures? I’ve seen them all in theaters since Sleepy Hollow. Yeah Yeah Yeahs? I pop one of their albums in at least once a week…
It’s been a pretty big month for news from Disney about animation or animation-adjacent projects. First, Wreck-It Ralph got an arcade game port for E3 and an official trailer. It’s the story of a video game bad guy (think Donkey…
Last week, I wrote about an art project based on the conceit of finding the remains of an Ancient Roman film projector and animation slides. Turns out my intro might not have been that far from the truth. How would…
Full disclosure: I wrote about this already for my Director’s Live gig. I’m doing a more thorough look at this story here. I think it deserves more attention than a firm max of 100 words can allow. How would your…
There is something charming about the original television adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax. It has a clear anti-industrial/pro-environmental message, but it doesn’t feel needy. It lets the sad story of ambition gone wrong get the point across in charming…
At the MangaNEXT convention, part of the team behind Underbelly ran a panel about bad anime. Specifically, the panel became a discussion between everyone in the room about what, exactly, makes a potentially good anime series go bad in translation.…
For better or worse, The Simpsons will be on the air through 2014 with new episodes. The show will most likely conclude after its twenty-fifth season. The creative team and network have been very good at celebrating the milestone achievements…
What happens when Hayao Miyazaki writes a film and passes it over to another animator to direct? In the case of The Secret World of Arrietty, magic happens. Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi makes his directorial debut with a lot of style…
Did you ever find a video that you wanted to share only to see that someone else beat you to it? That’s the case today with the claymation short film Pingu’s The Thing. Eric Eisenberg at Cinemablend wrote about this…
Sylvain Chomet is one of the most exciting writer/directors working in film today. He is an artist dedicated to the pursuit of thoughtful and gorgeous animation. With a distinctive voice and a knack for purely visual storytelling, Chomet has ridden…