This past 10 years has seen a lot of change on TV. We barely still call it “TV” because it’s mostly watched via internet streaming, and on-demand. This age of “peak TV” has brought some big names (and big budgets) to the small screen, and we get to enjoy the fruits. Now that the 2010s…
Category: Animation
Frozen 2 – Movie Review
After watching the first Frozen, did you imagine a sequel? What would have been the story? I didn’t think that a sequel was needed, and I guess the only storylines that I imagined would have been snow queen Elsa defending her kingdom of Arendelle from outside attack, or something connected to the unexplained maritime death…
Toy Story 4 – Movie Review
I didn’t expect Toy Story to keep going, but having enjoyed this fourth installment, I’m thinking that the franchise could probably continue indefinitely. This time around, we pick up the tale of Woody, Buzz, and the others after they’ve been with new child, Bonnie, for a while (long enough for Bonnie to neglect Woody and…
Mamoru Hosoda: A New Japanese Animation Master
One of the joys of the TV off-season is the opportunity to catch up on movies. Recently, I spent five evenings binge-watching the works of new Japanese master animator, Mamoru Hosoda. When it comes to Japanese animated films, most people think of Studio Ghibli, founded by master animator Hayao Miyazaki. Their kinds of movies are…
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World – Movie Review
After three movies and three TV series, the story of Hiccup, Toothless, and the rest of the clan finally comes to an end. While I would have thought that the last movie in the trilogy would have been a huge blow-out, with epic action and similarly epic storylines, The Hidden World is disappointingly ordinary. The…
Winter TV 2019 – February Shows
January was a big month for TV shows, but amazingly Netflix and other channels just brought even more to the table in February. Maybe the cold weather is keeping us indoors, but all these exciting shows are a good reason to stay in. One Day at a Time Returning for its third season on Netflix,…
Winter TV 2019 – Kids/Animated
With all the comedies, movies, and prestige dramas coming to streaming TV, many people may not realize (unless they have kids) that it’s also a channel with a growing number of animated series and kid-oriented shows. Knowing that often their target audiences are the kids of parents who grew up with “Saturday morning cartoons”, reboots…
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – Movie Review
After having seen so many super-hero movies (especially Spider-Man movies) already, I did not expect to be impressed (never mind blown-away) by this movie. It not only needed to bring something fresh to the well-trodden Spider-Man story, but in order to be visually impressive, it also has to compete with Pixar’s animation benchmark and other…
Summer Movie Catch-Up 2018 part 2
Unfortunately I’m not making it through a lot of movies, but here’s the second batch of movies that I’ve watched as part of my summer catch-up exercise (including recent genre hits, and Studio Ghibli rewatch). Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Going into this one I had no illusions that it was…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 