As I’ve said before, computer animation has always done its best at making cute things that normally aren’t, including ogres, monsters, fish, rats, robots, and aliens. It wasn’t going to be long before the same cuddlification was applied to the type of character whose entire purpose is not to be loved: the supervillain. Gru…
Category: Animation
Summer TV 2010
Sun is shining, weather is nice, perfect time to stay inside and watch TV, right? Well with all the new and returning shows, that’s probably what the networks would like you to think. Summer TV has definitely been growing over the past few years. Besides the bevy of reality shows, there are a number of…
Toy Story 3 – Movie Review
It’s been 11 years since the last Toy Story installment and 15 years since the first movie. How could even a pop-cultural cynic blame Pixar if they were milking the franchise, churning out inferior product just to balance the books in this tough economy? (See how the mighty Shrek has fallen!) Fortunately, that’s not the…
How To Train Your Dragon – Movie Review
The idea of having a pet dragon is the dream of every fantasy fan. It’s an intelligent, powerful, strong creature that can protect you with its claws and fiery breath, and it can fly you anywhere on its back. In Dreamworks’s latest animated movie, How To Train Your Dragon, a young viking boy named Hiccup…
Oscar, Schmoscar 2010
I’m pretty excited about this year’s Oscars. That’s not because I finally care who wins (there are probably so many factors besides merit which determine that), but more because I’m enjoying watching a lot of the nominated films. Here are some capsule reviews of movies that I’ve discovered as part of cramming for the Oscars….
2010: Is it midseason already?
While the movie box office is still suffering from after-effects of the Hollywood writers’ strike, those unhappy times are a distant memory to the TV networks who are rushing to fill our DVRs with new content. Most of our favourite series made a quick return after the holidays, bringing with them some new (Caprica) and…
2009 Hits and Misses: Movies
I probably say the same thing every year. Despite the fact that I see 30+ movies in the theatre (which is only 2.5 movies per month, so not really that much), they continue to disappoint me. Many of the ones I intended to see got such mediocre reviews that I decided not to go (I’m…
Avatar – Movie Review
For a film with revolutionary CGI effects, such as Avatar, all eyes are definitely on the visuals. Director James Cameron (remember him from Titanic and Terminator 2?) has taken his time to produce this amazing new movie. Using the kind of computer techniques that brought to life Gollum in the Lord of the Rings series,…
The Princess and the Frog – Movie Review
I might have felt slighted that Disney’s first 2D animated movie in a while was so derivative if it did not successfully remind me of the things I’d been missing from Disney animation for so long. Unlike the recent hit Enchanted, which up-ended the conventions of the Disney fairy tale movie and squeezed it into…
Alvin's Adventures in Pop Culture 