Thursday, August 20th, 2009
Ponyo
Escaping the balmy summer heat in an air-conditioned theater playing Ponyo is like taking an epistemic holiday. Arguably, I suppose, one could say that about many movies―particularly foreign ones―and that’s certainly one of the medium’s charms; but rarely are movies as breezily surreal as this animated import by Hayao Miyazaki. The setting is not far [...]
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Saturday, June 13th, 2009
Up
These days, Pixar stands alone in being a reliable source for “family” entertainment that doesn’t leave any quarters cringing. It’s for this reason, perhaps, that I recoil whenever anyone self-identifies as a “Pixar dork”—as if it were unusual to appreciate something that’s both critically acclaimed and gobbled up by the masses. That peculiarly self-serving form [...]
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Friday, July 4th, 2008
WALL-E
WALL-E, the new Pixar animated film, is as much revered as, or perhaps more revered than, any of its predecessors. It has components of classical “family entertainment”—breezy, (somewhat) optimistic spectacle with charming, hand-holding lovers, skillful importation of elements from more “grown-up” sources, and, of course, a “wholesome” message—and uses them in a way that’s seldom [...]
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Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
Persepolis
Persepolis may be a landmark: the first ever feature-length animated autobiography. Based on graphic novels by Iranian-born Marjane Satrapi, this Franco-American production (which Satrapi co-directed with Vincent Paronnaud) is international in scope, often enjoyable and perhaps even “truthful,” but limited in a way that is so fundamental that I could not assent to the “magic” [...]