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Title: Iron Giant
Year: 1999 Runtime: 90 minutes Genre: Adventure,Atomic Age Era: Modern Era Grade Category: Big Budget Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick Jr., Vin Diesel Director: Brad Bird Plot: A boy named Hogarth stumbles upon a giant robot. The suspicions of such a creature grabs attention from a federal agent, Mansly, who proceeds to investigate. Hogarths desire to protect the giant and Stanley’s mission to destroy it clash in this adventure. Critique: This movie is amazing. The movie starts off simple, but, as it progresses, it just gets better and better. Hogarth is a simple kid. There’s not a whole lot to him, but your attachment to the giant mirrors his own and, in turn, lets you relate to the kid, all the emotions he feels, and support him along his way. Mansly starts off almost as if he’d be the hero of the movie. A quick talking government agent trying to convince the military of the giant’s presence. However, quickly becomes the antagonist once him and Hogarth’s plans clash. Mansly can be a bumbling idiot when satisfyingly outwitted by Hogarth, but an intimidating, scary villain when on edge. And, then there’s Dean. Dean is one of the coolest cartoon characters ever. There’s a way he talks, an amount of composure he can keep when approached with military apprehension of the robot, a cleverness when tricking said military. Last, but not least, the titular iron giant himself. He is a gentle giant, behaving in a cute ignorance to the world he’s in. It’s really rewarding and heartwarming to Hogarth teaching the giant about what it means to be a hero, life and death, and the giant teaching Hogarth some responsibility. This movie excels at payoff. Mansly’s gets his just desserts for his actions toward Hogarth, and it brings a smile to your face seeing him embarrassed over his screw ups in front of his military counterparts. The foreshadowing is really subtle and is just an utter joy to see unfold. Even little dialogue qwerks like Mansly suggesting to duck and cover previously shown in Hogarths class. The giant’s rampage at the end of the movie is a turn that… well, I didn’t think it was predictable, but that could just be how brilliantly written this movie is that your attachment to these characters make you not want to see the grave dangers that could befall them. The movie’s morals were well integrated. The moral being that you are who you choose to be. And, it’s both wonderful and heart wrenching seeing it put to use by the end of the movie to both save the day and destroy the giant. The movie has very few flaws. The main ones I can think of are when Hogarth is explaining how he can get bullied at school, but you never see this. Dean says that “You are who you choose to be.”, and that he shouldn’t let the kids bother him. At the end of the movie, kids say “Bye, Hogarth.”, implying that Hogarth gets along with others now. However, you never see the issues he faced before learning the moral, so you don’t really feel like there was a progression with Hogarth. I feel like the writers knew this though and added a bit in the beginning where Hogarth’s mom implies Hogarth’s irresponsibility with past pets so to give Hogarth’s interaction and protecting the giant more significance in terms of that progression The other issue is from The Signature Edition. There’s a deleted scene where the iron giant’s dream is connecting to Deans TV and shows a mob of similar metal giants on another planet and a planet being destroyed. I dislike this because it takes away from the ambiguity and mstery Components: PC: 9.8 CA: 9.6 MS: 8 DE: 9.3 ACS: 9.2 Final Grade: 9.18 Final Word: This is an amazing movie movie, heartwrencher, heartwarmer. This film will give you the feels and is assures to be in your favorites. Entertainment/Personal Grade: 9.8
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Title : Kubo and the Two Strings
Year: 2016 Runtime: 101 minutes Genre: Crap, Garbage Era: Modern Era Grade Category: Big Budget Cast: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Mathew McConaughey Director: Travis Knight Plot/Critique: This movie sucks. The movie starts with Kubo’s past and how his mom and him arrived on the island. Kubo is a person who makes up stories about his dad, a warrior named Hanzo, whom he’s told is dead. He tells these stories at the festival with his magical control over origami. The dialogue is… well, it gets worse and worse. At first what struck me was this old lady going “Hey, Kubo. HAHAHA”. Uh… nothing was funny. Kubo’s mom is sick and Kubo has to take care of her. One night, Kubo prays to speak his dad, in which no one speaks back. Gee, I wonder if his father isn’t dead. Two mysterious figures appear saying the are Kubo’s aunts. They hover over the water and this introduces an issue with the directing: The camera shows a close up to the aunts’ feets hovering over the water. The reason this is a problem is because it brings to much focus to the question of “Oh, how do they do that?” getting caught up in just showing off their special effects and by bringing attention to how they could do that in the making of the movie, it takes you out of the film. Also the aunts don’t really have anything to do with Kubo praying or trying to speak with his dad, Kubo could’ve been picking his nose in his utter stupidity and it would’ve happened either way. So, Kubo doesn’t really make a mistake or do anything that sets the plot into motion, it just happens. A dark cloud of smoke chases Kubo through his village destroying it. His mother uses the last of her will to give Kubo magic wings on the back of his clothes to flee to safety as she destroys the cloudy shadow with a shockwave attack. These wings never come back in the rest of the movie which… is somehow a common occurrence with this film Kubo fins himself in a snow filled area, and a monkey approaches him. They go into a giant whale in which she apparently lives in and she explains that she is his monkey charm come to life. They have to find Hanzo’s armor. And, yes, from this point on, it is your generic quest plot mcguffin story, where characters go place from place to place and stumble upon what they’re looking for. Kubo and the monkey travel through the snowed in area and… waste time. Kubo plays and controls paper into birds chasing a real bird. Uh… ok, why? Kubo can control the origami birds to act as wings, but they soon flutter away. Kubo’s artificial wings technically come back later, but there’s no reason given why these are too weak to fly compared to the next time it appears. Then Kubo’s emotions cause the birds to turn into mosquitos to hit monkey. Monkey catches them and lectures him about needing to learn to control magic. Kubo hasn’t really shown problems with manipulating his magic prior and he doesn’t show problems controlling it after. Actually, 3 or 4 scenes later, Kubo make makes a sailing ship. Wow, he really needs to imrpove on his magic, what a well implemented character arc. They find a large man beetle who is has been wandering the land for years memoryless. Yet, he says he gets vague memories in flashes and remembering Hanzo. You never see these flashes in the movie, even when they later go to Hanzo’s old castle. They are wandering and… this is where you learn the dialogue isn’t that good. They try to make a joke where Kubo is embarrassing the monkey for being his charm, to which she only says one line passively of “no, that’s not…” then immediately after, they are pointed to an area from Kubo’s origami Hanzo. This illustrates a problem with the humor that lasts through the whole movie. It’s like they try build up a joke just to get distracted or abandon it. It’s like if in Toy Story Woody doesn’t yell “YOU ARE A TOY!”, and instead just cuts to him going “Buzz. I found a spaceship.”. None of the jokes in this movie will get more than a small chuckle. They fight a giant skeleton with swords in his skull. One of which being Hanzo’s indestructible sword. So they have to try to pull out the swords in hopes the one they find is Hanzo’s. At one point, the giant skeleton is about to stomp on the beetle and Kubo until… The beetle has wings and saves Kubo and himself! Well, that will be useful!......... Actually, no it won't, it’s utterly forgotten about within minutes and never comes up again in the movie…. So, they get the sword, go through a tunnel and suddenly in a beach. They say they should cross the ocean. The beetle is suggesting to swim… instead of using his super fast wings to fly… I guess even the people who wrote this movie have memories that only comes in flashes too. The twists of the movie have an incredible lack of impact due to the thickly layed foreshadowing. The first twist being that the monkey and amnesiac beetle are his mom and dad. You could guess it by the nurturing behavior the monkey acts toward Kubo and the beetles vague memory of Kubo’s father,, but it just feels like a brick to the head when the beetle and monkey argue telling Kubo they are having an “grown up conversation”. Gee, can you guess that they are really his parents?!?!?! Kubo builds a leaf boat to cross the ocean. At one point, they find themself above Hanzo’s armor in the deep ocean. Yeah, the convenience of how they happen to stumble upon the armor pieces along their adventure really takes away from this movie. Kubo goes in to retrieve it but is put in a trance by looking into these wide eyed creatures’ eye. The beetle goes down to save Kubo by… aiming his arrow and looking directly into the creature’s eye… so, why isn’t he in a trance like Kubo… uh… I don’t know, it’s never explained, guess the writers forgot the continuity within just this one scene. An aunt appears and begins to fight with the monkey. The monkey being Kubo’s mother is revealed in this fight scene. The aunt is talking about how much of a “disappointing coward” her sister, Kubo’s mom was. Keep in mind, throughout this whole scene, this aunt is referring to Kubo’s mom in third person as if she doesn’t know that the monkey is her sister. And… the fight scene dialogue is arguably worse than the humor. I had to try to keep myself from the cringey and cliche dialogue “It made her weak.”, and “No, it made me stronger!!” Ugh... After the fight and acquiring the conveniently near armor, the rest after being given exposition of Kubo’s grandpa being blind. Kubo conveniently dreams of the location of the final piece of plot mcguffin armor at his father’s castle told from a person who, he himself acknowledges, is twice as blind as Kubo. So, gee, having been just told seconds earlier of his evil blind grandpa, Kubo willingly trusts his dream of obviously him. Maybe Kubo forgot about the exposition 2 seconds ago, maybe he has the attention span of the people who wrote this crap. KUBOS AN IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, they travel across numerous lands, and an unspecified, but implied long time skipped. It’s confusing and doesn’t fit the pacing of the movie prior where a scene would end and start the next scene continuing right off the back, and it also doesn’t fit the pacing of how long the usually stay in a place for around 20 or so minutes. So, they arrive at the castle previously owned by Hanzo and, what a surprise: it was a trap. The other aunt appears and holds the monkey and obviously Hanzo- I mean, beetle. She then refers to the monkey as her sister… SO, WHY DID THE OTHER SISTER NOT KNOW THE MONKEY WAS THEIR SIBLING? If one knows, it’d make sense if both knows, so why would the other talk about her sister as if she weren’t there if she knew who she was and that the monkey is her! BUT, if she didn’t know, why wouldn’t she if the other sister. Oh, I know why she referred to the monkey as if she weren’t Kubo’s mom: for no logical reason in the story, just to “trick” the audience before the stupidly obvious twist. So, both the monkey and beetle are killed by the aunt. Kubo pulls his hand back from his shakasa for an unexplained, non built up shock wave attack to underwhelmingly defeat the aunt. So, now that Kubo has this sudden deus ex machina, what’s the point of the sword? So, Kuba strums to give himself wings of cloth, which is meant to demonstrate his gained power, but doesn’t considering he was able to give himself artificial wings in the earlier pointless scenes with the origami birds. So, Kubo flies all the way back to the beginning of the movie which holds the helmet: his village. Upon returning to the destroyed civilization, the villagers all get up to see him with a “Kubo?” So, why are all these people just sitting in the rubble? It’s night, so it’s been at least 24 hours since their city was destroyed. What the hell were they doing just sitting around their destroyed city, playing parcheesi? Yeah, not like they would try to run away somewhere else, they just had to be there when Kubo happened to come back. Finally completing his get up with the helmet, Kubo’s suit becomes gold. Why? To show it’s more powerful? No, all these pieces were invincible. Is the sword stronger? If so, you can’t tell, and why would you care with Kubo’s new and horribly established shockwave attack. His grandpa shows up and, what a surprise, it was the same person in his dream. Kubo doesn’t even act surprised, so did he willingly go into his trap earlier when he believed in his dream? Either way, he’s stupid. So, the grandpa is asking Kubo why he would want to take Kubo’s eye. Kubo says “Because you’re mean and cruel.” Yes, Kubo, because there are no other motivations in the world outside of traits that motivation and actions testify to. Once again, KUBO IS AN IDIOT. The Moon King proceeds to turn into a dragon because… eh, I guess pulling magic out of your a** runs in the family. Kubo uses his sword, which, notably, doesn’t seem stronger just barely makes him flinch. The Moon King grabs a hold of him and flicks Kubo’s helmet off. HOW POINTFULL THIS ALL WAS. STUPIDLY GOING INTO A TRAP, GOING ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE VILLAGE OF THE MOVIE, ALL JUST TO GET A HELMET AND LOSE IT WITHIN A FEW MINUTES. He also crushes Kubo in his armor so… guess that armor isn’t so invincible. Welp, let’s just make this whole adventure pointless. So, Kubo loses his armor and doesn’t use his sword for the rest of the movie. YEY, THIS WHOLE QUEST HAS BEEN POINTLESS So, Kuba ties the strings of his mother’s, father’s, and his own hairs to the guitar and strums calling upon the spirits of those past. I mean, they do nothing but help create a forcefield and try to support Kubo’s spiel about the importance of memories. Kubo strums the guitar one last time and shockwaves the dragon to death. Or not so death, because the grandpa is reverted to human, only one eyed, and memoryless. So, the villagers take it upon themselves to lie to him about his past saying he was a kind man. Yep, because tricking and lying to someone is good, a lesson excellently taught by Kubo, But, beyond this, doesn’t this contradict the movie’s own lesson about the importance of memories? By lying to the grandpa about his past, he doesn’t learn from the mistakes he made. This movie undermines its own point. Components: PC: 1 CA: 1.2 MS: 7 DE: 4.5 ACS: 9.5 Final Grade: 4.64 Final Word: It’s a pretty face with butt ugly, dirt stupid innards. The animation is the only thing good about this movie, but it’s not worth sitting through the movie calling you an idiot by expecting you to buy whatever stupid crap it throws at you. Entertainment/Personal Grade:2 Title: Toy Story
Year: 1995 Runtime: 81 minutes Genre: Adventure, Slapstick Era: The Modern Era Grade Category: Big Budget Cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles Director: John Lasseter Plot: The movie takes place in a world where toys come alive when their owner isn’t around. A boy named Andy’s having his birthday party as his toys, his favorite being Woody who acts as a sort of leader to the other toys, try to listen in on the presents he’s receiving. Andy brings in his new toy, a Buzz Lightyear, into the room pushing Woody off the bed. Not only getting off on a bad start, Buzz, who believes he is the real Buzz Lightyear, grows popular with Andy as well as the other toys. Woody grows jealous and devises a scheme to push Buzz out the window as Andy’s about to take his favorite toy to pizza planet. One thing leads to another as the heroes find themself in the house of a boy who tortures and disfigures his toys. Our heroes have to find a way to escape. Critique: This movie is a creative masterpiece. Although the very beginning doesn’t have to foreshadow or pay off by the end of the movie, it is an incredible introduction to the world that not only establishes an unbelievably creative possibilities but serves as a non-dialogue based, show don’t tell exposition form that many movies can learn from. Woody starts off as a big jerk, but you really empathize with his struggle and, despite his flaws setting this whole event in motion, you can’t help but want to follow in complete investment in his character growth. Same goes for Buzz: You feel emotionally torn between wanting to indulge his ignorance and wanting him to know the truth, all coming to a head with a large heartstring. The biggest complaint I have with this movie is how insignificant Little Bopeep, but,she’s not given a lot of focus as if she is important. Actually a lot of the issues of this movie are overshadowed by its benefits or just not focus. Components: PC: 9.7 CA: 9.7 MS: 9.2 DE: 9.7 ACS: 9.9 Final Grade: 9.64% Final Word: One minute your watching this movie, then, the next thing you know, you’re sipping dargilee with Mary Antionette. Title: Labyrinth
Year: 1986 Run Time: 101 min. Genre: Fantasy, Magic Era: The Modern Era Grade Category: Big Budget Cast: David Bowie, Jennifer Conelly, Toby Froud Director: Jim Henson Plot: A teenage girl by the name of Sarah is distraught and frustrated with the incessant crying of her infant brother when she recites a verse from the book she’s been reading. She wishes The Goblin King to whisk her brother away. Upon realizing her wish has come through, she must venture through a fantastical yet twisted world to save her brother. Critique: The story isn’t unfamiliar: With a teenage girl in a strange world learning to appreciate what she’s taken for granted while meeting a colorful set of friends along an adventure to defeat a magical being, it’s bound to turn some heads to The Wizard of Oz. However this movie’s rather crude world and characters do enough to separate itself from the world that reflected Dorothy’s innocence. The labyrinth part of the movie makes up the first act of the movie and, unfortunately, the lack of variety in the scenery begin to bore, but, right as this interest begins to decline, there is a area change that does lighten this issue from what it would’ve been otherwise. There’s a bit of a pacing issue I felt, the first character Sarah meets, Hoggle, disappears for a long amount and he returns around the beginning of the 2nd act along with a large abundance of characters being met around that time to, and it feels like things progressed faster than they have been prior. I like the isolation Sarah feels at the beginning and how it feels like the world is against her being contrasted as the inhabitants of the world grow as a team with her, it’s just that the inconsistent speed of having suddenly found a lot of friends in a concentrated time of the movie creates a pacing discrepancy. However, the characters themself are all charming and unique, with Hoggle evolving at the end with his own character arc. The movie has a fair climax, but it’s one of those where the protagonist has to face the big bad alone, which although gives Sarah some focus, it does feel a bit like the characters just helped her along the way to the finale rather than playing a huge role in the final bout. But,their appearance and implementation at the epilogue does make up for this. And with the final battle, I can’t prolong mentioning any longer: David Bowie as The Goblin King. David’s Bowie’s slick voice surpassed only by swift yet elegant movements perfectly befit The Goblin King’s standing on top of and seeming ability to manipulate every facet of this world. David Bowie is not just a face for monetary gain: He is The Goblin King. His constant wardrobe change and sporadic appearances give this character an unpredictable nature that makes him both intimidating and a joy to see in every scene. With such a strong presence and mystery over the whole movie, I was wishing and expecting that The Goblin King would have a backstory, but he never did. It left me disappointed and expecting more from a character who’s been built up a large portion of the movie. The movie ends with a predictable ambiguity of the reality of the adventure, but still serves as a fair conclusion to the film. Components: PC: 8.5 CA: 7 MS: 6.5 DE: 9 ACS: 8.2 Critical Grade: 7.84 (C+) Final Word: Despite its shortcomings, this movie is a really enjoyable ride. Final Grade: B
Zootopia used Autodesk Maya for creating the models within the movie and a software called Hyperion to render them for the final scenes.
A storyboard is a series of drawings portraying how the characters will move and how the camera will behave within a scene.
My favorite person in animation is Akemi Kobayashi. This is solely because of her work on Chi's Sweet Home.
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