Tag Archives: Animation

The PC Thug: The End of Saturday Morning Cartoons

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Back in 1988, I fondly remember waking up very early on a Saturday to watch cartoons, and would officially pack up and prepare for the day the minute twelve in the afternoon reared it head ushering local sports.

2014 marked the end of many traditions that pop culture fans hold near and dear to their heart. One of the most surprising announcements was the official heralding of death of the tradition we all knew and love: Saturday Morning cartoons. In September 2014, the CW Network’s parent company Warner Bros. officially ended their run of morning long schedules of animated series, and reverted to cheaper educational programming in a time slot that barely filled three hours.  These days if you turn on the CW on a Saturday morning, you’ll likely find a ton of infomercials sandwiched between some vaguely family based animal shows.

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Marvel Knights Animation Presents Eternals (DVD)

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It’s mind blowing how mind numbing “Eternals” is. The really bad John Romita Jr. art matched with the convoluted dull story make this animated comic a task to sit through. Granted, I love the idea of normal human beings actually being engineered superheroes and completely oblivious to their powers. There’s also a moment where a party is besieged by terrorists and character Mark Curry discovers his ability to slow down time, thus allowing him to stop the bullets, and steal the guns, but has to find a way to take the bullets without burning himself or blowing them up in the air. It’s a nice sense of logic to fantasy.

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L3.0 (2014)

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l30The directing team of Alexis Decelle, Cyril Declercq, Vincent Defour, and Pierre Jury at Isart Digital really turn the whole lonely robot formula on its head. The five minute silent short entitled “L3.0” is filled with heavy implication and immense back story, based solely on what we see, and not what we’re told. L3.0 is a lonely robot that spends most of its days looking for other beings, and sending out paper airplanes in to Paris. When he finds a butterfly, he might have found a new friend.

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Rocks in My Pockets (2014)

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Director Signe Baumane’s animated film about her family history and mental illness exemplifies how difficult it is to fight what’s been so sewn in to a family bloodline. While inherent traits and gifts can be passed down genetically, mental illness can also carry with it a vicious legacy that can be carried in to every generation. Baumane’s “Rocks in my Pockets” confronts a topic all too familiar, in which she tries to piece together the history of the women in her family, and how mental illness affected them, since she feels the pressing weight of the illness on her shoulders. “Rocks in my Pockets” feels more like a power point presentation more than a film.

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Hercules (1997)

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Watching “Hercules,” feels almost like what Disney would have done to Superman if DC ever let them turn the character in to an animated feature film. It has all the hallmarks of the Superman mythos. Not to mention it embraces the classic hero’s journey, and is one of the few Disney features based around mythology rather than an age old story. Disney could very well have approached the tale of a young God in training with an animation style that could have rendered the film bland and forgettable. Instead, “Hercules” is one of their more unique and outside the box animated adaptations.

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Tarzan (1999)

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tarzanEdgar Rice Burroughs’ titular Tarzan has gone through a ton of botched adaptations over the last few decades. Speaking as a fan of the character and story arc, Disney’s “Tarzan” is probably my favorite adaptation of all time. Surely, it suffers from Disney tropes that make it very much a Disney movie, but damn it, it’s also a heart felt tale about a hero fighting for his unofficial family teeming with excellent performances and a haunting soundtrack. Plus, it garners the classic Disney themes of lost parents and a child being forced to grow up very quickly.

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Tarzan (1999)

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Edgar Rice Burroughs’ titular Tarzan has gone through a ton of botched adaptations over the last few decades. Speaking as a fan of the character and story arc, Disney’s “Tarzan” is probably my favorite adaptation of all time. Surely, it suffers from Disney tropes that make it very much a Disney movie, but damn it, it’s also a heart felt tale about a hero fighting for his unofficial family teeming with excellent performances and a haunting soundtrack. Plus, it garners the classic Disney themes of lost parents and a child being forced to grow up very quickly.

Continue reading →