A Boy and His Beast (Un Garcon et Sa bête) (2017) [Oceanside International Film Festival 2017]

A young aristocratic boy adopts a dog on his birthday.  As he teaches his dog tricks and learns to love his pet, something happens and he meets a surprise in the family’s yard.

Written by Crystal Perea and directed by Calley MacDonald, this short stop-motion animation film is adorably cute and funny.  The story shows a lot of heart and love in a family that is rather strict and not accepting of new things.  The boy at the center of it all is the black sheep of his family and is shown as a sweet, loving boy.  The way the story is built, the surprise near the end is not evident or easily guessed.  While there is indeed more to this story than first meets the eye, it all makes sense in a way.  This story is loving and filled with just the right amount of humor to make it a comedy but without going overboard silly.  The film has very little dialog, almost none really, and it shares its story and emotions through well done animation and through its music.

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Mune: Guardian of the Moon (2015)

“Mune: Guardian of the Moon” draws obvious influences from the likes of Studio Ghibli and Laika, and it’s a rather entertaining gem of an animated fantasy that I couldn’t help but enjoy with a wide smile. After “The Emoji Movie,” it’s very calming to know that there are still studios out there trying to deliver quality family animated entertainment. Dubbed over from the original French track, “Mune” translates well for domestic audiences, and I didn’t have a very tough time following what is a pretty nifty premise based around mysticism, nature, and the like. It also sports the classic hero’s journey trope, which isn’t so bad when it’s handled subtly.

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The Emoji Movie (2017)

What I’m sure was going to set the platform for a Sony movie/ad universe following up with a The “Tic Tac Toe Movie,” The “Peek a Boo Movie,” and “The Jingle car keys in front our Faces Movie,” “The Emoji Movie” (aka “The Sony Press Kit”) is the height of laziness to the point where the script was probably written on a napkin at a some overpriced coffee shop in Beverly Hills. “The Emoji Movie” is not just bad, but it’s offensively boring, and tedious. It’s “Doogal” bad. It’s “A Shark Tale” bad. There are just so many bafflingly stupid and moronic moments in “The Emoji Movie,” that I can’t believe any actual writer put all of this down on page with sincerity or the goal of turning any of this in to a pop culture craze.

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The Bootleg Files: Fantasia – The Censored Centaurs

BOOTLEG FILES 599: “Fantasia – The Censored Centaurs” (deleted characters from Disney’s 1940 masterwork).

LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Racially motivated humor that the Mouse Factory does not want you to see.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Oh, Lawdy!

In many ways, Walt Disney was way ahead of his times: his pioneering work in sound and color animation set new standards for filmmaking, and his genius for merchandising laid the foundation for contemporary Hollywood’s marketing machinery.

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Napping Princess (Hirune-hime: Shiranai watashi no monogatari) (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Kokone escapes everyday life by dreaming about Ancien, a princess in a land ruled by a car-obsessed king.  In her real life, things take an odd turn when her father is arrested at the start of her last summer before graduation and just a few days before the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.  This leads Kokone to use skills she didn’t know she had and come into her own.

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Born of Woman 2017 [Fantasia International Film Festival]

Last year saw the first time where the programmers at the fest felt a need to have a short film block dedicated entirely to women-made short genre films as they had received a big selection of very strong titles.  This year continues this with its second edition or the 2017 edition.  Here are short reviews for each film involved in it this year (in no particular order).

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Spectrum Fest: Films from the Autism Spectrum [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Spectrum Productions works with a day camp in Montreal which offers filmmaking mentorship and classes for people on the autism spectrum.  Spectrum Fest was a presentation of some of the films made by participants over the years for the first time at Fantasia.  It was a free screening for anyone interested in going and it was hoot.

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