The team of Akira Maynard, Sammy Liu, and Justine Fong really do create something so unbelievable and special with “Bunny to the Moon.” It’s a classic tale about friendship, companionship, and the idea of sacrifice and learning to care for oneself before caring for others. Although the “Bunny to the Moon” does suffer from a run time that could have used at least ten more minutes, the short is beautifully animated and feels so much like a callback to films like “E.T.” or “My Neighbor Totoro.”
Tag Archives: Fantasy
Demon in a Bottle (1996)
Full Moon and Charles Band always had a knack for delivering entertainment on the cheap side, allowing them to cover a lot of markets. Their family movies, despite being low budget, had a kind of novelty and charm that is still pretty fun. One of the lesser among the library from Full Moon’s sub label Moonbeam was “Demon in a Bottle.” Despite its sinister title, the movie is very much a take on “The Goonies” except with only about ten percent of the budget, I’d assume. It has a small cast, very limited scenery, and only has villains that animated—you know, to spare the whole cost of live actors.
Madame Web (2024)
In Sony’s quest to maintain the Spider-Man trademark, they continue milking whatever character from his universe that they can, no matter how irrelevant or nonsensical they may be. In the now established “Don’t Say Spider-Man” Spider-Man Movieverse, S.J. Clarkson directs what is essentially “Donnie Darko” but with a heavy theme about Spiders. The writers do everything they can to allude to Spider-Man and Peter Parker but, I’m assuming because of contractual stipulations, not once do we ever get to see Peter Parker or Spider-man, nor do we ever hear his name uttered. Uncle Ben does play a big role, though, because he is not canon in the MCU.
It’s all so tricky.
Turning Red (2022)
Will be in Limited Re-Release on February 9th; will be preceded by the Sparkshort Kitbull. Check Local Listings.
You gotta give it to Pixar, when they decide to do something new, they approach it head on and go all the way. Although subtlety was never their strong suit, here “Turning Red’s” one big noticeable element is that it’s about as subtle as a brick on the head. With Domee Shi directing, “Turning Red” is a decidedly very Asian flavored coming of age film that’s drawn in the style of anime and Manga.
Alienoid: Return to the Future (2024)
In theaters from Well Go USA from January 26th, 2024
In this follow-up to Alienoid (2022), the story picks up where the first film ends. We get to see Lee Ahn in the far away past, stuck there, but maybe not, looking for a divine sword and a way home.
Brave (2012)
It’s shocking how well animated “Brave” is. Brenda Chapman and Mark Andrew’s action drama is filled with an immense scale packed with Scotland terrains as far as the eye can see. “Brave is also packed with great animation featuring our hero Merida’s hair which was intricately narrated for her specific character. All of the ballyhoo about the wonderful animation is all for a narrative that’s—fine. It’s a fine movie. It’s a perfectly mediocre, often confusing movie packed with such a wonderful and brilliant animation style.
The Sacred Cave (La Grotte sacrée) (2023) [FIAF’s ‘Animation First’ Film Fest 2024]
FIAF’s ‘Animation First’ Film Festival runs from January 23rd through January 28th.
Directors Daniel Minlo and Cyrille Masso’s “The Sacred Cave” have a lot of interesting lore to put forward for fans of animation, and with their feature film there are so much of the concepts about courage, and importance of family and culture embedded in the classic hero’s journey. The pair of directors knows exactly what kind of movie that they’re delivering, though, as they convey the classic tropes through a unique setting that we rarely see in modern mainstream animation. That should be a catch for animation buffs looking for something different.