There’s a certain style of storytelling in a Chinese historical film that requires Western viewers to adjust their perspective and expectations just a bit. A bit of the mythic, an exaggeration for moral and ethical effect, and battles that are always epic and heroes who stagger on and fight until the very end, pulling arrows out of their torso and daring their opponent to stick them with another sword because one wasn’t enough to stop…Read More
Review: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
I really liked Fantasia (1940) as a kid and recall being amazed at how well the music and ;animation synchronized in one of the most trippy of the Disney animated films. The centerpiece of Fantasia was the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene, where Mickey Mouse used magic to clean his master’s lab, just to have the mops and brooms take on a life of their own. The message: magic is tricky work and not for amateurs. Nicholas…Read More
The Worst Films of 2009
2009 was a big year: I started out as a film fan who went to the theater maybe once every 2-3 weeks and otherwise lazily waited until movies made it onto the premium cable channels before I saw them. Not a lack of motivation, just a busy life. Early in 2009 I started to write a series of columns for Linux Journal on how to create a Twitter queueing system and my example subject was…Read More
Review: Astro Boy
I like animation in just about any form, whether it’s the stop motion brilliance of Coraline or the computer graphics gleam of Toy Story or Shrek. I’m not a huge fan of manga, however, Japanese comics,though I am a definite fan of graphic novels and probably buy a dozen or so every month (which my kids definitely appreciate). Astro Boy was a mixed bag, therefore, because it’s animated (good) but based on a very Japanese…Read More