Ernest and Celestine
Showing posts with label kids film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids film. Show all posts
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Movie Review: Ernest and Celestine
In case people didn't see Monday's review, between my library woes getting this silly DVD unlocked and the fact that I spent half of last week helping out at a con I was just too bush-wacked to both watch this movie and come up with a review for it, even if it's rather short. So without further ado, a short little review for a short film!
Monday, June 23, 2014
Anime Review: Gundam Build Fighters
If some shows I've reviewed lately are a bit surprising but not wholly so since I've mentioned them before this has to be the oddest of the bunch. Considering that last fall people had next to no hopes for this show, that I remember seeing, there's no reason I would see the latest sort-of installment in a franchise I don't have any experience with (other than that one time my anime club watched a few episodes of Gundam Wing and I was deeply bored) and it seemed like a pretty blatant grab to get kids to buy toys, nope I have better things to spend my time on! But after the new year I was seeing more and more chatter about the show online and it seemed like people were really enjoying it and I actually had a number of friends who were also becoming interested in the show for the same reasons. Considering that Sunrise had done the rather unprecedented move of putting the show legally on youtube subbed in at least a half a dozen different languages I didn't have any reason to not try the show out when I found myself with some free time during my lunch and I was pretty quickly able to see why so many people were enjoying it.
Gundam Build Fighters
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Movie Review: Yobi: The Five Tailed Fox
If the main character's name wasn't a tip-off then I shall mention that this isn't an anime but rather a Korean movie, apparently foxes are tricksters in every culture where, well, foxes naturally live. I vaguely remember hearing about the movie and then hearing lack-luster reviews of it a short time later but when I learned recently that it was streaming on Netflix I decided to give it a shot anyway.
Yobi: The Five Tailed Fox
Summary: Yobi is a fox who lives with a group of aliens who crash landed on Earth 100 years ago (they haven't had much success repairing their spaceship) and becomes curious about the students at a local school when one of the aliens gets accidentally made into a pet by some of them and ends up trying to emulate them and be human herself.
The Good: There were a couple of cool ideas in the film, such as the afterlife scenes, and I'm not sure if these ideas came from Korean mythology/legends or if they were entirely the work of this film but things such as that and the shadow were rather neat. I suppose kids might like this movie, it was certainly random enough at times to be unintentionally funny, but if you're above the age of 12 then your chances of liking this film are strongly diminished.
The Bad: Looking back on the story, I have no idea why there even were aliens in this story at all. They don't add anything to it emotion wise, plot wise (or even plot-device wise), or comedy-wise for me and that's more than a little problem. The subplot with the hunter also came out of nowhere, while it was hinted at that someone was hunting down the foxes the first scene with him in it was just so left field that I wondered if I had missed an earlier scene that set it up, it felt like poor structuring to me. I also had some problems with the ending, not because it's open-ended and vague, that I would have been fine with, but because it seems to contradict itself with it's final sequence of events. Overall however I just found this story a bit dull, it's about Yobi and she does change some, although for her changing means "falling in love/seeing why she would want to become human" which isn't very deep or really interesting character development, and none of the side characters do which makes all of their involvement in the story, not just the aliens, feel a bit pointless and flat in the end.
The Production Values: At times the art and animation looked okay and at other times it went careening down into uncanny valley (the specific moment I'm thinking of is one of the kids doing a comedy routine he really likes which involves a lot of movement and the CGI just makes it creepy). On a slightly weird note I thought that Yobi had a bandage on her noise whenever she was human because of some weird shading, although her overall design was rather cute.
In the end I'm going to give this movie 2.5 out of 5 stars (good lord I feel like I've given a lot of those lately) since it looks odd at times (in a way that's not stylistic but rather "we didn't have the budget/skill to make the CGI look better"), the plot was a bit rambly and had a lot of unnecessary parts to it. Don't think I'll ever rewatch it, don't really recommend but if you really like weird CGI I can try and find that comedy routine again because that was truly bizarre.
Yobi: The Five Tailed Fox
Summary: Yobi is a fox who lives with a group of aliens who crash landed on Earth 100 years ago (they haven't had much success repairing their spaceship) and becomes curious about the students at a local school when one of the aliens gets accidentally made into a pet by some of them and ends up trying to emulate them and be human herself.
The Good: There were a couple of cool ideas in the film, such as the afterlife scenes, and I'm not sure if these ideas came from Korean mythology/legends or if they were entirely the work of this film but things such as that and the shadow were rather neat. I suppose kids might like this movie, it was certainly random enough at times to be unintentionally funny, but if you're above the age of 12 then your chances of liking this film are strongly diminished.
The Bad: Looking back on the story, I have no idea why there even were aliens in this story at all. They don't add anything to it emotion wise, plot wise (or even plot-device wise), or comedy-wise for me and that's more than a little problem. The subplot with the hunter also came out of nowhere, while it was hinted at that someone was hunting down the foxes the first scene with him in it was just so left field that I wondered if I had missed an earlier scene that set it up, it felt like poor structuring to me. I also had some problems with the ending, not because it's open-ended and vague, that I would have been fine with, but because it seems to contradict itself with it's final sequence of events. Overall however I just found this story a bit dull, it's about Yobi and she does change some, although for her changing means "falling in love/seeing why she would want to become human" which isn't very deep or really interesting character development, and none of the side characters do which makes all of their involvement in the story, not just the aliens, feel a bit pointless and flat in the end.
The Production Values: At times the art and animation looked okay and at other times it went careening down into uncanny valley (the specific moment I'm thinking of is one of the kids doing a comedy routine he really likes which involves a lot of movement and the CGI just makes it creepy). On a slightly weird note I thought that Yobi had a bandage on her noise whenever she was human because of some weird shading, although her overall design was rather cute.
In the end I'm going to give this movie 2.5 out of 5 stars (good lord I feel like I've given a lot of those lately) since it looks odd at times (in a way that's not stylistic but rather "we didn't have the budget/skill to make the CGI look better"), the plot was a bit rambly and had a lot of unnecessary parts to it. Don't think I'll ever rewatch it, don't really recommend but if you really like weird CGI I can try and find that comedy routine again because that was truly bizarre.
Sunday, September 9, 2012
Movie Review: Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror
I don't pay as much attention to films, animated or live-action, that come out in Japan as anime (just because there's such a large gap between when they come out and when anyone not in Japan can see them, legally or otherwise) but the trailers Funimation put out for this one caught my eye since it's an almost all CGI film that didn't look, well, terrible. Quite frankly while I think that some animation studios in Japan have become very good at blending 2D and 3D art together I rarely see any all 3D projects that don't look terrible (and they're certainly not the worst productions I've ever seen, but that's because when I was a kid my brother and I watched a number of VHS tapes with incredibly early CGI shorts which I've never been able to find anywhere since*). And this film looked not terrible at all so when Funimation put up the entire moved subbed on their youtube channel (I believe it's still there) that's all the incentive I needed to go check it out.
Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror
Summary: In the town where Haruka and her oft-absent father live there is a story that little foxes go around and collect everything people have forgotten and take them to a far off place. When Haruka tries to find a keepsake of her mother's, an old hand mirror, she gets to see first hand how true this story is and how hard it can be to get back something that was lost.
The Good: Despite the fact that Haruka is 16 (and you generally age the protagonist to either be the same age or a little older than the intended audience) I feel like this is more of a kid's film than a family film (it's missing all the winks and nods that family-friendly movies/tvs in the US have to entertain it's older viewers) and it works quite fine as one. It's quick paced, doesn't drag, Haruka and Teo both grow, and the simple plot works fine. It's cute, fluffy fare which I think could easily be shown to kids who've grown up watching Pixar (although they'll probably pick up that it's not American quickly which should be fine, I figured out pretty quick that Pokemon was Japanese and that didn't make me enjoy it anymore or less) and it doesn't have any content that would warrant above a PG rating.
The Bad: It's not a very ambitious movie due to it's rather simple plot and, while I can easily recommend this to kids who like animated movies, I feel like it might bore a lot of teens/adults who want something more than a simple, cute flick. The villain was also more than a bit cheesy, another reason why I feel like this film is more a kid's movie than a family/all ages film, and after seeing the movie once I feel satisfied and don't think I'll re-watch it. If not for the visuals I doubt I'd remember it in a few years, it's a solid piece of work but not a stand-out one.
The Audio: Funimation only had the Japanese dub posted so I have no idea how the English dub fares but the Japanese dub was fine, honestly I can't remember the last time I saw a Japanese dub that wasn't fine. Quite honestly I don't remember much else about the audio in the movie but Haruka and Teo's voice both fit well (Miyuki Sawashiro continues to amaze me due to just what a wide range she has) and I often have trouble talking about the audio in movies anyway, there's just so much less time to show off what the composer can do.
The Visuals: There are a few shots early on where it's obvious that it's a 2D background with 3D characters/objects but the movie is 95% CGI and it looks great. The backgrounds are colorful and really feel 3D (the best comparison I can make is that they look like background in an area in a video game, they have depth), the animation seemed smooth and while the character's faces looked a little too plastic it's nothing that an animation fan hasn't seen before (just think of some of Pixar/Dreamwork's films from a few years ago), especially since the film is from 2009. It's not perfect (by which I mean "Pixar level quality" since they are the best out there) but it's more than passable and, while I think the movie could have also worked as a 2D movie it, it works.
So, worth watching if you want to see an almost all CGI anime done right or if you have kids, otherwise there's not much of note here and you can pass on it. As I mentioned earlier Funimation was streaming this movie on youtube when I saw it (which was about three or four weeks ago) and it's probably still up there although I'm betting that it's region locked as well.
*to emphasize how early these were, a lot of people have seen one of Pixar's early shorts involving a snowman in a snowglobe right? A masterpiece compared to what we were watching and a heck of a lot more coherent.
Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror
Summary: In the town where Haruka and her oft-absent father live there is a story that little foxes go around and collect everything people have forgotten and take them to a far off place. When Haruka tries to find a keepsake of her mother's, an old hand mirror, she gets to see first hand how true this story is and how hard it can be to get back something that was lost.
The Good: Despite the fact that Haruka is 16 (and you generally age the protagonist to either be the same age or a little older than the intended audience) I feel like this is more of a kid's film than a family film (it's missing all the winks and nods that family-friendly movies/tvs in the US have to entertain it's older viewers) and it works quite fine as one. It's quick paced, doesn't drag, Haruka and Teo both grow, and the simple plot works fine. It's cute, fluffy fare which I think could easily be shown to kids who've grown up watching Pixar (although they'll probably pick up that it's not American quickly which should be fine, I figured out pretty quick that Pokemon was Japanese and that didn't make me enjoy it anymore or less) and it doesn't have any content that would warrant above a PG rating.
The Bad: It's not a very ambitious movie due to it's rather simple plot and, while I can easily recommend this to kids who like animated movies, I feel like it might bore a lot of teens/adults who want something more than a simple, cute flick. The villain was also more than a bit cheesy, another reason why I feel like this film is more a kid's movie than a family/all ages film, and after seeing the movie once I feel satisfied and don't think I'll re-watch it. If not for the visuals I doubt I'd remember it in a few years, it's a solid piece of work but not a stand-out one.
The Audio: Funimation only had the Japanese dub posted so I have no idea how the English dub fares but the Japanese dub was fine, honestly I can't remember the last time I saw a Japanese dub that wasn't fine. Quite honestly I don't remember much else about the audio in the movie but Haruka and Teo's voice both fit well (Miyuki Sawashiro continues to amaze me due to just what a wide range she has) and I often have trouble talking about the audio in movies anyway, there's just so much less time to show off what the composer can do.
The Visuals: There are a few shots early on where it's obvious that it's a 2D background with 3D characters/objects but the movie is 95% CGI and it looks great. The backgrounds are colorful and really feel 3D (the best comparison I can make is that they look like background in an area in a video game, they have depth), the animation seemed smooth and while the character's faces looked a little too plastic it's nothing that an animation fan hasn't seen before (just think of some of Pixar/Dreamwork's films from a few years ago), especially since the film is from 2009. It's not perfect (by which I mean "Pixar level quality" since they are the best out there) but it's more than passable and, while I think the movie could have also worked as a 2D movie it, it works.
So, worth watching if you want to see an almost all CGI anime done right or if you have kids, otherwise there's not much of note here and you can pass on it. As I mentioned earlier Funimation was streaming this movie on youtube when I saw it (which was about three or four weeks ago) and it's probably still up there although I'm betting that it's region locked as well.
*to emphasize how early these were, a lot of people have seen one of Pixar's early shorts involving a snowman in a snowglobe right? A masterpiece compared to what we were watching and a heck of a lot more coherent.
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