Movie Review: Kubo and the Two Strings

I had a strange thought coming out of Kubo and the Two Strings, the latest glorious stop-motion picture out of Laika, which is that it is strange that we are currently seeing more emotional depth coming out of movies obstensively aimed at children, than those aimed at broader, older audiences. I like my blockbusters, but they're really, really ephemeral, so much that we sometimes talk about the Planet of the Apes films as "smart blockbusters" because they at least attempt to acknowledge the existance of actual ideas, but largely multiplex fodder is just that. What they rarely are is about stuff, apparently content to leave that field for the winter season oscar contenders and, strangely enough, kids movies. 

TV Review: Voltron: Legendary Defender

There's a surprising amount of anime on Netflix, we discovered recently. It's not always the most up to date, and it's not the deepest of catalogues compared to dedicated services such as Crunchyroll, but certainly more than I expected to find given the sparsity of shows coming over to the UK that aren't spin offs from kids video games. It obviously does quite well on Netflix's viewing stats, too, because they've commissioned their own anime-esque show, albeit one aimed slightly younger, and based on one of the great legacy properties from the 1980s - Voltron: Legendary Defender. Now I've seen very little of the original Voltron, but like many a 90s anime fan probably picked up most of the beats through watching the wave of mech-anime that was the fashion at the time. But as a family with viewing tastes well disposed towards Giant Robots fighting, we were on this pretty quickly. 

TV Review: Agent Carter, Series 2 and Star Wars Rebels, Series 2

Quick catch-up time for two shows that finished their second series in the last week or so. I'm afraid it's heading into that time of year where season finales start to snowball up, and even keeping up is getting difficult. At least Star Wars Rebels is on a Saturday morning, and we watch it with the kids, so it doesn't come out of "grown up TV time". It's interesting to see both seasons change and build on their respective firsts, and whilst I'm a lot more confident of seeing more Rebels than seeing more Agent Carter (dammit) they both build solid foundations to go forward with. So lets start with the LA adventures of Peggy Carter, shall we?

DVD(s) of the Week: Brooklyn, Penguins of Madagascar

In the interests of catching up on my watching, it's a double header review this week, with two pretty contrasting movies. I like it when that happens, to honest, because whilst TV-land has become a barrage of superhero fare I'm starting to struggle to distinguish between, at least my movie-watching fare is remaining diverse and interesting. I'm going to spend a lot more time on Brooklyn than Penguins of Madagascar, but the latter is included here for completeness, and because it's actually OK, as far as these things go. But first, the properly good film!

Movie Review: Zootropolis

This weekend was the weekend that Social Media seemed to go (more) insane over a Comic Book Movie and whether it was right/wrong to like/dislike it. On one level the response to Batman v Superman has been fascinating, and on another it's been eye-wateringly stupid. I look forward now to months of pointless, circular arguments raging about it, lit only by the buring of Strawmen, illuminating nothing and no-one. Thankfully, I haven't seen it, so you are spared my thoughts on it for now. Instead, we took the kids (including the teenager, who preferred this to the chance to see BvS, go figure!) to see Disney's latest offering, Zootropolis. 

DVD of the Week: Song of the Sea

Sometimes you'd be forgiven for thinking that there were only two schools of animated movie in the world, those from Japan, and those from Hollywood. Both are pretty diverse, to be fair, and it's certainly not a slight on them, but they both have evolved into distinctive visual styles that are so familiar they almost define what an animated movie should look like. Which is nonesense, of course, as the occasional breakthrough features from across the globe prove, even if they often have to fight their way out of both the "foreign language" and "animation" boxes to get there. One recent success is the Irish feature Song of the Sea, which wound up as our tea-time viewing this Sunday .

TV Review: Round Up!

So, we reach the final entry in our short "Round Up!" series, where I turn by somewhat behind gaze on the TV we've been watching in the last few months, yet not got around to writing up. It's a bit of a mixed bag, both in quality and content, but I guess it's pretty reflective of our TV habits these days. There is, in fairness, a huge amount of shows we are simply letting pass us by, as you just can't keep up with everthing, meaning I can feel guilty about the more popcorn stuff, but at the same time comfort blanket TV is as valid as any other form, and ultimately I make no apology for watching it.

Movie Review: Inside Out

Sometimes the critical world generates a negative consensus around a show, or production company that can get quite annoying in it's unwarrented persistance. I'll probably rant about this a bit when I come to write up True Detective, but it also swirls around the idea of "peak Marvel", or the Doctor Who, or countless other examples.  Another recent recipient of the old "oh it's lost the plot now!" cliches has been Pixar, who have been written for a while now. Sure, Cars 2 is a pretty weak sequal to the weakest of their original features, but there has been a generally downbeat reaction to everything after 2009s Up. And yes, Brave is flawed, and Monsters University is fun but forgettable, and even Toy Story 3 can be written off as "not as good as Toy Story 2" if you really want, but dropping from such an insanely high standard is hardly terminal decline. Even so, Inside Out has  been billed by many critics as Pixars comeback picture, and boy is it a thundering broadside from a studio that still knows how to reduce grown adults to quivering emotional wrecks. 

DVD(s) of the Week: Bernie, Malificent, The Book of Life

It's DVD Round-Up time! Over the last few weeks we've watched more movies that I've easily found time to write up, so it's time that I come up to date with a quick summary. A couple of them have been kids films, and one not, so it's an eclectic mix. I'll start with the best this time, and move down, so, here we go. 

Movie Review: Minions

We have been under some pressure from the smallest member of the family to go and see Minions, since they started running adverts non-stop on pretty much every channel we watch at the moment. I think Robert sees them as somewhat of a kindred spirit, or perhaps a CGI Spirit Guide, as they're little, and bouncy and enthusiastic, and so a trip to the cinema started to feel inevitable. And besides, I've seen my single ration of 15+ rated movies this year, right? For anyone not aware, the Minions are the breakout characters from the two Despicable Me films, which are best described as "fun, but nothing outstanding". In those films, our evil-ish villian has an army of small, yellow gibberish-spouting helpers that work on his evil-ish plans for World Domination, and here they get their own film, a prequel of sorts, to test how tolerable they are in larger numbers.

First Impressions: Thunderbirds Are Go!

When I was a kid, Thunderbirds was already a "thing, because old as I am, I'm not that old. Airing originally in 1965 and 1966, it saw revivals every couple of years, it seemed, and I loved it. There was - is - something about the miniature work that transcends it's slightly twitchy effects, something deep in the design of the vehicles and the secret Bond-Villian-esque Tracy Island, and roaming missions that International Rescue get sent on. I can't now, but that was a time I could tell you which vehicle was in which one of Thunderbird 2's pods, and countless more pointless facts that I stored in the space of my brain I now use for Star Wars trivia. I've never seen the 2004 Hollywood adaption, because I'd heard so many bad things I didn't want to spoil those memories, but I had to have a look at the new sort-of-puppet, sort-of-CGI series that just premiered. 

DVD of the Week: The Wind Rises

Studio Ghibli's international acclaim is probably the most enduring legacy of the 1990s anime boom, not least due to the distribution deal it secured with Disney, which brought it to the wider american market. Sure, it's never going to do the business of the latest Pixar movie, but it's varied and wonderful house style is familiar to audiences who may never have even heard of other anime staples such as Akira or Ghost in the Shell. But in an age where traditional animation styles seem to be dying out, I do worry for the future of the studio, especially with the retirement of Hayao Miyazaki. In the meantime however, I'm still sufficiently behind to be still catching up on recent output, so was pleased to see The Wind Rises on Film4 this weekend.

Movie Review: Big Hero 6

I can occasionally be heard to complain that I don't get to watch grown up movies at the cinema very often, due to a mix of the need to sort out babysitters on the one hand, and the fact that our 12-year-old is keen to come with us whenever possible on the other. It's not the hardest problem we face, and the dominance of 12A action movies in the summer months mean we still see a lot of the big films, but it does relegate the "grown up" films to DVD nights, which can be a shame. Especially when awards season comes around and all the cinema billboards are full of films I'm sure I'll like when I see them 9 months time. But then occasionally you troop into the cinema half-filled with kids and get to see a film that is just as affecting and serious as anything vying for that Oscar nonsense, it's just disguised under -  in this case - brightly coloured Carbon Fiber plating. 

First Impressions: Star Wars Rebels

It feels strange to admit that I have a large affection for the now defunct Clone Wars TV series. Strange because when it came out it really looked unlikely to ever be the sort of show I could care about, and make an effort to watch. Set between two of the Star Wars prequels - which I've never hated, but certainly never felt more than "sort of liked, with some pretty decent sections" - and featuring whiny Anakin Skywalker and his never-even-hinted-at bratty Apprentice, it doesn't sound promising and its pilot "movie" wasn't that great either. But Clone Wars really grew on me - it handled its characters fantasically, expanded it's horizons, and in the end was a better prequel to the Classic Trilogy than the official Prequel Movies. Oh, and Ahsoka became possibly the best female lead on kids TV that wasn't called Korra. And then it was cancelled, a victim of the Disney buy-out of Lucasfilm, and instead we got Star Wars Rebels. How's that working out?

DVD(s) of the Week: Round-up Time!

Yes, it's that time again, when I attempt to round up a bunch of movies we've watched over the last month or so, but where my feelings on them aren't ebullient enough to demand some sort of long-winded ramble. I know, I know, as the sort of person who, in the right moment, could write up a review of his coffee, I should be ashamed of myself. But sometimes things are just "fine", and there isn't a lot get your teeth into. So with that in mind, here's four quick reviews.

Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2

We've had a bit of a debate in our house recently about what age to start taking Robert to the movies. After all, he's only 4 (and a bit!) and his attention span isn't brilliant at the best of times, but he's at the age when we started taking his brother and we only had to leave a couple of films before he got the hang of it. Going to the movies has always been a big part of our family life (from before we had a family!) so we'd been looking for an opportunity to really get everyone one - even bouncy little monkey-beasts - involved in cinema trips. Ewan's taste is pretty solidly 12A nowadays, but he did want to go see How to Train Your Dragon 2, and so we leapt on the opportunity for a family day out, albeit one where I was braced for having to leave after an hour or so. But I didn't, and so this review is brought to you courtesy of a very well behaved little boy who really enjoyed his first cinema trip.

DVD of the Week: Frozen

Frozen has become quite the thing, hasn't it? A few years ago, it seemed that Disney's in-house animation studio was on the way out for good, unable to compete with the Pixars and Dreamworks Animations of this world, and would be left to producing inferior straight-to-DVD sequels to past glories forever. The Disney Princess herself, consigned to history where it belongs. Right? Right? Well of course not. The Disney Princess, for all its problems, has had a grip on the collective imagination since the 1930s and that is feeding on something far older. They just needed a way into the modern world, and with Frozen they've seem to really hit a nerve.

Movie Review: The Lego Movie

Anyone who knows me even vaguely is probably aware of my life-long love of Lego. I mean, I've got tons of the stuff, bought in waves over the years, and then sold off or passed down, only to have another wave bought up again. Currently I'm divested of most of my Star Wars collection in favour of DC and Marvel Superheroes, but in a couple of years it'll probably be something else to sit alongside the Pirate Ships and the Millenium Falcon and the other stuff I've never managed to bring myself to part with. But a Lego Movie? That fills me with fear, because its hard to see how it can work; hard to see how it can't be anything but a soulless merchandising opportunity - which so many kids films are, even the good ones - that devalues rather than strengthened a toy that I love. So its a great relief that not only is the Lego Movie a really good film, it's a really good Lego film, too.

Box Set Blues: Archer

Is it still a Box-Set if I'm streaming from Netflix? At the risk of a diversion, we signed up to Netflix over the holidays mainly to watch Breaking Bad, but it's actually a pretty solid service, technically speaking, if a little sparse on the "current shows" front. But that isn't a big problem for us, being perennially behind, and it gives us easy access to the early runs of things like Sons of Anarchy, which we've been meaning to start on for ages. It also has the first 4 series of Justified, so if you've not caught this on it's "down the channel numbers" purgatory, you should get on that right now.  More relevantly, it has three seasons of Archer, which is another show people keep recommending, but we'd yet to catch. Whats that?  now we've seen 3 series in seven weeks? Guess it's OK then!

DVD(s) of the Holidays: Round Up!

No, "Round Up" isn't the name of a movie.

So over the Festive Break we did manage to get through a couple of new films, and rather than do long writes for each one - two of them don't really deserve it and the other...well there are other reasons for that - I thought I'd just do a quick catch-up on all three in one go.