Screen Squinty's Reviews

Feed: A Review

Short: Feed.
Directed by: Prapas Cholsaranon.
Released: 2014.
Running Time: 4.22 min.

This is an Thai animated short from Workpoint Pictures and Ittirit House that won “Best Animation” from Short Sweet Film Fest 2014 and has since been nominated at other festivals all over. It is about an old woman spending the day feeding an unusual looking pet with strange side-effects.

The animation style is interesting. There is a simpler construction to the character of the old woman and her pet, yet the use of light and shadow, the details of age, like the shaking of the old woman’s fingers, the almost warm pastel hues of the colour, the hints of texture (in the food, and the skin of the woman for example) combined with the character style is rather appealing visually.

The music was a great choice, and brilliantly utilized! This lovely almost melancholic piano piece by Chakapat Lamnoon plays throughout the short and combined with the setting gives it this almost tragic air to it, despite the fact that it is in no way tragic at all, building to this melodic climax in concert with the narrative, then gives you this sudden silence for a moment to realize what just happened before playing again.

The story itself is an excellent example of Incongruity theory. It utilizes all its elements, music, and setting, tone, and very much using these tools to play with the notion of expectation which appears to be the overall driving force of the animation.

This is an excellent animated short that utilized all its cinematic elements to provide the viewer with something unexpectedly unique and Highly recommended for both children and adults alike.

*Feed can be viewed on Youtube under Workpoint Official.

Screen Squinty's Favorite Films List.

As I was I was wondering around the internet, I got to thinking about some of my favorite films, so I thought I would try my hand at a favorite’s List, and decided to keep it ongoing.

Screen Squnity’s Favorite Films List (both feature and short, in no particular order).

1. We Are What We Are (American version).
2. The Backwater Gospel (short).
3. Rubber
4. The Last Unicorn
5. Farscape: The Peacekeepers War.
6. Up.
7. Geri’s Game (short).
8. La Luna (short).
9. Beetlejuice.
10. Arsenic and Old Lace.
11. Celluloid Closet.
12. Star Wars Franchise.
13. Star Trek Movie Franchise.
14. The Girl Who Leaped Through Time.
15. The Quiet Family.
16. Shudo (short).
17. Prom Night.
18. Dracula Dead and Loving It.
19. Feed (short).
20. Inside Out.
21. Mr. Nobody.
22. Lullaby For a Princess (short).
23. There is a Man in the Woods.
24. Silence of the Lambs.
25. Alien Nation.
26. Nightmare on Elm Street.
27. My Boyfriend’s Back.
28. Unearthed (short).
29. Antz.
30. The Truman Show.
31. Die Young (short).
32. Dip N’ Dance (short).
33. Fido
34. The Shadow of the Vampire.
35. Once Bitten.
36. Hellboy Sword of the Storms.
37. Duo (short).
38. Hellboy Blood and Iron.
39. Birdman.
40. Cosmic Laundromat: First Cycle.
41. Gremlins 1 and 2.
42. Nightmare Before Christmas.
43. Vincent (short).
44. Snakes on a Plane.
45. Ace Ventura Pet Detective.
46. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 version folks).
47. Shaun the Sheep.
48. Searching for Bobby Fisher.
49. Forbidden Planet.
50. Metropolis.
51. Hairspray.
52. Splash.
53. An American Werewolf in Paris.
54. Modern Times.
55. The Cat Piano (short).
56. The Great Dictator.
57. Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
58. Lifted (short).
59. Dogma.
60. Halloween.
61. A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology.
62. The Uninvited.
63. Groundhog Day.
64. A Very Brady Christmas.
65. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (short).
66. Black Christmas (the original one).
67. They Live!
68. Escape to Witch Mountain (the original).
69. The Secret Garden (1990’s version).
70. Felidae.
71. Battle Royale.
72. The Watcher in the Woods.
73. Ghost.
74. The Cat from Outerspace.
75. The Nutty Professor (Jerry Lewis version).
76. The Fifth Element.
77. The Iron Giant.
78. Muto (short).

Nice list. + rep for these films.

thanks! there will likely be more of them down the line, more theme based.

The Saga of Biorn: A Review.

Short: The Saga of Biorn.
Created by: Benjamin J. Kousholt, Daniel D. Christensen, Mads Lundgaard Christensen, Jesper A. Jensen, Jonas K. Doctor, Steffen Lyhne, Pernille Ørum-Nielsen, Frederik Bjerre-Poulsen, Jonas Georgakakis.
Released: 2011.
Running Time: 7.05 min.

This is a Bachelor project short animation from The Animation Workshop about an old Viking trying to find that final battle that will ensure his place in Valhalla equivalent, but finding that it’s a lot harder then he thought.

This short has a style that is fun, colourful, and a bit quirky. There is a professional quality in the smoothness and speed of the movements, and a good use of non-dialogue action with sound. The presentations of the characters and use of the setting for the various follies, was well presented with god attention to what could be naturally utilized in each scene.

The story is where this short really hits it out of the park; a great utilization of comedy that didn’t get old and elicited giggles here and there, particularly with a play on viewer expectation at one point, the ending being rather chuckle worthy. The utilization of the Norse and Christianity themes was well utilized, and the theme that one man’s notion of paradise isn’t necessarily the same as another was well portrayed.

Overall, this is an excellent little animation with great animation, spectacular narrator (wow what a voice!) excellent plot progression, and good utilization of humour that could be watched more than once

HISHE: A Review.

Webseries: How It Should Have Ended.
Created by: Daniel Baxter and Tommy Watson.
Released: 2005.
Running time: 2-5 min.

How It Should Have Ended (HISHE) is a webseries created by Daniel Baxter and Tommy Watson, soon later joined by Christina Alexander and later picked up by Starz Media. It features animated lampoons of various films and some television by exposing various plot holes, inconsistencies, and so forth by creating alternate endings. The webseries has won various awards, been mentioned in various magazines, and has done some crossovers with other popular webseries personalities like Nostalgia Critic and Screen Junkies, as well as guest voice actors like Stan Lee. Since their channel has been on YouTube they have garnered over 5,323,751 subscribers.

So is this channel everything its popularity suggests?

From a technical standpoint, they’ve created a memorable design for their characters that makes them recognizable as HISHE. They use a joyful animation style that stays relatively close to the source material, with a good sense of line and colour and just the right amount of cartoony alterations to make them unique. You can see the effort that the crew goes to in creating these skits, taking the time to make sure that they put out something with quality.

The series has excellent characters that are brought to life by some great voice talents, with the best characterizations found in the recurring series Super Café, in which Batman and Superman sit and drink coffee in a café discussing their movies, joined by other heroes from time to time, and soon later joined by the series Villains Pub (booze and super-villains doing something similar). Batman and Superman are almost Seinfeldian, with a great dynamic that utilizes their unique premise through the short time slots engagingly. Villains Pub has a larger group dynamic and steps further outside the DC-verse with the wide variety of recurring popular faces. The premise of all these major villains in one site with a beer and some good conversation and jibbery amongst each other (such as the other villains poking fun at Joker’s look), makes one reminisce fondly of Cheers (for those who are old enough to remember Cheers that is).

So does it live up to its popularity? Yes, yes it does and more some. They show an excellent understanding of the foibles of film, yet display an equal love and respect for the medium they parody. Bringing a sense of fun, creative talent, hard work and originality, a series that filmmakers, critics and students of cinema should take time to subscribe and view.

Thanks guys for all great work you have done!

Short: The Great Escape.
Writer and Director: Damian Nenow.
Released: 2006/2012.
Running time: 6.28 min.

This is a Polish computer animated short produced by Plantige Image about a partly sunny weather symbol who wishes to escape the television into the outside world.

This is a very well-constructed animation that utilizes the technical insides of a television into both the prison city-like setting and the hostile inhabitants/guards. There is a good use of slow motion, angle, and shape, as well as a mature understanding of light and shadow.

The character designs themselves are relatively simple in nature on part of partly cloudy, but given what he is, they use just the right amount of light and 3D to flesh him out with out losing the inherent simple nature of his design. The character design of the guards was creative, and merged well as them being part of the environment.

The story has been done before of course, but utilizing it through a weatherman’s symbol as the protagonist was unique, and the plot progressed at a decent pace throughout the short with a satisfying conclusion.

Overall, a great animated short that utilizes its mise-en-scene and characters from the ordinary everyday life living room television with some good animation and enjoyable conclusion and well worth the ganter.

Top 10 Movies to Watch for Halloween (in no particular order)

I know that there are many more movies out there worth mentioning, but I think my fingers would fall off mentioning all the great material out there, so consider it like a sampling of some of the top stuff to watch.

1. Shadow of the Vampire.


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This is a great 2000 film starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe; utilizes great cinematography, excellent character dynamic and dialogue that gives a fictional recount of the creation of the 1900’s German Nosferatu. It is filled with this great sense of style that draws the viewer in to this story of macabre obsession-at-any-cost, deal-with-the devil scenario culminating with a memorable antagonist and even more memorable ending.

2. Nightmare on Elm Street.


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The original film of the 1980’s that started off the franchise took the slasher into the world of dreams and utilized everything that that particular setting provided to its advantage to tell this great tale, with one of the top tier memorable contemporary monsters in horror movie history.

3. The Uninvited.


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This 1944 American supernatural horror/romance is about a music critic and his sister who move into a house with a haunting history that is often frequented by a young woman with her own. It has this great sense of atmosphere that sucks you into the story that is unfolding, peopled by some engaging characters portrayed by some great talent. An Elegant ghost story from the black and white era.

4. Arsenic and Old Lace.


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This is yet another 1944 film starring the brilliant Cary Grant and a stellar cast about a man who gets recently married, but before he can go off on his honeymoon; his family throws him a curve ball of kindly madness and sinisterisim. The horror-comedy uses an excellent of cumulative build-up of events and hijinks to tell this great little number that is always a treat to watch play out.

5. Scream.


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A American Slasher film from 1996 written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven that takes the slasher film horror subgenre and makes it into a reflexive commentary on the slasher genre with a masked killer that spawned one of the most popular Halloween costumes of the later 90’s.

6. The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.


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A silent German Expressionist horror film from 1920 that inspired many of the great film makers (Tim Burton for example) from the time of its release to present, anything gothic, horror or fantasy in Hollywood can find some roots in this film. With its skewed design and macabre sets, its harsh tipsy angles, creative revolutionary cinematography for the period, and all working through the theme surrounding the dark nature of authority and control, makes for a brilliant must see.

7. The Shinning.


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Taking the premise of the Stephen King novel and running with it, this 1980 film takes a uniquely twisted method of telling a story of a devolving family with a frustrated drunk of a father in a haunted hotel through symbolic imagery.

8. Shaun of the Dead.


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A 2004 British horror comedy directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and Simon Pegg, and starring Pegg and Nick Frost that utilizes parody, some moments of surprising drama, intelligent cinematography an fun characters in a spoof of a zombie outbreak. It is hilarious, thoughtful, and engrossing at the same time.

9. The Babadook.


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An excellent 2014 Canadian-Australian psychological horror film about a woman and her son who lives alone and are seemingly tormented by an entity. It plays a little with expectations and the actress for the mother especially did an Oscar worth job of expressing the woman’s degenerating mentality throughout this film.

10. Phycho.


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Is there really any need to explain this film? It is considered the grandfather of slasher horror and comes from the bows-before-his-mighty-movie-making-prowess, the father of twists himself, Alfred Hitchcock. It is a psychological thriller horror that has been considered one of the greatest movies of all time, which is not hard to believe with its brilliantly done well paced plot that pushed some boundaries of the period, enigmatic characters, and clever cinematography.

Finders Keepers: A Review.

Film: Finders Keepers.
Directed by: Alexander Yellan.
Released: 2014.
Running Time: 84 min.

This is an American horror film about a divorced/separated mother who moves into a house with a history with doll that her daughter finds that twists the little girl to its own ends.

Well…if there was ever a really bad movie, and I mean so bad that you question the sanity of the person who made this, and not in a good way, then you would half way have a film more decent then this!

This is a paint by numbers factory groaner that is good only if one wishes to play a drinking game of spot that cliché looking for an easy liver rot. While clichés can at times be sprinkled here and there in film, in some cases its almost unavoidable, there are so many in this one, some so outdated that any amateur filmmaker out of public school would not use them, that the entire piece is an almost fascinating artifact to educate children on what not to do in making a film.

I won’t delve too much into the special effects. It’s clear this is a B-movie or a made for TV movie, so there is some leeway, but still, I’ve seen better effects on an episode of Teletubbies, there wasn’t anything much else in the cinematography that makes it stand out.

Then there’s characters…whoo boy.

You can tell that most of the lead actors, particularly the mother, knew they had a stinker and decided to not even bother with much effort, just another paycheck piece for the bills. There is no identity or development for these people, they are so stiff and detached that the extras and side characters (a.k.a your red shirts for the next 80 minutes), were the only ones even mildly trying (geez Marina Sirtis, what did they offer you? A car made out of gold?).

The only glimmer of good about this film was the actress who played the little girl, who, while a typical archetype for this type of story, you can tell the was putting her all into it, with some genuinely good expressions and the only one of the main characters expressing any sort of attached realistic emotion to the plot.

Overall, an unmemorable story, lack luster performances, with the exception of the lead child actress, and an all-around bingo game of cliché inequity.

P.S,

It’s worth noting that this movie is so bad that IMDb lists the starring role as the garbage man (in it for like 2 minutes without a speaking role). This is why I haven’t utilized actors names, since it’s difficult to hammer down who was who, let alone remember the names of these characters directly after watching this uninspired clap trap.

Shorts to Watch For Halloween!

By Screen Squinty


*picture by myself.




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Screen Squinty’s Top 10 “Back to the Future” Humour.

In honor of Back to the Future Day, which is a day that celebrates on the exact date, October 21, 2015, When the character Marty McFly travels into the future in the second installment of the trilogy, I have created a list of my favorite top Back to the Future humour both as parody shorts, parody television show, reference and discussion.

Top 10 “Back to the Future” Humour (in no particular order).

1. Back To The Future In ACTUAL 2015 by CollegeHumor.
2. Rick And Morty (Television Show)
3. X-men Back to the Future Past by Barley Productions.
4. Why ‘Back to the Future’ Is Secretly Horrifying | After Hours by Cracked.
5.Terminator – How It Should End by HISHE.
6. Family Guy: Back to the Future George McFly.
7. Bart and Homers Excellent Adventures, A Treehouse of Horror Segment.
8. Honest Trailer’s Back to the Future.
9. How Back To The Future 2 Should Have Started by HISHE.
10. Robot Chicken: Doc Brown’s Plutonium.

Smile HD: A Review.



Short: Smile HD.
Created by: MisterDavey.
Released: 2013.
Running time: 3.58 min.

*Warning please Watch the short before reading review on youtube "Smile HD."

This is my second review of a My Little Pony Friendship is Magic fan made material, my first being Lullabye for a Princess. A friend of mine asked me why I would review fan made material and my response was that there is worthwhile content out there that can show the bigger production companies and independents alike something. I also have an amazed appreciation for the time, creativity, effort and unique viewpoints that some of these content creators put into their work, and thus that makes them worthy of the same equal appreciation and criticisms as the cannon they were inspired from.

Smile HD by MisterDavey is one of such fan made animated shorts that has sprung from the Brony community that uses a song number composed by Foozie that plays happily during some…rather interesting confrontations between Pinky Pie (the fourth walling party planning element of laughter from the MLP-canon).

From the technical end of things, this is a very well-constructed animation. Some good use of animated angle shots, colours that match the palate from cannon, and a great musical number that juxtaposes with its happy upbeat tempo which enhances the shock value, and does it brilliantly mind you, with the visuals.

The character designs were faithful to the source material (even if the darker theme wasn’t) and utilized the style in concert with the music to enhance that “what the f***!!” reaction you get and hold as you watch this short, with some gruesome realism touched upon here and there for the sake of gross out effect.

<p>Overall, what was first introduced to the community through the earlier fan made short story <i>Cupcakes</i> with its twistedly cheerful horror theme, Smile HD took it to the, admittedly mostly gratuitous, next level.

If you’re not a traditionalist MLP cannon watcher or a sensitive viewer, then this is something worth seeing.

Kung Fury: A Review.


Image from fanpop.com

Film/Short: Kung Fury.
Created by: David Sandberg.
Released: 2015.
Running Time: 30 min.

This…this film! Oh my fudging godlies!

I really don’t know how to coherently review this, so I took my que from the style of the film itself and just went with whatever freakin’ pops into my head, so here it goes.
How best to accurately describe this film? It’s like if the entirety of 80’s nostalgia tripped LSD, lost its shizer, and smacked me upside the head repeatedly with a film script it wrote while in the back of a sexily painted dream van. The resulting Oz hallucination induced from the concussion is this film in a nutshell.

…And man oh man was it awesome!I send my hyper-masculine *squee* out into the void.

This independent film was 30 minutes of straight up so-over-the-top-it’s-in-another-galaxy level of camp that caricatures the 80’s action hero and rough Die Hard cop all merged into the lead character known as Kung Fury (David Sandburg), who speaks in the gravelly voice of the Nolan Batman of the 2000’s (but was popular in the 80’s) while taking down a time traveling Hitler.

We see burns of ridiculous television premises thatwere super common in that decade (Triceracop), stiff 80’s animation, unicorns, sexy barbarian women riding animals of manpower, and so much violence the PCA’s of the actual 80’s might have hemorrhaged a hernia.

This is a visual feast for the unsuspecting parody eye for the straight guy that tries its hardest to make you go “wow” and have fun doing it and of the visual style I liked the use of these moments of cruddy 80’s VHS tape filter. It made me reminisce not only on the contents of my 80’s cinematic golden days, but also my technical frustrations trying to recount them through my VCR when a vital scene flickers in the gears.

Finally, the strength of this film also lies in the humour here (though there were the occasional eye rollers); I think I had one of those small deaths a time or two while watching it I laughed so hard. The utilization of the ridiculous made this movie is hard to predict as a viewing experience which, when done well, is always one of those rare treats that viewers like myself appreciate.

All in all, whether you end up loving it or hating it, you should give this a ganter because….Damn!

*Kung Fury can be viewed either on Netflix Canada or at:

So awesomely bad! Completely lost it when the Kung Führer made his appearance.

There's a Man in the Woods: A Review.

Short: There’s a Man in the Woods.
Created by: Jacob Streilein.
Released: 2014.
Running Time: 3.35 min.

This rather interesting animated short utilized a narrative about how rumors can quickly spiral out of control and the consequences that happen. It is told through the point of view of a teacher (who remains nameless throughout), whose entire reputation and life is destroyed by the acts of one child fabricating a story about a man in the woods, and his mother who refuses to believe that her precious darling is behind an untrue story.

The animation style was a lovely mixture of bright colours and simple designs with a unique character style that suited the characters to a tee, seeming fun one minute, and somewhat creepy in another. The construction of the animation as a whole does well in conveying the emotion within the piece.

The plot progress is amazing on this, a good use of the short amount of time allotted to it to build the story, using an easy to frenetic pace, with an almost manic pulse in transitions that culminates into a dark but satisfying ending.

Michael Ho does a could job with his vocal infliction, adding just the right emphasis and tempo at just the right times to carry the story forward, eliciting a sense of empathy, tension and satisfaction with that last uttered line that was first made at the beginning of the short with a more harmless bent. Michael Oh has a very promising career in voice over work if he so chooses.

The only nitpick that I would give the short is that while he does an excellent job, the voice of the main character doesn’t completely jive with the age of The Teacher, sounding a little too young for what was depicted. This weakness is ultimately is overwhelmed by the obvious talent that has gone into this animation and the themes being exorcized.

This is an animated short that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys poetry, animation, and important themes couched in good stories.

There’s a Man in the Woods watch at:

Goosebumps: A Review.

Film: Goosebumps.
Directed by: Rob Letterman.
Released: 2015.
Running Time: 103 min.

This is a cinematic rendition of the premise that R.L.Stine (self plugging), the author of the popular “Goosebumps” series from the 90’s played by Jack Black, actually created real monsters that he kept locked up in original manuscripts. The main character, Zach (Dylan Minnette), breaks into Stine’s house to help his daughter Hannah (Odeya Rush), when he and Champ the sidekick (Ryan Lee), open a book and start a chain of events that releases the goosebumps monsters into the real world.

As a fan of the book series and the television show as a kid, I had been looking forward to a little nostalgia plug combined with a great story, visuals and action.

Well, to my disappointment, I only got a portion of my expectations.

So what’s the good about this movie?

The technical end of things was its strong points, a good faithful adaption to the visual styles of the creatures from the book covers, with particular kudos in design to Slappy (Jack Black), The Abominable Snowman, and the Werewolf of Fever Swamp. The action utilized its environment decently enough, and the cinematography was not extraneous, with a score that stayed neatly in the background without any distressing unneeded pop music outside of the high school dance.

Now, for the bad parts, and unfortunately, this movie has a fair share.

The opening 15 minutes was sort of meh. Some of the humour was rather cliché, tired, and somewhat detrimental for the younger generation (something like some of the 90’s humour actually) though the humour improved a little in the last hour or so, but not by much.

The beginning plot was somewhat unoriginal, but Hannah and Zach did have a decent set-up, even if both of the characters weren’t…well, they weren’t a step out of the mold let’s just say. Hanna in particular was somewhat useless (which actually works somewhat against how R.L Stine portrayed some of his female characters in his book series, particularly the leads) though I will give props to the actress who at least tried her all to work with what she was given, and there was some decent action scenes in the last hour.

The adults, with the exception of Stine and, interestingly enough, the Aunt (Jillian Bell), were useless throughout this film, seemingly there only because the movie’s relationship to reality requires adult bodies to exist. The incompetent police cliché was even stupider here and the mother, a vice principal mind you, is even more useless (another 90’s trope from many children’s programs). The necessary parental character might have actually worked better here if they had Zach move in with his aunt, say after both parents were killed off. She had a bit more of a character about her at least, even if it was a ditzy one, she actually did things and didn’t question her nephew’s credibility as opposed to his own mother, and would make Zack a more sympathetic character as well.

The pacing in the first half hour or so was also really slow, and somewhat boring. I understand the need for establishment, which is all well and fine, but by the time they got to the action; they had only an hour to work this amazing roster of monsters, which could have been further utilized in more creative ways about the town.

While there was a decent use of tension in the last hour, there was no chance for proper utilization of the monster characters with the exception of the werewolf and the abominable snowman. Even Slappy, who felt particularly rushed, being the main antagonist, never fully embraced the briefly mentioned relationship between the dummy and Stine, which was actually rather interesting for the brief moment it lasted. Some scenes with just Slappy and Stine would have benefited, perhaps looking back on his relationship with Stine,maybe even a flashback, would have really fleshed him out even more, taking him from a good antagonist into a great antagonist. Even the potential that Slappy himself might have been the original creator and Stine one of his creations was just a throw away joke, and would have been a better twist then what was offered and seen from a mile away.

In the end, everything did have an appeal to nostalgia, but that faithfulness of the material should not have extended to the faults of the 90’s clichés, tired and offensive humour, and 1 dimensional tropes, and some of these characters which got whacked with the convenient moron stick. The design of the monsters was faithful to the classic cover art, the Goosebumps standard 3 tier act (while predictable) was faithful (beginning, middle, twist), but the weaknesses common of the 90’s could have been left out of the final print, particularly if you’re trying to appeal to a new generation of watchers. Basically treat this new demographic with some modicum of intelligence and respect.

As for the adult fans such as myself who were around during the “Goosebump” heyday, watch it pretty much for the visuals, some of the action, the monster guessing game, and nod to R.L Stine’s writing style (for the most part); really nothing else here for you, I recommend sticking to the television show and books.

Goosebumps Trailer:

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island: A Review.

Film: Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.
Directed by: Jim Stenstrum.
Released: 1998.
Running Time: 73 min.

This is a direct to video Scooby feature that was done in honor of the original Scooby-Doo voice actor Don Messick, and one of the first of the revamped series of animated Scooby-Doo animations. It has been well received by fans and critics alike with a decent promotional gimmick of “this time the monsters are real” and smartly premiered it on Cartoon Network on Halloween.

Scooby’s mysteries have long been an iconic part of many childhoods for many of the adults out there, and seeing it made into a contemporary feature that showed a great deal of obvious effort and attention on part of the filmmakers, especially for a direct to video at the time, made this film a particularly fond 90’s recall.

So does it still hold up today?

There is just something about animation before Flash came along, a sort of fluid liveliness and detail that was its own work of art. This was a movie that had some of that great animation style that came out of the 90’s. It blended the iconic features and look of the traditional 1970’s Scooby-Doo cast with a more contemporary liveliness, with particularly good attention to the use of light and shadow and fluidity that gave it a slightly darker, more atmospheric tone.

The music utilized was a mixed bag in terms of good and bad though. With the use of an instrumental musical score closer to what you would find on a decently made horror feature, it added a nice enhancement to that darker theme. Unfortunately the pop songs in contrast took you out of the moments of the action.

From the characterization end of things, they were all somewhat decent, and their matured age was somewhat interesting to see when you were a kid having only been exposed to the mystery solving teenager versions from the original material. There is more adult concerns on part of Daphne, who seems to be the most matured of the lot, though the rest of the cast weren’t all that different in personalities from their original source materials.

From the story end of things, this was a decently paced plot, a good use of exposition without being annoying, with a few twists for the kiddies and adults both to enjoy, a surprisingly mature moment of empathy with the antagonists near the end, and some decent humour that despite being somewhat of a zany source material with some zany characters, was able to retain that excellent balance of mystery and humour that's made it so popular as a franchise.

The only drawback story-wise was that Velma’s obvious suspicious looks gave away some of the mystery before its time, and the utilization of an extra supernatural creature seemed a bit out of nowhere.

All in all, while it did have some weak moments here and there, those moments don’t overwhelm the good parts with its solid atmosphere, tension, plot progression, and excellent animation. This was arguably one of the best Scooby-doo features that came out after the original show, still holding up even to today’s standards, and well worth a watch for the family for Halloween.

*Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island trailer:

Interesting even though I'm not a big fan of animation or Horror

Don't let me put you off keep them coming

__________________
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

The Good Dinosaur: A Review.

Film: The Good Dinosaur.
Directed by: Peter Sohn.
Released: 2015.
Running Time: 100 min.

This is a Pixar-Disney animated “boy and his dog” coming of age, feel good animated film but with dinosaurs and cave boys. Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), the youngest of a farming Apatosaurus family, loses his father to Disney’s Death-of-parent(s) syndrome while chasing a pesky caveboy varmint. Another encounter between the two causes Arlo to become lost with the cave boy far away from home, and the two have to work together to get Arlo home.

From the technical end of things, we have an interesting juxtaposition of a very cartoonily designed protagonist with some rather realistic blend of scenery and texture and moments of very real moments of physical pain. When Arlo gets hit in the head with a rock, you can almost feel it. The sense of physical presence is always appreciated in a film, if a bit surreal.

The music was refreshingly subdued for a movie from something associated with Disney. If there was any character song numbers in this it likely would have hindered this film, especially given the choice in visuals and a strong technical choice.

Moving on to the character end of things, we have Arlo the main protagonist, who is a bit of a adorkable scardy-dino, yet tries so hard to “make his mark” in his small corner of the world (subtle guys, really *rolls eyes*). His personal journey was interesting to watch, a well done progression of struggle and personal growth worked well through-out his journey back, and Arlo himself is somewhat likable, with Ocha doing a good job with Arlo’s voice, which well wit the main character’s personality, a professional job for his breakout into a big main character role such as this.

Spot the faithful caveboy (Jack Bright) definitely wins the best expressions in this film. We aren’t given much to go on in terms of what his story is, but then again, this is more focused on Arlo, and Spot is the “dog” in this relationship, and not much is expected in terms of character depth for the “dog.” His efforts in keeping Arlo alive was fun to watch, and his design blended better in the rocky outback environment then the dinosaurs’ that inhabited it.

The side characters were fun here and there with the rancher tyrannosaurs family (Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin, and A.J Buckley) especially engaging, and the choice to make the antagonists the storm chaser gang of pterodactyls lead by Thunderclap, who was hilarious by the way, more side characters then main protagonist foils was a good choice in this instance. It was very much about Arlo conquering an aspect of himself and that’s where the main conflict should reside, with the storm cult being merely there as incentive for Arlo to overcome himself.

Finally, we move onto the story.

This is perhaps where the movie was somewhat weaker. It wasn’t a bad story, they utilized the overused boy and his dog journey formula well, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a cliché. The premise was promising; the devastating meteorite that many postulate was the reason behind the extinction of the Dinosaurs misses the planet in this reality. Unfortunately the follow through was…well, not bad, but more safe then anything. There was no envelope pushing here, something odd for a Pixar, which at least tries in most of its films whether the execution was good or bad. Here there was nothing overly memorable about the story. It felt like they didn’t really know how to handle the possibilities of the premise, as if they had decided on the relatively safe formula first and the premise second.

The only other nitpick would be that the fact that the caveboy was displaying obvious moments of intelligence and communication with Arlo that should have been reacted to with a great deal more shock or at least some level of surprise, given the fact that the dinosaurs look at these beings as critters worth for killing, eating, or making pets of, in general how humans treat beings with non-sentience. This isn’t the first time that films have done it though, so let’s just throw our hands up in the air on this one and shrug.

Overall, the movie is a decent watch. There is some good animation, some funny and touching moments that really give you the feels, and some decent characters. It is a generally safe film that most ages can watch, if not entirely ground breaking or uniquely memorable, but nevertheless entertaining for an afternoon at the movies.

*The Good Dinosaur Trailer:

Screen Squinty’s Top 10 Most Anticipated 2016 Films.

Hello all, and Happy New Years to those who celebrate it this time of year. with the start of 2016, I thought I would kick off the list with some of my own most personal anticipated films for the year.

There are likely some things that didn’t make it onto this list that many of you will flay me for, which doesn’t mean they are not worth watching, just that these films are the ones that make me most excited to see.

So without further ado, here is my top 10 most anticipated films of 2016 (in chronological order by month).

1. Kung Fu Panda 3 (January, 2016).

Having been a fan of the amazing animation, story, comedy, action, characters, and voice talents of the previous two installments, fans of the Kung Fu Panda trilogy like me are looking forward to the conclusion to the trilogy and hopefully more of the amazing talents that went into the previous installments.

Trailer:

2. Hail, Ceaser! (February, 2016).

This is a film that was written, produced, edited, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen with a lot of big names attached to the film such as Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Jonah Hill, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, and Channing Tatum. The Trailers for this comedy look very promising in story premise and visuals, and the fact that it is also a bit of a period piece in the golden age of Classic Hollywood, makes it all the more appealing.

Trailer:

3. Deadpool (February 2016).

A big fan of the Merc with a mouth, this is the comic book hero (or antihero) film that I am most looking forward to. While the February release date is a bit worrisome, at the same time it can be considered somewhat smart, as it won’t be in competition with some of the big heavy hitters of spring and summer, and the screenplay is written by screenplay by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick who had a hand in writing the hit film Zombieland (2009), and finally the promotions, which have been an excellent, and hint that this rendition of Deadpool will hopefully be more faithful to the source material.

Trailer:

4. Zootopia (March 2016).

The premise for this animated film from Disney is promising with an entire world where different anthropomorphic animals of all kinds live together. Best of all, from what the trailers show, there is a bit a mystery in the story line, and the team up of the rabbit cop and the fox character looks promising, and the voice talents so far are top notch.

Trailer:

5. X-Men Apocalypse (May, 2016).

What really needs to be said, this is Apocalypse, one of Marvel’s most ancient and powerful supervillains. It will be interesting to see how his depiction will be received by fans, especially as this version seems a bit more emotive then some of the other variations, particularly the 1990’s animated television series version, which is one of the best depictions of the supervillain ever done. It’s also sure to be an epic looking battle, being the granddaddy of all mutants.

Trailer:

6. Star Trek Beyond (July 2016).

This time it looks like we might be getting something a bit different in story then the rehash of old material that was the common criticism of the previous two. There is some concern that the director, Justin Lin, doesn’t appear to have directed a science fiction film before, though he is the director from the sitcom Community, and directed Fast and the Furious 3-6, so it will be interesting to see how this film will turn out as opposed to J.J Abbrams.

Trailer:

7. The BFG (July 2016).

This Disney film is based on the book of the same name by Roald Dahl. The book and the 1989 film, had a mildly darker tone as it tells the story of giants, children, and royalty, so it will be interesting to see if Disney will keep that aspect, which is part and parcel of most material from Dahl. It is directed by Spielberg, which adds another layer of anticipation as an auteur, and finally the promotional teaser was a good introduction to the film.

Teaser Trailer:

8. Suicide Squad (August, 2016).

Seeing Harley Quinn, a favorite of mine from DC on the big screen, is something I am looking forward to. A villain/anti-villain story is always appreciated, whether it will be good or not, is yet up for debate of course, but being already familiar with the Suicide Squad premise from other sources, it proves intriguing to see it’s concept as a live action Blockbuster, now that Hollywood has hit its stride in superhero films.

Trailer:

9. A Monster Calls (October, 2016).

This is a film based on an award winning book for youth, a fantasy drama about a boy whose mother is dying of cancer (echoing the original creator of the premise of the story who was going through chemo at the time and died before she could write her story) about a boy who has a relationship with a monster that appears at his window one night and shares stories that reflect the human condition while at the same time, causing both hardship and healing for the boy throughout the encounter. The film has heavy weights like Liam Neeson as the voice of the monster, and Sigourney Weaver as the cold grandmother.

Trailer:

10.Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (November, 2016).

This is a film based on the writer of one of Harry Potter’s School books, which was also released by the author J.K Rowling, set in the 1920’s. What makes this film exciting I that it is set in the cannon of the popular franchise as a form of a prequel that is not based on a written plot so much as a novelty from the franchise itself, and it looks at the Wizarding World from the perspective of adult wizards instead of school age characters which is an intriguing concept and opens wiggle room for further films as the world of Harry Potter is expanded outside of that central character.

Trailer: