Tag: Foreign

The Unbeatables, aka Underdogs, aka Metegol. You might know this movie by one of its names.

It was of course first called Metegol in Argentina, where the film was made and released back in July of 2013! It had the distinction of being the most expensive Argentinian film ever at $21 million, and most expensive animated film in all of Latin America. Given the American budgets on these things, that is a pretty crazy fact.

Needless to say, it did well enough to release internationally. The Unbeatables came out in the UK in August of 2014, same plot and everything, just nice English voices to make the populace happy.

And that is why I am watching this version of the movie. Despite being available for a long time, it isn’t hitting USA theaters until mid August 2015, a whole year after the British counterpart. It was pushed back several times over a year. Well, screw that. If I can legally watch and buy a movie already out, many months before it comes out here with just more American voices instead of British voices, there is really no reason to wait.

No matter the nationality, we can all agree on their fabulous hair.

In a small village in, I dunno, let’s say Mexico, there is a boy who really loves foosball. Young Amadeo (Rupert Grint) works at a small cafe/bar where he cleans and plays foosball all day long. In fact, he got pretty dang good at it. He can score in so many ways, can flip the ball through the air, and you know, other shenanigans. Others do not share his passion, so he gave all of his players a name and personality and often puts them in their own soccer based stories.

Then he met Laura (Eve Posonby), who likes things, and likes foosball, and even maybe likes Amadeo. Then he met Flash (Anthony Head), a pompous boy who never loses and is a soccer star. Well, he sees Laura and also wants to impress her, so he challenges the loser Amadeo. And sure enough, Amadeo wins. This is Flash’s first real loss in anything, so he runs from the town.

Now years later, the town is close to dying, but Amadeo is still there playing foosball and Laura is about to leave. WAIT JUST A SECOND. Flash is back, now a world famous soccer star. The BEST star. Rich beyond imagination. Rich enough to buy his birth town and build the biggest stadium ever there.

Well, the villagers don’t want their town to get demolished. And so eventually Amadeo challenges Flash to a game. If Amadeo wins, he will leave the town forever. Great! Just they aren’t good at real soccer which is what Amadeo has demanded to enact his revenge.

If only…if only there was some nice tear magic out there, that would bring his foosball players back to life, and help him solve his many problems and save the day. If only.

Featuring the voice work of Rob Brydon, Ralf Little, Alistair McGowan, Peter Serafinowicz, and Alex Norton.

Basically, everyone is Pinocchio, but no where close to being real men.

“You can trust me I used to work with FIFA.” That’s an actual quote from this movie and it really made me laugh. I know there has been talk about FIFA being corrupt for years, with the Qatar mess, but it still feels even better to hear that joke after all of the indictments.

The trailers for the US version, Underdogs, are shit. I have seen two of them and they made me immediately hate the film. The animation was odd, the plot was pretty dumb, and, well, yeah. It was very stupid sounding, no way around those words. Surprisingly and thankfully, there was a lot more to the movie than the trailers showcased. That is usually the case, but there are also trailers who show everything and it really felt like one of those moments.

The animation at first bugged me as well, but while watching it, they had clear distinction between the foosball players and people, making them both feel unique in their world. The players had a completely different clunky style that made their existence a bit jarring, but something that made a lot of sense in the film.

Again, a lot more happens in this film than just the “play soccer for the town”, and I am a bit worried some of the other side plots or jokes will get cut from the American version of the story. I might edit this review in the future after watching the new version to see if it deserves the same grade, so as for now, The Unbeatables and not Underdogs is surprisingly worth a watch.

The release of Seventh Son was overshadowed because it came out the same day as Jupiter Ascending, which is interesting. The later is a sci-fi/fantasy epic that was faced with delays and the release was moved back. The former? A fantasy epic that was faced with even more delays and production issues.

Production on this movie began in early 2012. The visual effects of the film was being done with Rhythm and Hues Studio, famous for getting best Visual Effects in the Oscars for Life Of Pi, while also filing for bankruptcy. Not a good time for that studio, tons of layoffs despite their impressive work.

So in 2013, Seventh Son was still in production and the company got a loan to help finish the movie. It was pushed back to October 2013 release. Then it was pushed back to January 2014 thanks to Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. breaking apart.

However, once Universal got the distribution rights end of 2013, they said nah, let’s wait til February 6, 2015. They didn’t give any fucks about the movie and figured they’d have no competition. Which again, is amusing that Jupiter Ascending came in and fucked up any chance of them actually making money.

Well, costume wise it looks like a nerds wet dream!

Seventh Son is a story about a witch and a witch hunter. Clearly star crossed lovers. The witch, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), is being all evil, and Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the Spook, wants to stop her. During a routine snatch and grab, they almost succeed too! But no, she escapes, and she kills his apprentice (Kit Harington).

So instead we get Tom Ward (Ben Barnes), who is the seventh son of a seventh son. That means something. It means a lot of fucking and babies. When the Spook showed up, he knew already he was leaving thanks to dreams, so he kissed his mom, Mam (Olivia Williams) good bye and went on his merry way.

Things get a bit more hairy when Tom also sees a girl about to be mobbed for being a witch. He had visions of her and him, so he saves her too. Her name is Alice (Alicia Vikander). That is nice.

What is not nice when she goes back home to her witch mom (Antje Traue) who is involved with Mother Malkin. Ah interesting.

Then some witch magic stuff happens and people get hurt, lies get said, and of course, even more magic stuff. Also with a John DeSantis and a Djimon Hounsou!

On the other hand, this image looks so uncool, Outkast wouldn’t even touch it.

First of all, I apologize for that last caption joke, it is terrible.

Second of all, I feel really really bad for Rhythm and Hues studio. They did amazing work with Life Of Pi, then they got shit on, then they had to make this piece of crap. I want to assume that the reason this movie is not visually pleasing to look at is because the studio had to lay off all of their workers and work on a very small budget. I hope so. Because the CGI and effects were anything but quality.

You know what it reminded me of? Dungeons and Dragons, the movie. That is a really mean comparison, technically. That movie was terribad. But they are both pricey fantasy films that wanted to reach for something greater, but instead fell down into Mediocre Valley, looking ugly to boot.

But good looks aren’t the only important thing to a film. Acting and plot! So dang important! This one has two people who have won Best Actor and Best Actress at the Oscars! Hot damn! They can’t save this story though. They don’t even attempt to save it.

Jeff Bridges is basically transforming into Nick Nolte. The last few movies with Bridges have been hard to understand. This movie was the worst, with the movie almost demanding you watch it in subtitles to understand a damn thing he says. Moore plays a caricature and a non-interesting villain, and so she too is completely forgettable.

The plot itself would be easier to follow if there was anything remotely exciting about this movie. A yawn fest, beginning to end. It is a shame Sci-Fi is getting such a revitalization in the film industry and fantasy films seem left to die in its wake. We had a good thing going on with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the disappointing Hobbit films and absolutely nothing else going on seems to mean it has to wait for the eventual Harry Potter reboot to be good again.

Welcome to a very special review here at Gorgon Reviews! So I apologize for how weird this one goes, just consider it non-canon.

This review is not the normal review for the day. Because it is Sunday, reviews don’t normally come out today. So of course it is a bonus review!

This is a special review because this one I am posting at some point after the time my wife has delivered out baby. Let me be vague here, because I might do it right away, the next day, hours after the fact, when we get home, who knows!

That’s why I am going to talk about Babies!

I first saw that this documentary existed when I worked in the ancient store of Blockbuster. It was one of our new releases and I used to watch every new release despite its perceived quality (that’s when I had 14~ reviews in a week). The only genres I avoided were extreme horror and documentaries, because I didn’t review either at the time. But now I do both and now I can talk about Babies.

This documentary goes into the lives of four freshly born babies from around the world. If only there was a nice graphic to showcase the babies themselves…

Shit that white baby is sad.

These four babies are in very uniquely different parts of the world at various levels of “comfort”. Ponijao is born in Africa with his mom, slightly older sibling and like, a neighbor or two. No medical comforts, just a hut and the hot hot sun. On the other side, Hattie is born in San Francisco, came from a rich enough couple in a hospital. Mari is also a traditional born baby, for the most part, hospital and all, while Bayar is a step above Ponijao in terms of civilization, but not with all the modern comforts.

These babies are going to grow up and have drastically different lives. We only get snippets from the first year of their life (I think), but we can see them learning to roll over, learning to crawl, and learning to talk a little bit. We will hear them laugh while playing and cry for no reason at all. And this whole documentary provides no story, no narration, no structure. Just babies with their families. Hell, it doesn’t even provide subtitles.

In theory, this is an amazing idea. What better way to showcase how we are all human and equal than by comparing how we raise our babies, creatures not yet molded by society, knowing no hate. It is a good idea and potentially very thought provoking.

My main issue is the only thoughts that were provoked for me were how boring it all felt. The idea for Babies sounds good on paper, but while watching, I frequently checked over and over again at how much longer I had until it was all over. I don’t want to say I have a small attention span, but I can only watch babies (that aren’t my own) falling down and existing for so long before I want to walk away and play video games.

Without even transitional frames to group this into at least stages of development, or statistics about babies, I am left to derive my own point for the documentary to exist. However, at only 80 minutes, you are going to get roughly 20 minutes per baby and still not know about the different cultures. Some babies play with rocks, some babies play with fancy equipment. The end. I am sure I will figure all that out in the next year anyways.

Kill me once, kill me twice, kill me deadly, as Lita Ford kind of almost once said.

Ms Ford couldn’t count to three, much like Valve, but it is for good reason. Kill Me Three Times? That is definitely excessive. Two is usually excessive as well, unless you believe in resurrection, but most cultures don’t have double resurrection as far as I can tell.

Now, this could be some strange Beetlejuice situation, where the only way to die is killing the entity three times. Maybe the person in question is a third cat and two thirds human (how to genetics work?), so they only were given 3 lives instead of 9.

Actually, yes, that is my official answer going into this movie. A movie that must be about a man who is one-third cat. And no, I hope it isn’t anything like Catwoman.

Although wearing all black and having a sexually awakened pose does give me pause.

In the Australian action thriller comedy (?) we’ve all been waiting for, we get to see Simon Pegg play a hit man! Sure, Charlie Wolfe is a bit eccentric, with a mustache and all. And maybe he doesn’t take out his targets in one well placed sniper kill. But you know, he eventually gets the job done! And right after getting the job done, he gets a call to do another job! Ha ha! Life is good, plenty of work, people to kill.

It is simple, Jack Taylor (Callan Mulvey) wants his wife, Alice (Alice Braga), killed and he wants Charlie to do it. A nice lump of sum for the job too. He wants her dead for the reason anyone would, getting cheated on. She cheated on him with a MECHANIC, Dylan (Luke Hemsworth), which makes sense, given that he is the third (and oldest) Hemsworth.

However, the issue is that Charlie wasn’t the only one who was hired to kill Alice! Enter mild mannered dentist, Natahn Webb (Sullivan Stapleton). He has a bit of a gambling addiction and owes some powerful people a lot of money. His wife and receptionist Lucy (Teresa Palmer) is going to help him out, and they are going to be awkward about it.

Also featuring Steve Le Marquand and Bryan Brown. And other shenanigans and twists occur of course, but if I told you them, you’d have no reason to watch the movie.

Like, omg, how did that knife get in his hand?!

Kill Me Three Times was actually a bit harder of a film to describe for two reasons. One, the story isn’t told in standard chronological order. It jumps around a bit. Why? Just to see things in different points of view, and get some flash backs. That is why. It could be fine, but in this case it didn’t enhance the movie at all.

Two, the movie was boring as fuck. I am so disappointed by how uninterested the film went as it dragged along. This element of course made the scenes where we were able to see events again from a different point of view even more dull. I was bored the first time they showed it to me, now I get to be bored from a new angle!

I don’t remember laughing at all. I thought some scenes may have been amusing, but no outright guffaws bellowed from my diaphragm. Was it a bit dark? Sure. And there was technically a little bit of action to make it interesting.

Pegg wasn’t terrible, but his character also felt underutilized. There was a bit too much advertising his character for how much of the movie was about all the other characters as well, if you know what I mean.

Overall, I would describe Kill Me Three Times as a bad cluster fuck. A movie that wanted to be a Tarantino film and dropped the mark a few yards before a first down.

Day 2 of Blackweek!

Day 1 featured Blackhat, so we are going to remove our clothing and take a dive in the Black Sea instead.

I’d make a corny joke about what this movie is about and act surprised when it is something different. But how could I do that? It is called Black Sea! That is a real place, right there above Turkey. Huge as shit, important to history. Can’t miss it.

If this movie doesn’t feature the actual Black Sea, I will quit my job as a movie reviewer!

And drive a submarine into the job territory known as “Film Critic Land”.

Under water salvaging can be a tricky job, but someone has to clean that ocean litter. I have been told prisoners are not up to the job, so instead, real people do it and get paid! Like Robinson (Jude Law). Or at least, he used to get paid. Now he is laid off, his company doesn’t want him anymore, his job “redundant.”

But the good news is, now that he is jobless, he has free time to do crazy things. Like get a crew together and search for a rumored Nazi gold! Apparently a U-Boat sunk off the coast of Georgia (IN THE BLACK SEA) with millions and millions of dollars worth of gold bars in it. Some shit involving Germany and Russia. No one has been able to find it, but no one has had Robinson’s skills.

So he gets a backer, a mysterious Lewis (Tobias Menzies) agrees to fund the expedition for 40% of the profits. He gets a crew, half British (like him!) and half Russian (for reasons). They get a really shitty beat up sub and head on down!

But first, they have extra crew. Like Tobin (Bobby Schofield), a neighborhood kid who Robinson brought along for other reasons. And Daniels (Scoot McNairy), a representative of Mr. Lewis.

Our crew only has one translator though between the sets. And a whole lot of money on the line. People migh get all antsy and want to make their cuts a bit bigger. And hey, maybe there are even more twists and turns in line. MAYBE.

Also featuring Grigoriy Cobrygin, Ben Mendelsohn, and Konstantin Khabenskiy.

The movies initials may be BS but this Nazi gold sure is for real!

For the most part, I wouldn’t say I am ever really a fan of submarine movies. I mean, did you see Phantom? That totally was a real movie a couple years ago. Like a submarine itself, submarine movies are kind of limited in terms of what one can do with them. Only so many things can happen on a sub, so a lot of submarine stories end up using the same sort of events. There can only really be one Das Boot.

Despite this, Black Sea had a lot going for it. Enough unique members with a few different desires to make it not a complete one man Jude Law show. It wasn’t just a weird murder mystery thriller. That is what I was most afraid of. And speaking of Jude Law, he did a pretty swell job.

My main issue with it all is the ending. It was lame and cheesy and expected. I was getting pretty excited with how things were going, I was getting super into the story. Then the ending. Meh. I should also note the beginning of the movie is pretty dang slow. It takes awhile to get on the damn submarine, but once they do it, it goes up pretty quickly.

Are you excited? They made a sequel to The Woman in Black!!

Why do I hear crickets? Must be my refusal to try to buy more bug spray. I personally have no idea what anyone else thought about The Woman In Black, and I am far too lazy right now to look something like that up, but I thought it was a dull. Harry Potter did nothing for me. Just was an period piece British film, with a shitty ending, and a shitty everything else also. I would have never guessed a sequel could have happened.

Because now we have The Woman In Black 2: Angel of Death. I have to assume Great Britain went bananas over the first film. I am pretty sure it was a remake or a book or something first, and they probably like anything set in their country.

From what I can tell this thing isn’t even really related to the first movie. Different actors/characters. Maybe a different ghost, but that would be Troll 2 levels of dumb. Honestly, if it has anything to do with the first film, I wouldn’t even remember.

Oh it’s a creepy looking doll that a kid likes. That’s normal in horror now, I guess.

This sequel takes place in World War II, which is either before or after the first film. Again, I remember jack shit about it. We have a very universal concept here. Britain is getting bombed occasionally, so a lot of kids have lost family. Orphans and double orphans. Eve Parkins (Phoebe Fox) is a teacher of orphans, and their school is going to go leave the bustling city of London to live in the countryside instead. You know, where the Nazis should not be bombing. Her headmistress (Helen McCrory), Eve, and a bunch of kids head out to live in an abandoned building, to be safe.

But of course they won’t be safe. This is a horror movie sequel. And it is the country so we have inherently creepy looking people like Hermit Jacob (Ned Dennehy) running around. Thankfully there is a hunky man, a pilot, Harry (Jeremy Irvine), and another guy, the air raid warden (Adrian Rawlins). Gosh, could they be anymore safe?

Anyways. Haunted mansion type movie. Little kids going missing. Mute kid (Oaklee Pendergast) is of course involved, cause that bitch can’t talk.

But oh nelly can he scream. Suuu-eeeee! Suuuu-eeee!

Yawn yawn yawn. No surprise. A sequel to a movie I disliked I didn’t find great. But man, it was just so dang boring. And British. Not that British things can’t be scary. But this doesn’t at all feel like a concept worth even creating. They didn’t add anything new to the horror genre.

It just seems like a ham fisted concept, that vaguely is related to another film, to make money. It is literally Troll 2ing us. Right in front of our eyes. Oh, the ghost is a woman in black, who hates kids? Fits. Done.

Fuckkkk. It is just. It is full of boring characters, boring plot, boring scares, and nothing new. Throwing in a bad ass subtitle doesn’t make a bad ass film. It makes it generic.

Generic horror is maybe worse than generic comedy. Maybe. It’s just the level of mediocrity that we should all avoid in order to make it through the night, actually entertained. Boooo boring. Yay entertainment.

Ah-ha! The elusive Song of the Sea! I have found it at last.

I tried to get all five of the animated picture movies ahead of the Aademy Awards, but I only reached four. Damn foreign flicks. And the only reason I got to see it finally was because of its DVD release. I can’t feel the least bit special about this, outside of completing them all.c

I don’t think I have ever seen a movie from Ireland/Wales. So this is a big first one for me! Outside of the ones with the fancy footwork. This means I am a bit excited to see what I assume will be fancy footwork in animated form.

Unless the Leprechaun movies count. Then I have seen too many from Ireland/Wales. They should stop having movies at this point.

“You guys have Rapunzel? Fuck your Rapunzel. We got /this/ guy!”

This film, like any good animated film, starts with the death of a parent. Parents! Who needs ’em!

Ben (David Rawle) lives in a lighthouse, with his dog, Co, his father (Brendan Gleeson), and his mother (Lisa Hannigan). The mom is pregnant, and they want to finish the painting of the selkie, a Celtic myth.

PLOT TWIST. Pregnancy is a bit bad. Comes early. Mom dies. Saoirse (Lucy O’Connell) is born. And it is not pronounced the way it looks. Six years later, Saoirse still can’t talk. She just doesn’t like it. And after a few close calls with the ocean, their granny (Fionnula Flanagan) takes them back to the city to live away from the sea and their life and their dog.

Well, Ben says fuck that. He is going to run away and escape back to his dog and his life. Screw the city. And I guess his sister can come too, as long as she listens to him. Oh yeah, she also found a magical cloak that can turn her into a seal. Totes cool. And a magical conch shell. And like, fairies and owls and other crazy shit.

…

I am trying to say Saoirse is a selke.

Also featuring Colm O’Snodaigh, Liam Hourican, and Kevin Swierszcz, which is the hardest last name I’ve ever had to type. I am in no way confident it is spelled right.
in

Lord of the Dance prepared me zero for this shapechanging shenanigans.

Well, first of all, I am happy to announce that the pictures above do not do this film justice. This film is pretty. Prettier than a cat in a shark costume. Was it prettier than Big Hero 6, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, How To Train Your Dragon 2, or The Boxtrolls? Well, maybe one of them. I won’t say too. Because basically everything was pretty in their own unique way. And it has its charm and simplicity that goes along with it.

Also, the main characters were cute as well. Going on their adventure, solving problems. Sure, the girl is a selke, so she has a huge important role. But Ben does his fair share of problem solving along with Saoirse. They are pretty equal. And of course the Dog.

There is only like one song, but it is decently catchy. Wish there was more.

But if I had any problem with it, it seemed to move too slowly at times. If you could imagine a person telling a story, and that person keeps getting distracted and rambling every once in awhile? That is what it felt like watching this movie. Just every once in awhile. Kind of just hoped it would hurry up and move on. Not losing complete interest, just a little bit.

I can see why this one was nominated, but also, I definitely don’t think it was the best overall.

I don’t think you want to know what I do in the shadows. Usually it involves lurking, dodging sunlight, or cooling off.

Now that I think about that, two of those three descriptions are very vampire-like. Hey, what a perfect title. What We Do In The Shadows is, after all, about a few dudes sharing a flat in New Zealand.

And they are vampires.

And this is a true story. You know, because this story was definitely made, truly.

And they started the hippest band in New Zealand too!

Vampires! They sometimes need roommates. We have Viago (Taika Waititi) who set up this documentary, I guess. They all had to sign waivers to not eat the camera crew, but it should work out. He is only 317 years, so a bit of a late middle ages vampire. They have Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), 183 years old, a baby, and the most brash of these vampires and more of a pseudo ladies man. Let’s not forget Vladislav (Jemaine Clement), aged 862. He used to be a much bigger deal, but his age is getting to him and he is losing a lot more of his powers. He doesn’t impale people people as much.

And don’t forget about Petyr (Ben Fransham). He is about 8,000 years old. He has basically lost it, looks super un-human, very savage. He freaks everyone out but he has basically earned it.

And this is their life! They still drink human blood, they have some human groupies who help them do certain tasks, but they are incredibly behind times in terms of technology.

We learn of past loves, why they prefer virgins, their interactions with other supernaturals (zombies, werewolves, witches).

Also featuring Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stuart Rutherford, and Rhys Darby, because of course Rhys Darby.

“Oh. My. GODDDD! I LOOVVVEEEEE Rhys Darby!”

New Zealand and Flight of the Conchords. Although it looks like Bret McKenzie had nothing to do with this movie, it is easier to describe as vampires meet FotC. Because that type of awkward uncomfortable humor is very prevalent throughout the whole movie. This movie had a ridiculously low budget, I am sure most of the guys being friends working for next to nothing and splitting the profits. It is a great business model for them too, as with kickstarter and word of mouth, it has spread slowly throughout America for people to see.

Blah blah blah. You don’t care. Is it funny? Heck yes it is funny. I personally would have liked a lot more of Petyr, thought he was underused, but I guess you can’t tell an 8,000 year old vampire what to do.

I am also glad that with the different types of Vampires that Twilight didn’t make the cut. At first I thought I wanted it, but realized how quickly it would have just fallen into a a one trick pony to be referenced occasionally, and not had any real characterization or goals behind it.

Also, this movie has a lot of great quotes associated with it. I don’t remember a lot of them, but I do remember laughing.

Either way, if this movie comes to your area, give it a chance. You will probably have an enjoyable uncomfortable night.

By all accounts, I don’t think I will be able to see any other movies up for Best Foreign Film before the Academy Awards. Sad face.

I only had Ida before thanks to Netflix. Now I have Leviathan. And it won a Golden Globe, so it has something going for it.

That and a sweet sweet name. The country it comes from is okay.

Wanna know how I know this movie is Russian?

Leviathan is a story about land dispute. Because if anything, Russia doesn’t have enough land, causing the citizens to fight over it.

Kolya (Aleksey Serebryakov) is a down on his luck guy. He is good as a mechanic, his “Friends” in the community use him for favors, but it is too small of a town to really make a living there. But he has been there for a long time, has a sweet house with a lot of land on the coast.

His wife (Elena Lyadova) seems pretty distant, and his only child, a son from another woman (Sergey Pokhodaev) is kind of a dick and an average student.

But the mayor (Roman Madyanov) of the town is trying to take his land. Quite successfully! Using some legal loopholes, he is getting it for quick. Kolya is trying to fight it through the law, and through appeals, but he is losing over and over again. It seems like everyone is out to get Kolya and they all just want to use him.

And well, that is kind of true. Basically.

Also with Vladimir Vdovichenkov as a hot shot lawyer from Moscow coming to save his buddy.

Wanna know why I know this movie is called Leviathan?
(I actually have no idea.)

Leviathan is one of those movies that has a boring ass plot description, but one that ends up being far more interesting than it has any right to be.

Again, it is about a dude fighting a legal battle to just keep his home. But only kind of about that. It is about that and people treating him like shit and shit keep hitting him in the face. Literally!

No, not literally.

But still. A lot of fucked up things happen by the end, but even better is that it all makes sense by the end too. The plot points all wrap up! We aren’t left wondering anything! Yay complete films!

I mean. It has its boring. But it definitely tells a pretty good story while doing so. Glad it just wasn’t another super boring foreign film.

I was just as shocked as everybody else that The Book of Life and The Lego Movie didn’t get nominated for Best Animated Film. But also, I did give the former a 2 and the latter a 3, only. The two I gave 4’s made it and the other was a 3. So clearly, I was really on my game with the Academy.

But how was I to suspect that some foreign animated films would make it?! Crazy talk!

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a Studio Ghibli movie, which tends to mean quality. I didn’t even know they did movies without Miyazaki, but there ya go!

I would describe this animation style as “moving painting.”

The story begins with an old bamboo cutter (James Caan), being in the forest, cutting bamboo. He sees a glowing plant, and from it drops a tiny little princess girl that can fit in his hands. Shit that’s weird. He obviously brings it back home to his wife (Mary Steenburgen), and bam. That tiny thing turns into a regular sized baby. And hey, his wife suddenly has milk inducing boobies!

That stuff is crazy. The baby grows quickly too, so the local village kids nickname her Little Bamboo. Soon, the princess (Chloe Grace Moretz) is running around with all the kids, singing songs, playing games, going on adventures. Her best friend is Sutemaru (Darren Criss).

But her dad takes her away from the forest to the city. They get a big house with clothes and someone to teach her how to be a real princess (Lucy Liu). That means being a super obedient girl, basically. Seen but not heard. Never showing emotion. Never doing fun things. Terrible.

Kaguya doesn’t want that, no matter how pretty she is. She will avoid suitors at all cost and fight the good fight. You go Glen Kaguya.

Excitingly, the art matches the emotion really fucking well.

The story is actually based on a famous Japanese folk tale, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Clearly western influence made them focus more on the princess than the boring old wood cutter. It is very close to the main narrative, but in all honesty, this version is probably way better. I see there are tons of movies based on this tale already, mostly live action. But again, this is one is probably way better.

Because this one was fucking awesome!

Like, incredibly. I talked about how crazy The Wind Rises, using “Traditional 2D Animation” but feeling like a 3D CGI wonderland. This one instead felt like a living painting, like I was watching an artist make each individual scene in front of me. Just super quick. I guess actors were hanging around too to talk as the characters. The metaphor isn’t perfect, but the animation is.