Marcell Jankovics’ Animated ‘Son of the White Mare’ Goes Behind the Beyond
Beautifully restored Hungarian animation film, Son of the White Mare, is enchanting.
animation
Sundance 2021: Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Animated ‘Flee’ Leaves You Speechless
Jonas Poher Rasmussen's animated Flee fearlessly discusses the value of life, the arbitrary inhumanity of immigration law, and the resilience of family, borders, and identity.
‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Nudges Out Conscience in Our Time of Crises
Avatar shows us that to fight for only the people we know, for simply the things that affect us personally, is neither brave nor heroic, nor particularly useful.
Teaching Miyazaki’s Films in the Time of Pandemic
Miyazaki's powerful worldview speaks to our times in striking ways: the hidden terror of the natural world; the need for truth and compassion; the humanism in the face of adversity.
The “Luxurious Loneliness” of Anime Film ‘Perfect Blue’
In Satoshi Kon's 1997 masterpiece, Perfect Blue, former J-Pop idol Mima Kirigoe's crisis of identity echoes our current 'epidemic' of loneliness -- upsetting the boundary between private and public agency, the desire to hide and the compulsion to be seen.
What ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ Taught Me About Unlearning Toxic Masculinity
When I first came out as trans, I desperately wanted acceptance and validation into the "male gender", and espoused negative beliefs toward my femininity. Avatar: The Last Airbender helped me transcend that.
Animated ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ Is a Pop-Art Masterpiece
Animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse uses unique, groundbreaking animation techniques and engages with the most 'out-there' comic book concepts to tell a hilarious, relatable, timely coming-of-age story
Stepping into the Phantasmagoric Otherwise with Karel Zeman
While all films project a world that might be, certain films and certain filmmakers, like Karel Zeman, come closer than others in bringing to the surface the underlying phantasmagoric essence of cinema.
Where’s the Strong Woman in Netflix’s Adaptation of ‘Good Hunting’?
Contrary to the intention of Ken Liu's short story, "Good Hunting", Netflix presents a superficial arc of female empowerment, then allows animation and the role of male characters to undercut that message.
A Fix of Fantasy: Reviving the Wondrous Films of Karel Zeman
The imaginative filmmaker Karel Zeman influenced many artists including Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, fellow Czech Jan Švankmajer, the Brothers Quay, and animator Lawrence Jordan's recycling of classic 19th Century imagery.
Nazism Repackaged? A Closer Look at the “Fascist Subtext” of ‘Attack on Titan’
Many fantasy writers have incorporated the visual footprint of the Third Reich into their fictional worlds. Few, however, have done so as extensively as the creator of Attack on Titan, who revisited this terrible chapter of history not to find inspiration for a fearsome antagonist, but to excavate the divisive ideas that lay buried there.