Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) was the thirty-fifth feature to star the giant kaiju (the Japanese word generally used to refer to giant movie monsters). Although it was the latest in a series of films spanning 65 years, it was only the fourth time that “the Big G” had appeared as a fully digitally animated creature, discounting the anime series on Netflix (2017/8).
Read MoreFrom the multi-sunned vistas of Star Wars VIII: The Rise of Skywalker (J.J. Abrams, 2019) to the Slavic monster-hunting in Netflix’s The Witcher (Lauren Schmidt Hissrich, 2020) there has been an immense rise in fantasy and science fiction fuelled by spectacularly crafted movie magic.
Read MoreTwo recent big screen biopics released within a few months of each other between October 2018 and May 2019 offered notably contrasting portrayals of popular musical icons. But if the lukewarm critical reception surrounding recent Freddie Mercury/Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (Bryan Singer, 2018) put the genre under scrutiny for its questionable re-appropriation of real-life, then Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019) seemed remarkably immune to such criticisms.
Read MoreI wouldn’t say I am scared of clowns, but I definitely don’t like them. If you Google search ‘fear of clowns’ there are over ten million results, so it seems I am not alone in my dislike towards these peculiar figures. Taking its cue from something of this ongoing cultural fear around such make-upped entertainers, horror sequel IT Chapter Two (Andrés Muschietti, 2019) offers an often engaging - but always disturbing - and certainly uncanny piece of cinema about an iconic killer clown returning to terrorise his victims once more.
Read MoreReleased in 2018, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman, 2018) explored the visual storytelling possibilities of animation. A computer-animated superhero feature film that retells the story of Miles Morales, a boy bitten by a radio-active spider giving him similar powers to those of Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse bucks many of the traditional techniques of animation, and the production team used novel techniques to depict motion, depth of field, and emotion. Particularly notable is the combination of comic book elements within an animated feature. How do these novel techniques, alongside the combination of comic book mythology and animated storytelling, impact viewers’ comprehension of and experience of the story?
Read MoreNow that the proverbial dust has settled on Avengers: Endgame (Anthony Russo & Joe Russo, 2019), the fallout from the almost-three hour epic can well and truly begin. To immediately follow a film that is, to date, the highest-grossing film of 2019 and now the second-highest of all time (behind, of course, Avatar [James Cameron, 2009]) was always a tricky, if not borderline impossible, act. Yet coming a mere three months after Endgame and just two years (and six films) after Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts, 2017), the next instalment Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts, 2019) does a more than admirable job of taking up the reins left slack in a post-Endgame world.
Read MoreA little while ago I did some work on fantasy cinema and, while I’m keen to avoid the slightly unedifying spectacle of trawling through that material again, I would like to spend a little time thinking about a couple of its omissions: animation and violence. One reason for visiting these topics now is that I wonder whether violence in fantasy and/or animation may run the risk of not being taken seriously at all, possibly on grounds of realism. If the violence is so obviously signposted as fictional through its animated or fantastical nature, aren’t we missing the point if we start talking about its meaning and significance?
Read MoreBilled as the first “live-action” Pokémon film, Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Rob Letterman, 2019) adapts some of the franchise’s core themes and mechanics. The film also continues the endeavour of augmented reality game Pokémon GO (2016) – which on release sparked a sensation that saw players from all walks of life hunting Pokémon in the spaces around them via their mobile phones – to bring Pokémon into the real world.
Read MoreI probably should admit upfront that I am an avid fan of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. When Peter Jackson’s trilogy was released back in 2001-2003, I devoured the books and watched each film three times at the cinema. I marvelled at the extended DVD versions (with a complete running time of over 11 hours) and trawled through all the extra bonus material countless times over. I was even lucky enough to visit some of the film locations during a visit to New Zealand, a place that is stunning enough without CGI wizardry.
Read MoreFrom a costume design point of view, a combination of the words ‘fantasy’ and ‘animation’ directly creates an impression of visually innovative costumes. After all, in animation anything imaginative can be designed, breaking the laws of gravity (with costume) or establishing textiles which are not bound to or are replicated from the real life. What a fruitful starting point for costume design!
Read MoreMy own initiation into fashion film was a hesitant one, uncertain as to whether fashion films could ever be situated on the same spectrum as traditional film. The role that fashion film plays within cinema is still relatively undiscovered. Films dissected by Stella Bruzzi (1999) have often explored both fashion and film as two separate entities, which combine in challenging identity and metaphorical gestures, as well as aesthetics; whilst an auteur of the early fashion film, Guy Bourdin, created voyeuristic moving images which have only in recent years, begun to emerge to a wider audience.
Read MoreIt was with a degree of trepidation that I went to see the “live-action” (in reality, animation/live-action hybrid) remake of Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019). After all, the 1941 original, both narratively and in terms of its characters, is such that it cannot be easily translated into the hyper-real form of CG animation that is typically billed (inaccurately) as “live-action,” and simultaneously retain the whimsy and sweetness of the original.
Read MoreRunning parallel to the ongoing battles about women superheroes is another that flashes across the surface and into the depths of Captain Marvel (Anna Boden and Ryan Flack, 2019): a fight about the status of animation within the blockbuster (Fig. 1). Christopher Holliday (2018), Stephen Prince (2012) and Paul Wells (2008) are among those to have discussed the integration of CG animation technologies into the fabric of Hollywood filmmaking, in guises as diverse as character animation and digital grading.
Read MoreThe critical noise surrounding the recent release of horror film A Quiet Place (John Krasinski, 2018) has largely served to amplify its considered (and sparse) application of sound. The film’s narrative certainly explores the implications of selective sound and image arrangement, with the complex interplay between each sonic component used in service of crafting the danger of (largely offscreen) fantasies.
Read MoreIn his review of the latest in the Marvel-backed behemoths to embark upon an all-out assault against our eardrums, wallets and box office records, BBC Radio Five Live and Observer film critic Mark Kermode described Avengers: Infinity War (The Russo Brothers, 2018) as a having a fundamental problem stemming from a “fundamental lack of consequence”. This, from a movie that takes place across multiple galaxies, deals with a villain hell bent on wiping out half the universe’s population and, in the process of doing so, leaves a trail of destruction across planets, kingdoms and franchises. The culmination of a story arc ten years in the making, Avengers: Infinity War is a move with cross-franchise implications that demands a seemingly galactic level of prior narrative investment for audiences to even understand the opening reel.
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