Animated Events: the 53rd Annual Annie Awards

Just a reminder: The 53rd Annual Annie Awards will be streaming this Saturday, February 21st on the Annie Awards website.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

* * *

Animated Thoughts: Starting the year off right, pt.3

Two weeks later, I returned to Detroit as the DIA was showing The Glassworker, Pakistan's first ever hand drawn animated feature film at the DIA's Detroit Film Theatre.

Visually, it was like watching 'Ghibli-lite', and that's not a criticism. If you're going to study the art of animation, you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than Studio Ghibli. Story-wise, it was... interesting. It felt like there were no heroes in this story, just a lot of normal people who were victims of circumstances beyond their control as well as experiencing the consequences from the bad decisions that they made. There was a fair amount of complexity and there were some interesting explorations between patriotism and pacifism, classism, along with a very unexpected twist at the end. Mano Animation Studios and director Usman Riaz are off to a good start. Looking forward to seeing what they do next.

Afterwards, in keeping with the theme of the film, I took a moment to appreciate some of the glassworks in the DIA's collection.

Bowl, about 1927-29 Glass
Frederick Carder

Compote, about 1917 Glass
Frederick Carder

The year is off to a good start.

* * *

Animated Thoughts: Starting the year off right, pt.2

It was mid-January and All You Need is Kill was showing at the theater right down the street from my place. For those who don't know, this anime is based upon the light novel "All You Need Is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka--the light novel that also inspired the Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow.

In the anime, we're following the story of a soldier in the United Defense Force as she is trapped in an endless loop during an alien invasion. The lead character, Rita Vrataski, is part of a research unit investigating these alien plants in a region of Japan where the plants have established a beachhead. I won't spoiler the rest of the film, but if you've see the Tom Cruise movie, well, for the most part, the comparison really ends with the time loop concept. But like Edge of Tomorrow, All You Need is Kill centers itself around a very engaging series of events with characters who are easy to resonate with.

The visuals and animation are at the level of quality that you would expect from a Studio 4°C production. The character designs are reminiscent of their earlier films Genius Party and Tekkonkinkreet. It has decent character development and the story is very tight--something that is not easy to pull off with time loop stories. But Studio 4°C's production team does the job well as this film never feels stale even as we continually move through the story's "one-day" cycles.

All You Need is Kill joins a very small list of productions that tackle this concept and gets it right -- the aforementioned Tom Cruise film Edge of Tomorrow, Bill Murray's hilarious film Groundhog Day, the critically judged but skillfully executed The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya season 2 "Endless Eight" episodes, and "Window of Opportunity" found in Stargate SG-1 season 4, episode 6--and it's a very welcome addition.

As both Warner Bros Pictures and GKIDS appear to be involved in the distribution for this film here in the States, I'm hoping that it means they'll be releasing a DVD or Blu-Ray for All You Need is Kill later this year. It would be a very welcome addition to my collection.

* * *