Tag: Character Drama

The NFB Celebrates International Animation Day with New Work!

Animation Day

This week is filled with two celebrations! It’s not only International Animation Day (October 28) but also All Hallow’s Eve (Oct 31st). The two can go hand in hand acknowledging the season (one such work does), but for The National Film Board of Canada, they are acknowledging four works by women as well as new Indigenous animation from the Hothouse Animation Apprenticeship program. They are now available for streaming online at NFB.ca

The releases are:

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The Case of Hana and Alice Finally Arrives Sept 17th!

This movie examines how people perceive friendships. The ties that bind The Strange Case of Hana and Alice show when BFFs are truly that.

Animation Day
Available to purchase on AmazonAnimation Day


Shout Factory! & GKIDS

Release Date: Sept 17, 2019

Just how “Hana and Alice” met from the 2004 live action film of the same name was revealed in 2015 in the anime The Strange Case of Hana and Alice (花とアリス殺人事件). Although fans of Shunji Iwai‘s original work did not expect him to produce a prequel, I’m sure this deeper look into the trials and tribulations of what these young women faced during their developing friendship is welcomed. No knowledge of the prior movie is needed in a mostly Shōjo product. I was curious because of the suggestion of the paranormal becoming involved, and a murder mystery is always great to get the attention of viewers not into this subgenre.

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You’re Not Gonna Trip the Light, Captain Fantastic

captain_fantastic_ver3By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

People who have followed the Canadian Court case of David and Collet Stephans, an Alberta couple accused of not giving their 19 month-old son the necessary medical treatment before his death as a result of bacterial meningitis, will know The couple believed in alternative medicine. Viewers may find an eerie semblance to what the story Captain Fantastic offers.

The real life case made the news early this year when the sentence was finally passed and fortunately, the fictional take travels down a different route. Ben (excellently played by Viggo Mortensen) and Leslie Cash (Trin Miller) are believers of a different social norm. They want their children to know how to work with the natural world like the First Nations people (or Druids in Europe) than be slaves to an order. Whether that be by nationality or spiritual point of view, the narrative is thought-provoking.

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Looking into Danny Collins Tangled Music Career, A Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Danny_Collins_Official_Poster

Danny Collins is one of those films that looks at how tough life is for some musicians who are groomed by commercial success and who seek to escape from its trappings. Before they got their big break, some might have had an idea in what direction they wanted to go with for expressing themselves, but when they broke into the industry, the producers see something else. Just like Begin Again, just what some musicians can become, namely in what Dave Kohl (Gretta’s musician boyfriend) became, may well be their own beasts of burden.

Dan Fogelman (Cars, Tangled) wrote a very thoughtful screenplay that certainly explores the difficulties in starting anew. Danny Collins (nicely played by Al Pacino) finally receives a letter from John Lennon decades later as a gift by his long-time manager Frank, (excellently played by Christopher Plummer), and if he read it sooner than later, maybe his career would have gone to different places. He is a commercial success, but was that what he really wanted?

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Looking at the Pieces that Make up CHAPPiE, a Review

Chappie Movie PosterThe difficulties that many audiences may have with Neill Blomkamp’s Chappie is quite simply that nobody knows what kind of story he’s intending to tell. Is it a story about a dysfunctional family coming together or is it a movie about a troubled world besieged by gangsters? The trailers suggest one idea but the movie reveals another. The mix of Robocop with Transcendence does not quite make for an understandable universe and to have the subplots running independently is most likely the issue here. Somehow, it all has to come together.

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[Victoria Film Festival ’14] Just Who is Alan Partridge? A Movie Review

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Alan Partridge Alpha Papa poster
Continues at the Odeon Theatre #2 – 6:45pm Feb 14

Directed by Declan Lowney
Screenplay by Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci, Peter Baynham

Not everyone on this side of the pond will know who British presenter Alan Partridge is. But after seeing the movie Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (the UK title of this film) his fame in North America will no doubt rise. Who knows, maybe he might get his own TV show in the States — heaven forbid. This fictional character is a media personality who has declined in fame over the years, and to see him claw his way back to the top is sad but funny.

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