Minions and Monsters finally gives those little yellow, pill-shaped critters from Despicable Me a proper calling, and it is about bloody time. The home-video release looks superb on Blu-ray, although its basic selection of bonus features makes this less of a must-buy package than the film deserves. Ever since Sergio Pablos pitched the idea to Illumination, I have regarded them as natural heirs to cinema’s early comedians, like Buster Keaton. And to pay tribute to that fact, I’m glad what directors Brian Lynch and Pierre Coffin massaged into shape acknowledges all that and more!
And for those people who missed seeing this film on the big screen, the home video release gives viewers a chance to watch this film multiple times to pick out the scenes where this tribute shines the most. It is a marvellous send-up of the Silent Era and Hollywood’s Golden Age, with a specific Minion, James, taking centre stage. And I have to assume the narrative imagines how a new film industry might develop without D.W. Griffith defining its early days.
Antique Bakery is a slice-of-life anime series about four men who work in a French bakery in Tokyo. It’s based on an acclaimed manga series created by Fumi Yoshinaga (Ooku: The Inner Chambers, What Did You Eat Yesterday?) that won a Kodansha Manga Award for best shojo manga. The 2008 TV anime ran for 12 episodes on Fuji TV’s late-night Noitamina block, following an earlier live-action drama adaptation from 2001. AnimEigo will release the series on Blu-ray in 2027.
As the year winds down, 
Back in the 70s, I often tuned into CBC’s French channel to get my daily anime fix. They often featured films and series more often than the other channels, and two such works included Sherlock Hound and Nobody’s Boy Remi. As for The Mysterious Cities of Gold, that did not arrive until the early 80s, and together they defined a part of my childhood. ‘