There are few franchises that saw as radical a decline in quality as the Shrek series – the first two films are appropriately considered not only masterpieces in their own right, but incredibly influential to the entire medium of animation, the industry being pushed in new directions after what was soon to be seen as…

Why is that of all the genres we can consider, its animation that tends to age the finest? Perhaps we just carry the nostalgia of the films we adored when we were younger into adulthood, refusing to look beneath the veneer of those fond memories in fear of discovering those joyful days were spent with…

Few filmmakers have had their entire careers defined by the quality of possessing seemingly infinite imagination than Guillermo del Toro, who has made a name for himself as one of the true contemporary speculative auteurs, spending decades carefully developing a series of films that draw on his admiration for fantasy and science fiction, which fuel…

“Everyone has demons…mine just have names” It always feels like a major event when a beloved and acclaimed auteur returns to filmmaking after a lengthy break. Whether it was a case of reneging on a previously-announced retirement, or the fact that they couldn’t acquire either inspiration or financial means to make another film for a…

There are few artistic voices I respect more than that of Bill Plympton, a man whose belief in his vision is so strong, that he didn’t even allow studio rejections and stringent conventions of the mainstream industry to deter him from making the films that interested him, instead taking their refusal to produce his work…

Richard Linklater has gone from a director of entertaining but conventional fare, to someone whose work has become so incredible, nearly every new work he produces is seen as an event, especially for those who adhere to his very peculiar brand of off-kilter humour that is often drawn from his experiences as someone who grew…

One of the benefits of being the industry leader in animation is that a more diverse range of stories can be told. I have previously expressed my concerns with the direction Disney and Pixar are heading with many of their films, with much of their recent input being disappointing to say the very least. However,…

Here’s a novel concept – The House is one of the best horror films of recent years, and a film that is only going to grow in estimation as time goes on. Less of a singular film, and more the product of an artistic collective, whereby it is composed of three distinct films, each written…

Everything that makes animated cinema so important can be found in Old Czech Legends (Czech: Staré pověsti české), the ambitious stop-motion epic by esteemed animator Jiří Trnka, who adapted the classic collection of short stories published in the late 19th century, Ancient Bohemian Legends by Alois Jirásek, which weaves together a combination of historical tales…

The 1980s were a tough time for the Walt Disney Company – the glory days of their first Golden Era was too distant for them to coast on the goodwill from their classic films, and it would be a few years before they entered into another prolific era of producing brilliant films. This was also…