Back Row Thoughts – Animation Preparation

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve reviewed anything, mostly because I haven’t really seen all that much. August tends to be a wasteland for the studios, churning out crap that’s flashy enough for Blockbuster Season, but still so creatively bankrupt and repugnant (evidenced by Borderlands hovering around 10% on Rotten Tomatoes and The Crow barely eking out a 20% rating with reviews held until the day of release in both cases) that if they didn’t have big name heft they’d be buried in January. It also doesn’t help that I spent so much time feeling sick and then decided to celebrate my birthday with my first vacation in 12 years by spending five days in Las Vegas (first trip there for any purpose in nine years – I finished up $250!), and I’ve been overloading on short films at the Hollyshorts Festival. Normal viewing has been at a bit of a standstill, but I’ll be getting back into my proverbial groove over the next few days, hopefully.

What I have been sitting on for a while is the early start I got on my annual quest to clear the Animated Feature category for the Oscars. Since the early spring I’ve been keeping an eye out for any and every low-profile and independent animation release, hoping to preemptively knock it off the list before it gets announced in November or December. It began with Chicken for Linda!, which I grouped in a column with other festival darlings, but there are five more films that I’ve taken in over the course of the last few months, and now’s as good a time as any to clear them off my backlog while we wait for something better in the cinema. Some of these films are highly creative and interesting. Others are abject crap. That won’t stop them from being submitted to the Academy, however, so might as well give them their due now for whatever that’s worth, since the Animated Feature category doesn’t have a shortlist.

Dragonkeeper

This joint venture between Spain and China was released in the States back in April for a limited theatrical run. It’s currently available to rent on VOD services, but you’d be better served flushing your five bucks directly down the toilet, because this is just awful on a lot of levels.

At its core, this is a standard-issue story about a “child of destiny” who through some convenient magic nonsense ends up saving a mystical creature as well as her entire ancient fantasy world. In this case, the stand-in is named Ping (voiced in a completely misplaced Cockney accent by Mayalinee Griffiths), who was smuggled as an orphaned baby into a small village, where she’s raised as little more than a slave. She was put there by Wang Chao (Bill Bailey), the servant of an infamous dragon hunter, Diao (Anthony Howell), because apparently by being left-handed, she is destined to be a titular Dragonkeeper.

Ping encounters two dragons being held in captivity by the village’s cruel lord, Master Lan (Tony Jayawardena), who harvests their blood for sale on the black market, including to Diao. When one of the dragons dies, the other, Danzi (a completely miscast Bill Nighy) reveals to Ping that he and his mate had an egg, and it’s up to the two of them to get it to some kind of sacred healing spring so that it can hatch and maintain peace and goodness in the world, or whatever.

Shoddily animated throughout, the film plays like poorly-rendered Playstation 3 cutscenes for most of the runtime, with a few hints of actual computer-generated skill peppered here and there. Diao himself almost makes for a sympathetic baddie, because the reason he buys dragon blood is to heal his dying mother (Jacqueline Chan). However, this plot thread is dropped the instant she passes, and he’s just a (Fu Manchu) mustache-twirling generic antagonist the rest of the way.

But the movie’s real failure is in Ping herself. I know this is a flick made mostly for little kids, but her entire character arc is based on clumsily-exposited dialogue and the leitmotif default position that any young female protagonist is born perfect and can have no flaws. The speed at which she’s able to perform complex magic after spending her entire life to this point being completely unaware of anything is an insult to the audience’s collective intelligence, and her annoying whining voice makes me want to jam chopsticks into my temples. I don’t blame the young actress for this, but rather the half-assed direction in the booth.

This is a complete waste of time, especially when there are so many other entertaining films about dragons, strong protagonists, and just cool mythology from China. Don’t bother with this unless you’re a completist like me.

Grade: C-

Art College 1994

This is an interesting piece, animated in a style reminiscent of cartoons made during its time setting. You can think of this as a Chinese version of Reality Bites or Slacker in some respects, as the emphasis is more on the interpersonal relationships of the characters rather than the nuts and bolts of the plot. The voice acting and line deliveries are very matter-of-fact, showing little emotion until it’s absolutely needed, and on the whole I think the film succeeds on keeping the viewer engaged despite its lack of stakes.

The story follows four students at the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts. One is studying traditional painting, another sculpture, one piano, and the last vocal performance. The two visual art men often get into trouble and have a blasé attitude about their schooling, save for the painter’s desire to incorporate more modern techniques into his classical curriculum. The two musical women are very close, only for their friendship to end over the piano player’s decision to leave school for a financially stable marriage arranged by her parents.

You’ll notice that I haven’t used character names or credited voice actors here, and that’s kind of the point. For one thing, it’s been so long since I’ve seen the movie that I’ve forgotten them (and the internet has been a less than helpful source in digging things up), but for another, the presentation of the movie is a bunch of stuff that just happens. The actual players are almost interchangeable, which goes a long way to making them relatable. Director Liu Jian goes to admirable lengths to keep things just intriguing enough to not let the viewer get bogged down in the more drab moments, while also making sure that you can connect with something in every main character. It’s a tough task to pull off, but I think it works.

There are boring moments to be sure, and at times you wonder why the painter doesn’t just change majors if he’s so committed to modern art over traditional, but on the whole, this is an oddly comforting time capsule for what were fairly universal experiences for college students 30 years ago.

Grade: B+

The Imaginary

Not to be confused with Imaginary. Very different movie, and thankfully, this one is much better. In fact, it’s one of the best of the year. This is illustrated in the opening minutes of this wonderful anime piece (currently available on Netflix), in which Rudger (Kokoro Terada in Japanese, Louie Rudge-Buchanan in English) introduces his world living as the imaginary friend of a young girl named Amanda (Rio Suzuki/Evie Kiszel). In just a few brief moments, Rudger creates a world far more engaging than its “THE-less” counterpart, and infinitely more creative than the comparatively mundane IF.

Rudger and Amanda have all sorts of adventures with limitless potential inside her attic, making up anything that comes to mind and living by three simple rules: No Disappearing, Protect Each Other, and Never Cry. Believe me when I say that the third rule will be broken, repeatedly, usually by you as you watch.

Tragedy strikes when Amanda and Rudger run from a mysterious man called Mr. Bunting (Issey Ogata/Jeremy Swift), who can not only see Rudger, but has sustained himself for centuries by eating Imaginaries in a fashion creepily reminiscent of Pennywise. The horrid events leave Amanda’s mom Lizzie (Sakura Ando/Hayley Atwell) despondent and Rudger’s existence in peril. See, if an Imaginary is ever forgotten (and the events of the film put that very much in question), they disappear forever. The one safe haven is a library, where Rudger is guided by Jinzan (Takayuki Yamada/Kal Penn), a cat with multicolored eyes. In the library he meets other lost Imaginaries, including Emily (Riisa Naka/Sky Katz) and Snowflake (Mitsuaki Kanuka/Roger Craig Smith), who keep themselves occupied by substituting for kids looking for imaginary friends for whatever playtime they engage in. Despite this new lease on life, Rudger is laser focused on finding Amanda and making up for his inability to protect her.

This movie has everything: dazzling visuals, a fully-committed voice cast, a heartwarming story with some truly sneaky heartstring tugs, and most of all, an inspiring theme of how reading sets the mind ablaze with ideas. Lizzie owns a book shop. The Town of Imaginaries is in a library. Even one of the pivotal characters is voiced by LeVar fucking Burton (Akira Terao in Japanese). I mean, you don’t get it any more on the nose than the host of Reading Rainbow, and it’s stupendous.

There haven’t been too many genuinely great films this year, but this is one of them. I’m sure most of the attention come Oscar time next year will be on Inside Out 2, as well as probably Moana 2 and The Wild Robot, but I sincerely hope this one gets its due. Director Yoshiyuki Momose is a Studio Ghibli veteran (having worked on the likes of Grave of the Fireflies, Porco Rosso, and Spirited Away before striking out on his own), and he brings that trademark visual style and thematic profundity to bear with seemingly effortless skill.

Grade: A

Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds

Part Alice in Wonderland, part Yellow Submarine, part Ghibli, Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Winds is a simple, fun, and sweet tale of two sisters reinforcing their bond with one another after learning how quickly it can be lost. It competed for the Best Feature prize at last year’s Annecy Film Festival (where it lost to Chicken for Linda!), and the artistic quality on display shows why it was a strong candidate.

Two young sisters, Juliette (Loïse Charpentier) and Carmen (Maryne Bertieaux) arrive at the home of children’s book writer Agnès (Géraldine Asselin), a friend of their mother, who will be watching them for the weekend. Agnès is hard at work on the next installment in her series about Sirocco (Pierre Lognay), a wizard who can control storms and is forced to live a life of solitude because the residents of his magical world fear him. As Agnès tries to take a nap, Juliette becomes rambunctious, and encounters a yellow toy from one of the books. This toy can speak (voiced by Laurent Morteau), and can create magic portals by drawing a hopscotch path on the floor. Juliette impulsively jumps in, followed by Carmen trying to stop her, and the two are transported to Sirocco’s world. In doing so, the toy is partially broken and the girls are turned into cats. Caught in the politics and antics of this fantastical environment, the girls require the help of the duckbilled songstress Selma (Aurélie Konaté) to help them get home. Along the way, they learn just how close Selma and Agnès really are, and just how crucial Sirocco is to its – and their – survival.

I absolutely adore the art style in this movie. I got so many flashbacks to the Blue Meanies with the trippy, bright colors and character designs, and the girls’ cat forms felt like something out of a Richard Scarry book, aided by a Hayao Miyazaki aesthetic. Every scene is awash in gorgeous, almost hypnotizing art.

As for the story, it’s bare-bones, and a whole subplot about Carmen being forced to marry the son of a powerful politician is abandoned as quickly as it’s established, clearly just there to provide some false tension and pad the runtime. But where it counts, the sisterly bond, the picture absolutely nails it. And just for a bit of fun to make sure things don’t get too heavy, the fact that the broken toy can still speak in nonsense and draw half-functional portals is some fantastic comic relief.

This got a limited release stateside just a few weeks ago, so keep an eye out for it to come to VOD soon. You won’t regret diving down this particular rabbit, er, cat hole.

Grade: B

The Greatest Surf Movie in the Universe

To quote Nelson Muntz in reference to Naked Lunch, “I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.” It might even be three, because honest to God, this hardly even qualifies as a movie. It only barely passes on a troll level. Slapdash and shoddy from beginning to end, this stop-motion abomination with doll puppets might seem like a spiritual sibling to Team America: World Police on first glance, but in reality it’s more like the worst Robot Chicken sketch you could possibly imagine (and I LOVE that show), only it won’t end!

Directed and written by Vaughan Blakely and Nick Pollet (those verbs should be in air quotes), the movie posits a world 10 years in our future, where a pandemic even worse than the one we just endured has wiped out 3/4 of the world’s population. There was a vaccine to cure it, but in the worst twist of fate possible, the vaccine caused those who took it to lose all memory of the existence of surfing. Cue the Dude going, “Oh no” when he heard that sex can be unsatisfying.

So, the God of Surfing, called Hughie (Ronnie Blakely) tasks his brother Joey (Joe Turpel) to find one of the lost lambs of the sport – Mick Fanning, working as a meditation guru – to astral project or something and give him his memories back. Then it’s up to Mick to recruit five other world famous surfers (Mason Ho, Matt Wilkinson, Jack Freestone, Griffin Colapinto, and Craig Anderson) and make the titular great surf movie in order to restore living memory of the sport to the entire world.

If you had any trouble grasping this plot, worry not, because the bulk of the film consists of a repetitive cycle in which Mick finds a surfer, delivers the same exposition verbatim (“You may not remember this, but 10 years ago there was a sport called surfing, and you fucking dominated it”), and we cut to a five-minute montage of footage of that surfer in his element. At least, I assume it’s them. The camera on these vignettes is often so far away that you can’t make out any distinguishing features on any of these people. It’s barely at YouTube home video quality.

It also doesn’t help that they’re all “animated” by using Ken dolls (with penises crafted for each one, because why not have several scenes of them pissing in the desert) with freaky looking heads that only vaguely resemble the actual person and have no moving lips. All of this garbage goes on for 80 minutes that feel like an eternity.

Compounding the asinine premise is the fact that none of these surfers can act, or even do a competent voiceover. During the credits, Pollet and Blakely actually thank their cast for agreeing to do this without ever reading a script, and given that half the dialogue is just “fuck” and “cunt,” I’m pretty sure the whole recording process was improvised. If that wasn’t enough, the affair basically turns into anti-vax propaganda once everyone is introduced. See, given the vaccine’s involvement in eliminating surfing memories, it’s considered worse than the billions of lives lost, and the doctor who came up with it (voiced by co-director Blakely) is constantly called a cunt for doing so. So pandemics are totally fine as long as there are tasty waves and horses to sodomize (don’t ask)? Okay, then.

The only remotely saving grace this piece of shit has is the live-action framing of the story. In this post-apocalyptic future of 2033, a survivor narrates the stakes from a tree fort where video technology is spotty at best. He’s played by Luke Hemsworth – as in not THAT Hemsworth or THAT Hemsworth – and he’s kind of a kick, especially when he destroys his malfunctioning devices. I get the impression that everyone had fun with this dreck, but he’s the only one we get to SEE have fun, so his interstitial moments are the very appreciated respite we get from the rest of the bullshit.

When I saw the trailer for this, I had a feeling it would be bad (I didn’t include it in TFINYW since it’s an Australian film released last year, so technically it doesn’t qualify), but I had no idea it could be this bad. The things I do in the name of thoroughness. Yeah, this is scraping the absolute bottom of the proverbial barrel. The movie only has four reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and they’re all dire. The goal of the film might have been to save surfing. The result is that I want everyone involved in this to be eaten by sharks.

Grade: D-

***

That’s all for this edition, folks. I’m writing this as I’m waiting for my flight home, so I’m pretty sure I’ll be back in the saddle soon. Thanks as always for taking the journey with me.

Join the conversation in the comments below! Have you seen any of these films? Which ones intrigue you the most? Seriously, how did Spain and China make dragons boring?! Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) and YouTube for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!