It has been a long, drawn-out year of CGI-animated films. There has been at least one a month all year long. But when are we going to finally see the best one of the year? In other words, are we there yet?
Happy Feet tells the story of Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), a young penguin who is having a lot of trouble fitting in.
There have been a lot of films about the atrocities that grip many parts of the African continent. From 1971 to 1979, the African country of Uganda was gripped under the tyrannical rule of Idi Amin (played in the film by Forest Whitaker).
It has taken Christian Bale a long time to reach the forefront of Hollywood success. I actually remember the strong British actor from some his earlier films like Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun from 1987, the Disney musical Newsies from 1992, and the very underrated film Swing Kids from 1993. It really is a shame how many years it took for Bale to emerge.
There have been a lot of films that have tried to delve into the human psyche; trying to uncover what we might be thinking at any given moment. Some films have been bizarre or twisted, revolutionary or interesting, and wonderful or engaging.
As it states in the film, Kazakhstan is a backward land where the national drink is fermented horse urine, prostitutes are nationally ranked, horses have the vote but women don't, the premier's wife's duties include sleeping with foreign dignitaries, and villages across the country celebrate the traditional "running of the Jew".
The brilliant minds at Aardman films expand their repertoires with a branch into the world of CGI animation. Aardman first burst onto the scene with mainstream audiences with the now classic Chicken Run and the beloved Oscar-winning film, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
Those two films were done with stop-motion clay animation and took years to perform.
There have been a lot of films these days that have featured many small parallel storylines that eventually collide and form a larger picture which is what the film is all about.
There is one word that best describes this movie: whacked. If you had to describe it beyond that word, you would have to say that it has elements of Hotel New Hampshire, The World According to Garp, and practically anything directed by Wes Anderson.
Death of a President is a fake documentary that looks back at the assassination of George W. Bush as seen through the eyes of his old staff many years later. According to the film, Bush was assassinated in October of 2007 and that a lot of problems, conspiracies, and corruption happened surrounding the event's investigation.
Phillip Noyce is probably one of my favorite under-appreciated directors working today.
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