Block-Busted

Oh, okay. Sadly, I don't have Netflix at home.

Oh, and in case some people mention Rango or The Adventures of Tintin, I didn't count them as they're animated by actual special effects companies like ILM or Weta.

Like I've said, I'm strictly talking about animations themselves. I don't think I've seen any studios that can maintain that level of animation for over 100 minutes, especially if it starts to look like it's from live-action background. P.S. Have you actually seen Coco or The Book of Life? I've seen both, and aside from the Day of the Dead backdrop and music theme, they barely have anything in common.

Yeah, but Toy Story 4 is like over 100 minutes long. I would imagine that maintaining that level of animation for an extended period of time is going to be very challenging. Also, Pixar has a short that is Piper.

Just when I thought Pixar has achieved the pinnacle of animation with Coco, they managed to outdo themselves with Toy Story 4. I almost felt like I was watching a live-action film during Operation Pull Toy sequence. And even after that, they managed to keep that level of animation throughout the entire film in just about every aspects from background, characters, and even the lighting! (Oh, wow. The lighting was a whole new level even by Pixar standard.) Even as a lifelong Pixar fanboy, I find the animation here just unimaginably outstanding to a level that I have never imagined. Now I'm seriously starting to think that Pixar might really be THE best when it comes to animation alone. It's kind of weird that they still don't have their own special effects division.

Any news from Jiho yet?

It turned out that Daniel Espinosa's unimpressive filmography was actually the least of this film's problems, as the biggest problem with this film turned out to be screenwriters. Why? The film is being written by 2 screenwriter duos. The first duo is Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who wrote scripts for... Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, and Gods of Egypt. The second duo, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, are even worse as they've written scripts for... Men in Black: International, Transformers: The Last Knight, Punisher: War Zone, and Iron Man, which got its script pretty much thrown out during the production because it was so hideous. The film is already at disadvantage because of films like Tenet and Jungle Cruise and a very small chance of IMAX release because of the former (Nolan films tend to take 5 to 6 weeks on IMAX). It looks like combination of writers might seal this film's doom.

These two films have quite a bit in common - both are superhero action comedies, both have a teenager as their respective protagonists, and both have gained critical acclaim. Which film do you think is better and why?

Yeah, it could give Pixar a chance to venture into themes that might be too much for kids. How about this? A feature-length version of an animated short called 'In a Heartbeat'. I think that could be one good idea for SparkShorts-style feature-length film. ;)

SparkShorts are Pixar shorts that deal with more mature themes than what you usually from Pixar. If I'm reading this correctly, Pixar employees are allowed to make a short film in 6 months with limited budget. Here are 3 of the SparkShorts that are released on YouTube: This got me thinking, could Pixar extend this to straight-to-Disney+ feature-length films? The idea I have is that, obviously, Pixar can't release a feature-length film with far too heavy themes for kids in cinemas, so maybe they could release indie-style Pixar films (that usually runs for 70 to 80 minutes range) to Disney+ to test and/or expand the imagination of the studio's employees. This films will not have Disney logo appear in the beginning of the film - only Pixar logo will appear. Thoughts on this?

And it's stupid. MPAA gave Toy Story 3 a G and that film is a lot darker than Finding Dory will ever be - for all sorts of reasons.

You'll probably remember Pixar's 30th anniversary film 'Finding Dory', a Dory-centric(?) sequel to 'Finding Nemo'. The film became a huge critical and box office success, grossing over $1 billion worldwide and once held the highest opening week for an animated film. And yet, some people felt that the film was rather generic, saying that it didn't exactly feel, well, "unique". I've been thinking about this a lot on whether if the film is really that generic. So, the question is this - is the film actually generic? My short answer is - no, not even close. The film has just about everything that a good animated film needs. The story is solid, characters are very likable, scores are simply thing of a beauty, the animation is just outstanding, almost all of the jokes land perfectly, the film itself is very fast-paced and has some genuinely touching moments with great message. This is a level of filmmaking that other animation studios WISH they could replicate. (Also, who doesn't like baby Dory?) So why do some people find it generic despite it's obviously not? Well, I have one simple theory on why that kind of perception is made - because it's from PIXAR. 'Finding Dory' is basically a great Pixar animated film and it's not trying to be anything else. All of these aspects that I've mentioned are things that we expect from Pixar and while the film succeeded in all of those, it doesn't exactly go beyond that. Time and time again, we've seen Pixar that they can do something that goes beyond their typical standards especially since 2007 with films like 'Ratatouille', 'WALL-E', 'Up' (which is basically the film that gave Pixar a reputation of making audience cry), and 'Toy Story 3'. This became even more obvious after Pixar made a spectacular comeback with 'Inside Out', which I dare to call it one of the greatest films of all time along with 'Citizen Kane' (no, really). It's largely regarded as the first Pixar film that is mainly made for adults. While other Pixar films also had some appeal to adults, this might well be the first time that the studio made a film with adult audience in mind. And this also highlights another aspect of 'Finding Dory' that didn't work so well with some viewers. The film honestly felt like something that was aimed for kids in general. Usually, Pixar makes films that are aimed for both kids and adults, and 'Finding Dory' is one of the rare anomalies. Now, this is not exactly unusual since the film is a sequel to 'Finding Nemo', which is regarded as one of the most kid-friendly critically-acclaimed Pixar film in existence, and it also makes sense that Pixar would want something a lot more "fun" after making 'Inside Out', which might be a bit too confusing for kids. It's not just about the target audience, obviously. 'Inside Out' was largely considered as highly unique even by Pixar standards. Seriously, there aren't a lot of feature-length films that takes place inside the human mind, not to mention that what's happening inside Riley's mind is basically a metaphor of her growing up. It's simply just amazing that Pixar even attempted something like this because it could've came off as pretentious if they didn't handle it properly. Of course, 'Finding Dory' also contains messages about living with disability, but I don't think a lot of people would find this film "challenging" overall. While later Pixar films weren't nearly as "challenging" as 'Inside Out', they still had their own share of uniqueness that went beyond a typical Pixar standard. 'Coco' is a rare animated music film (especially from Pixar), pays a lot of respect to Mexican culture, and... let's not talk about that climax. As you can see, 'Coco' pretty much follows most Pixar tropes, but it also does something more with it. 'Incredibles 2' was also considered as "generic" by some people, but it still has that cartoon-style animation from 'The Incredibles', and Brad Bird's unique style in other aspects are still there. 'Toy Story 4' comes closest to the comedic tone of 'Finding Dory', but if you've seen the former all the way through, you could make a case for the film being the first legit tragicomedy from Pixar - something that 'Finding Dory' is clearly not. And honestly, that's perfectly fine. I don't expect all Pixar films to be 'Inside Out'-level of masterpieces, even ones that have received critical acclaims. At the very least, 'Finding Dory' serves as a 97-minute of nice and relaxing time at the cinema, and if I'm being honest, that's pretty much what I've expected from this film given what its predecessor was like. Besides, let's be honest now. Who doesn't love a full-blown happy ending that is presented here? That's all I have to say. Feel free to post your reply on whether you agree or disagree with this wall of texts. You can even add to what I've said and can even make objections if you wish to do so. :) P.S. Be respectful! P.P.S. I am, however, going to drag MPAA for the rating they gave to this film. How in the world did they think that this should be rated PG?! For crying out loud, this film is as G-rated as it gets!!!

And not just in mainstream fronts, but also in foreign worlds as well.

I should've made it clear that I'm talking about animated films. You should watch it someday. It's definitely one of the best animated films of 2016 along with other 4 that I've mentioned.

Seriously, just on mainstream fronts, we've had Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, Finding Dory, Kubo and the Two Strings, and Moana, all of which were varying degrees of great because they were either a lot of fun to watch, had very important and relevant message to tell, had some of the best animation that the world has ever witnessed, pushed the standards of stop motion animation to a whole new level, or simply felt like a return to a form in some of the best ways imagined. It's not the only year when we've had bunch of great animated films, but I would say that 2016 was still one of the best.

It shares a similar story structure with Fant4stic. Think about these: -Both have almost no action scenes until the climax of the film. -Both have time skips. -Both involve some sort of interdimensional/time traveling. And yet, Avengers: Endgame is astronomically better than Fant4stic. Why is that?

Yeah, these two seem to be like some of the biggest animated fan favorites of recent years. And yes, I know that they were major box office and critical smash hits, but those don't seem to be enough to adequately explain why they're so beloved by just about everyone around the world. Now, don't misunderstand me. All those loves that these are getting are absolutely well-deserved, especially for the latter (I know this because I saw it ), but there seems to be something that are considered as unique to these films to be this beloved. What do you think that might be and why? P.S. While we're at it, which one of these do you think works better with IMAX and why? (And yes, both got IMAX releases to some extent.)

But what if Grave of the Fireflies was screened AFTER My Neighbor Totoro? My impression is that there was a 50:50 chance of one being screened after another and vice-versa.

Both are Studio Ghibli anime films that came out on the exact same day... and they were screened as double features... even though they're tonally polar opposite. Do you think screening THESE TWO as double features was a right choice? Why or why not?

From 2012 to 2019, we've seen at least 10 critically-acclaimed animated films made by Disney or Pixar. These are those films: Wreck-It Ralph (2012) -RottenTomatoes rating: 87% -RottenTomatoes average: 7.4/10 -Metacritic: 72/100 Frozen (2013) -RottenTomatoes rating: 90% -RottenTomatoes average: 7.69/10 -Metacritic: 74/100 Big Hero 6 (2014) -RottenTomatoes rating: 89% -RottenTomatoes average: 7.35/10 -Metacritic: 74/100 Inside Out (2015) -RottenTomatoes rating: 98% -RottenTomatoes average: 8.94/10 -Metacritic: 94/100 Zootopia (2016) -RottenTomatoes rating: 97% -RottenTomatoes average: 8.07/10 -Metacritic: 78/100 Finding Dory (2016) -RottenTomatoes rating: 94% -RottenTomatoes average: 7.65/10 -Metacritic: 77/100 Moana (2016) -RottenTomatoes rating: 96% -RottenTomatoes average: 7.88/10 -Metacritic: 81/100 Coco (2017) -RottenTomatoes rating: 97% -RottenTomatoes average: 8.31/10 -Metacritic: 81/100 Incredibles 2 (2018) -RottenTomatoes rating: 94% -RottenTomatoes average: 7.86/10 -Metacritic: 80/100 Toy Story 4 (2019) -RottenTomatoes rating: 97% -RottenTomatoes average: 8.39/10 -Metacritic: 84/100 How would you rank these films? I don't think I'll rank these ones because, honestly, they're all varying degrees of great.

Here are comic book films that came out in 2018: -The LEGO Batman Movie -Logan -Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 -Wonder Woman -Spider-Man: Homecoming -Thor: Ragnarok -Justice League How would you rank them? Here's my ranking: 1. The LEGO Batman Movie 2. Spider-Man: Homecoming 3. Wonder Woman 4. Thor: Ragnarok 5. Logan 6. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 7. Justice League

There’s no dispute about this. Pixar Animation Studio and Walt Disney Animation Studio are 2 finest animation studios that are still working today, making 1 animated classic after another for years (not a lot of animation studios can do this). But why are they actually the best? Well, that’s because Pixar understands the art of animation better than other animation studios do while Disney understands the meaning of animation better than other animation studios do. How do these work? That’s where I go over how their use of animation makes them the best of their kind. Let’s take a look at Pixar first (since that’s what I’m more familiar with). This is the animation studio that has been making 1 classic after another since 1995, starting with Toy Story. As of 2019, the studio has 21 films with almost all of them achieving critical success (aside from Cars 2) and almost all of them achieving box office success (aside from The Good Dinosaur). Not only that, the studio has 2 films that were nominated for Best Picture (Up and Toy Story 3) and 3 (and soon to be 4) films that grossed $1 billion worldwide (Toy Story 3, Finding Dory, Incredibles 2, and, sooner or later, Toy Story 4) with Toy Story 3 also being the first ever billion dollar-grossing animated film of all time. The only studio that comes this close to this level of success is Marvel Studios, and that just shows how difficult to achieve such high rate of success (even though Pixar and Marvel make it look easy). And of course, what makes Pixar the best is the way it uses animation. Toy Story is the first ever CGI animated film of all time and Pixar has been perfecting its craft since then with consecutive films. Even way back in 2003, Pixar managed to make an animated film with photorealistic animation that is Finding Nemo, and this is actually a result of making animation less realistic. Yeah, that’s right. Pixar had to make Finding Nemo look “more-animated” because the first version looked “too real”. Today, with films like Finding Dory, Coco, and Toy Story 4, Pixar showcases some of the most breathtaking level of animations that almost look like live-action to a point where I personally wonder why Pixar still doesn’t have its own special effects division for live-action films. After all, Pixar is the one who developed CGI-rendering software called RenderMan, and I’m pretty sure that Pixar can provide outstanding special effects at this point. If you want a visual reference, take a look at this still frame from Finding Dory: This scene shows the level of animation that Pixar displays from texture, details, lightings, and so many more, which is why Pixar understands the art of animation like no other. You watch a Pixar animated film, you’re watching a semi-live-action film. Now let’s take a look at Disney. I will admit that I’m not THAT familiar with this one, but even then, I will give credits that this studio deserves. This is the oldest animation studio that is still working today, making 1 classic after another for over 8 fricking decades, starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. For some reason, people called this “Disney’s Folly” before it came out and the film’s success proved them wrong big time. During the last 80+ years, many animation studios came and went while Disney alone stood strong in the world of animation and it thrives even to this day. Not only that, it has the first ever animated film to get nominated for Best Picture (Beauty and the Beast) and the highest-grossing animated film of all time (Frozen). Think about that for a while and tell me that those are not proofs of Disney’s success. And of course, what makes Disney the best is the way it uses its animation. Disney is basically a master of expressive animation in which every scenes and frames look like they have feelings of their own. When it comes to Disney, animations are not just bunch of pretty images, but actual characters who have their own stories to tell (at least that’s how I see them). Based on some of the clips that I’ve seen, Disney has been incorporating expressiveness in their animations ever since it started making feature-length animated films (and yes, I’ve actually seen The Lion King, and the animation was very expressive in that one as well) and based on modern Disney animated films that I’ve seen, Disney still manages to do so even with their CGI animated films. If you want a visual reference, here’s a still frame from Moana: If all you see from here is an outstanding animation, then you’re missing the point. This scene encompasses the level of expressiveness that Disney can convey with their animation, and not just because the ocean is also a character, but because the whole animated frame conveys a lush feeling as well, which is why Disney understands the meaning of animation like no other. You don’t just watch a Disney animated film. You feel it. That is all. Hee hee hee...

Here are comic book films that came out in 2018: -Black Panther -Avengers: Infinity War -Deadpool 2 -Ant-Man and the Wasp -Teen Titans Go! To the Movies -Venom -Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse -Aquaman How would you rank them? Here's my ranking: 1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2. Black Panther 3. Avengers: Infinity War 4. Deadpool 2 5. Ant-Man and the Wasp 6. Aquaman 7. Venom Haven't seen Teen Titans Go! To the Movies yet.

It's one of the reasons why I'm currently avoiding it.