Happy Birthday, The Iron Giant!
Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, director Brad Bird’s masterpiece of war and peace has only grown in legend and influence
CLI-FI
Cli-Fi: Honeyland’s Beekeeping Dystopia
As colonies collapse and the climate crisis accelerates, bees come into deeper focus in the acclaimed chronicle of a remote space and tradition
Watching The Watchmen (Again)
Elite powers cashing in on actual historical crises whose failures literally led us to where we are today.
Ten Years After: Extinction
Captivated by global warming and shortly before I called it cli-fi, I researched and reported the myriad ways life on Earth could die. Few were more terrifying than hydrogen sulfide.
Cli-Fi: Miyazaki’s Mission Critical
Princess Mononoke meets The Never-Ending Man, as Hayao Miyazaki’s blessed return inches closer to the cli-fi future he chronicled, as it happened.
Unhappy Earth Day: The Seas Still Rise
A decade ago, I talked to the Pacific Institute about their report which more or less promised that the coastal metropolis that currently make our state of California the world’s fifth largest economy would be swallowed by global warming.
Free Energy, Courtesy of Tesla
Matthew Rankin’s surreal, synesthesic short film The Tesla World Light is finally free for all to see. Let us hope Nikola Tesla’s utopian hope for free energy isn’t far behind.
I’m Sorry, Kurt Cobain
A quarter of a century ago, I turned my back on our revolution. As the reprogramming accelerated, I slowed time by pursuing love. But it was not enough.
Ten Years After: Grant Morrison
It’s amazing to think I’ve been interviewing Grant Morrison for over a decade now, having read his experimental comics masterpieces for much longer than that. It’s been deep.
Masaaki Yuasa’s Elastic, Fantastic Anime
The animation of Masaaki Yuasa is singular in the sense that we have seen nothing truly like it, yet it would not exist without its anxiety of influences.
Isao Takahata: 1935-2018
A towering influence.
And yet he still left so much to be discovered.
I watch his art each night before dreaming.
Rest in peace, dear influential.
Birdboy’s Interconnected Pollution
Writing about animation provides me the opportunity to probe the minds of brave filmmakers working against stereotype and industry. That struggle found an apotheosis in the surreal fever dream of Birdboy.
Fox And The Whale’s Metafictional Immersion
Earth is inspiring, even in the midst of failure. This is an important lesson I learned after interviewing director Robin Joseph about his stunning animated short, Fox and the Whale, a homemade, hand-drawn cli-fi fable debuting, to Oscar acclaim, in a world on fire.
The Breadwinner’s Ultimate Expression Of Hope: Interview With Nora Twomey and Saara Chaudry
I’ve been looking forward to interviewing Nora Twomey, especially now that her empowering adaptation of The Breadwinner has arrived, with the aid of Angelina Jolie, to shine a light back on Afghanistan, still in the crosshairs of the longest war in American history.
We Can’t Separate Food From Politics
One of our most persistent fictions of climate change is that the food industry, whose waste and emissions must be brought under immediate control if we are to survive the Anthropocene, can live without immigrants, whose existence puts the lie to nations and nationalism.
Quartz Joins My Civil Resistance
Call it syndication, or call it the sharing economy. It feels good to see your hard work spread across the spectrum. So thanks to Quartz for picking up my Civil Eats explainer on the Farm Bill’s doom.
Say It Loud and Proud: Animation Is Film
As the political and entertainment establishment continues to reject toxic masculinity and industry, the mounting movement to place our attention and investment on productions and issues truly worth the global public’s time and money is reaching critical mass
Farmers Markets Come Under Presidential Fire
My latest investigation for Civil Eats is not so much alarming as predictable. The current presidential administration, already an international laughingstock, has targeted farmers markets for elimination. The punishment? Death by pointless cuts.
Animation Is Film, Said The Festival
It may not seem like we need to have a three-day festival in Hollywood celebrating animation as cinema with a capital C. But if that was the case, I would not have spent the weekend with my girls in Hollywood at the Animation Is Film festival.
Feeding The Resistance
In a globally warming, warring world where Americans throw away half the food they grow, nourishing activism with a heart and mind in service of renewable peace is paramount. Enter author Julia Turshen, who I profiled for Civil Eats.
What Is Organic? Depends On Who’s Asking
This investigation for Civil Eats is about the terminology we take for granted so that billions of dollars can exchange hands in the organic market, as we throw away over a third of the food we ask our burning Earth to provide us.
Cli-Fi: 75 Years Later, Bambi Terrorizes
Written by an immigrant Jew hounded by Hitler, and envisioned by a Chinese immigrant dreaming of America, Walt Disney’s Bambi remains an unheeded warning of terror and terraformation, sadly forgotten by a burning world careening into an exponential apocalypse.
Nuclear Cinema: In This Corner of the World
This expressive war epic from the assistant director of Kiki’s Delivery Service handles the toughest of topics with art, skill and grace. I spoke with director Sunao Katabuchi for Cartoon Brew.
Cli-Fi: Largest Gulf Dead Zone Ever
Stephen King’s horror novel never saw this real-time nightmare coming. A state-sized dead zone at the bottom of the South, which is so deprived of oxygen it might as well be deep space — which is, recalling Alien, where no one can hear you scream.
Chasing Ice And Coral, Running Out of Time
It is my honor to be writing for the Center for Biological Diversity’s shiny new publication, The Revelator. My first piece is an interview with the fearless Jeff Orlowski, director of Chasing Ice, and now, Chasing Coral.