Everything, Everywhere, Everyday
Those of us who have been watching Michelle Yeoh with admiration for years — and those of us who have been wishing just as long that sci-fi would dream with more ambition — have unearthed the eternal motherlode.
Film That Matters
A Touch of Zen (Again)
A cli-fi masterpiece of nature and power, violence and the sacred.
How has it taken me this long to see? What does it matter?
The Beatles’ Bizarro Boxing Day
On this day, after the one known so well as Christmas, The Beatles beamed a sloppy, surreal cult standout into holiday televisions, confounding many and captivating few.
Future Boy Conan, Miyazaki’s Hidden Masterpiece
Hayao Miyazaki has mastered the art of cli-fi. And yet so many of his earlier visions have remained out of sight and out of mind.
The Beatles Let It Get Back
Enjoy this holiday sneak peek of The Beatles: Get Back, knowing its reprogramming is all we have left of The Beatles, as the original fades.
Between Utopia and Armageddon: Matthew Rankin’s Transgressive Twentieth Century
“I see this 21st Century malaise reaching its snapping point,” Rankin explained. “Last century saw the rise of innumerable idealistic movements. This traumatized world is the one we inherited.”
I Am Greta’s Clarion Call
A child of climate crisis, Greta Thunberg has become a champion in search of solidarity to reclaim our future. And the new documentary I Am Greta is her statement of purpose.
Korra, Uncensored
The most powerful woman on television is back on television, where she belongs. We need her, more than ever.
Nuclear’s Environmental Injustice
It is long past time to defund and disempower the nuclear industry.
Its weaponization of the renewable energy movement has no place among those committed to unplugging the climate crisis that has brought us to brink of annihilation.
Goodbye, The Beatles (Again)
Fifty years ago, The Beatles tragically left us, after changing the world for almost a decade. And what they left us with, like much of what they made, sequenced the genes for the recombined culture to come.
Cli-Fi: Merry Christmas, Peace On Earth
Harman’s animated anti-war masterpiece is both a harrowing and instructive climate fiction about what happens when humanity pushes itself and its planet (and that planet’s myriad species) to the brink of extinction.
Legend of Korra, Reanimated
Once upon a time, The Legend Of Korra’s feminist, elemental superhero was one of the most powerful on television. Male, or female, or other, and/or another.
Miyazaki’s Rewarding, Rebellious Ronja
Miyazaki is a name, and a legend, not to be taken lightly. This historical truth alone is worth a viewing of Goro Miyazaki’s Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter, a rewarding animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s fantastic coming-of-age cli-fi.
Rest In Peace, Richard Williams
While so many of us may remember the pathbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit, how many of us remember the relentless Richard Williams himself, the iconoclastic animator who influenced so many, while somehow remaining a secret?
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: 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.
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.
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.
Happy Birthday, Batman
…the dark cipher who rises with our aspirations and sinks with our capitulations
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.