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.
Reviews
Dissecting The Big Bad Fox’s Hand-Drawn Laugh-Off
In our apocalyptic epoch, sometimes you need an old-school good time grounded in the natural world. Enter The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, from the directors of the wondrous Ernest and Celestine, who I interviewed ahead of their consecutive Academy Awards nod.
Cli-Fi: 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, whose directors I interviewed ahead of their awards season tour.
Cli-Fi: 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.
Cli-Fi: We Cannot 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.
Say It Loud and Proud, Oscars: Animation Is Film
As the establishment continues to reject toxic industry, the movement to place our attention on issues worth the public’s time is reaching critical mass. And that movement will likely sweep The Breadwinner into awards season.
Swervedriver Returns To Raise Heads
One of the most underrated bands of the ’90s, Swervedriver restored its good, loud name in the ’00s and beyond. This weekend on the west coast, it performs full versions of its twin masterworks: Raise and Mezcal Head.
Guru Studio’s Aim is True
For decades, cooler-headed Canada has helped lead the way in animation innovation and mindful programming. Its rising studio Guru is carrying those goals forward, with the help of Pharrell Williams, in the fantastic new Netflix series, True and the Rainbow Kingdom.
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.
Cli-Fi: Soundgarden’s Fourth of July
For me, there’s only one song that explains the United States of America falling apart in the 21st century, and it is probably no cosmological accident that it is written by the late, great Chris Cornell and Soundgarden.
Bong Joon Ho’s Okja Animates Cli-Fi
Revolutionary filmmakers are shaping the future of cinema by analyzing our destabilized planet. Snowpiercer director Bong Joon Ho’s new vision Okja, out today from Netflix, was inspired by biodiversity at the mercy of capitalization and extinction.
The Girl Without Hands (Re)Draws The Line
Sebastien Laudenbach’s The Girl Without Hands will likely confound artistic and cultural convention, even though it’s based on a tale from The Brothers Grimm.
Cornell’s Promise Works to Protect Human Rights
Few artists have soundtracked my life like Chris Cornell. Now, from beyond an early, tragic grave, he warns Earth to rid itself of war before it is too late.
Cli-Fi: Coral Vs. Ice, We Lose
We are slaves to fossil fuels, Chasing Ice director Jeff Orlowski once told me. His new film, Chasing Coral, may find that we have also broken our (food) chains.
I’m Sorry, Chris Cornell
Today, I sit here stunned, sifting through press releases telling me what Chris — and Soundgarden, and Temple of the Dog, and Audioslave, and every other artist that Cornell’s widening influence deeply touched — have been doing for the last several years.
Cli-Fi: Tesla, Reanimated
The National Film Board of Canada is responsible for some of the finest animation the world has ever seen. It has also created world-changing documentaries exploring and analyzing how and why our world changes as it does, for better and worse.
Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth to Power
Al Gore once famously asked, “Well, what can you do?”
Here’s what.
Capitalizing, Commemorating Wonder Woman
In our world of perpetual war, creator William Moulton Marston’s subversive, aspirational Amazonian intertext has returned to the battlefront, with mainstream audiences and Wall Street earnings in mind.
Cartoon Saloon Schools St. Patrick’s Day
From director Tomm Moore’s Oscar-nominated masterpieces The Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, to director Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner and beyond into the great unknown, the indie studio that was once international animation’s best-kept secret is a secret no longer.
Cli-Fi: Seed Takes Root In The Sixth Mass Extinction
Earth seeds itself. Then we get involved. Then you get what we have, right now: An extinction. From the makers of Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us?, another exploration of an apocalypse we manufactured with our own hearts and minds.
Underwater Welder Goes Transmedia With Ryan Gosling
Jeff Lemire has been creating some of the most unique comics of the last decade. Just ask Ryan Gosling, whose interest in Lemire’s recent stunner, Underwater Welder, may bear cinematic fruit.
Trans Am Checks Into California Hotel
Nathan Means of Trans Am has been a friend to Morphizm for many years now, as a contributor as well as an interviewee. Plus, his power trio shreds. Speaking of…
Sleater-Kinney and REM Make Filthy Friends
Members from two of my favorite bands of all time, from two of the most influential bands of all time, in a new band. Yes, please.
Dark Or Light, Batman Is Our Mythic Cipher
Batman is more than capable of meeting demand across social, economic, political and cultural divides.
Shaun the Sheep Hits the Streets
A wordless wonder in the tradition of Chaplin, with an eye to rural labor and love, Aardman’s stop-motion masterpiece is for everyone, everywhere.