Happy New Year, Sym-Bionic Titan!
What I wanted this year was one of the greatest animated series ever, created by one of the greatest animators ever, to blessedly return for a second chance at changing programming as usual.
Reviews
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.
US Residential Solar Market Hits Record High
We’re on the right track to solarization. We just need speed up the pace, brighen up this planet, and save our sorry asses.
The (Blessed) Return Of El-P
Correcting an historical injustice, El-P’s singular, relevant back catalogue will finally return to the land of material and digital reality.
DJ Shadow Chronicles Our Pathetic Age
Givng thanks on Thanksgiving for the letters DJ Shadow has been sending, explaining why and where and how the music from his latest, perhaps greatest effort, Our Pathetic Age, was born.
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.
Pixies’ Spooky, Surreal Long Rider
An evocative tale of a surfer who couldn’t resist the pull of our ocean —- to her doom. It’s a slashing anthem set to surreal visuals, filmed around the corner from where I am writing.
Ten Years After: Cli-Fi
A decade ago, I helped give birth to a movement. It doesn’t matter if anyone knows. All that matters is the movement.
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
Rest In Peace, Vertigo (Again)
When comics influential Karen Berger left DC Comics after leading its mature, visionary imprint Vertigo into the history books, I wrote at Wired that Vertigo would soon follow. I was on or off by a few years, give or take a few years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.