MorphToons: June 2015
I kicked off my first month as Cartoon Brew’s associate editor with an exclusive on the late, great John Lennon.
film that matters
Cli-Fi: Peace On Earth’s Intertextual Extinction
Adults and children rarely see the Real World as it is, much less as it should be. If what they see is what makes them who they are, then they should watch Peace On Earth before every new year.
The Squirrel King Aims For All-Ages Artcraft
In our hypermediated millennium, it’s often (way) too easy to watch rather than make. The Squirrel King wants you to do both.
Four Things You Should Know About Your Third Eye
Located in nearly the direct center of the brain, the tiny pinecone-shaped pineal gland, which habitually secretes the wondrous neurohormone melatonin while we sleep at night, was once thought to […]
Goro Miyazaki’s Anxiety of Animation Influence
My father’s generation lived through and after the war, and basically had nothing. They forged their paths with their own hands, and created their whole world themselves.
Bilbo the Billionaire: A Short History of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Greed Wars
J.R.R. Tolkien legendarily wrote In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, one Oxford summer while “laborious[ly]” grading papers for some always welcome side money. Both of us, he could have added, will be stinking rich someday.
Cli-Fi: Why Isn’t Chasing Ice Up For An Academy Award?
“A nomination would be an incredible longshot. But our hope is that it would bring a lot of significant attention to climate change, because this is the issue of our time.”
Exclusive: My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields Reflects On Arrogance, Confidence
“Funnily enough, we’re written about in a much more accurate way now than at the time, when it was just underwater guitar, millions of overdubs and mumbled vocals.”
Exclusive: Beautiful Noise Hits Kickstarter
“It has been a long road but this seems to be the only path forward.”
What The Force? Disney Can Protect Star Wars, Says Fandom, George Lucas
Can an independent visionary who created a vast sci-fi entertainment multiverse really think that a pop-culture multinational can better protect his brainchild? You bet your asteroids, kid. And he’s not alone.
Novel Approach: 10 Book-Based Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film Standouts
Transforming transfixing genre fiction into memorable cinema is no simple task.
Exclusive: Pinback’s Spacey Sherman
Pinback’s Rob Crow and Zach Smith touch down on a prehistoric planet in the new music video, “Sherman.”
Exclusive: Boots Riley Brings a Guillotine to Oz
The Coup‘s frontman is looking for our nation’s heart and power, as the 2012 general election nears.
We Are Bilbo, Heading Off To Perpetual War
It is no irony that Jackson’s cinematic adaptations of Tolkien’s work have arrived in a world at war
Geek The Beatles: Magical Mystery Tour Reboots For Millennials
One man’s crap made-for-TV movie becomes another fan’s Pythonesque art trip, and the popular tastes of the ensuing decades makes up the difference. Who’s your Walrus now?
Exclusive: Frankenweenie Reanimates Vincent Price
Price’s influential spirit inhabits some small or large part in almost everything Tim Burton has ever made.
David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis Mantra: Let It Express Itself
“It’s different if I’m writing something original, but when I’m adapting these novels I’m attracted to them for what they are, not how I’m going to squish them.”
Geek The Beatles: Yellow Submarine Plays Lead On Psychedelic Animation Classics
Even The Beatles, who were descending into bitter dissolution and didn’t even record their voices for the film, were ultimately swayed by its animated ambition. And they weren’t alone.
Nine Earth Day Films That Will Make You Think
From rapidly acidifying oceans and shortsighted deforestation to perpetually pollutive wars and the propping up of obsolete markets, Earth is taking killer blows that we’re going to seriously regret delivering.
Norwegian Wood Mashes Beatles, Radiohead, Revolution
Beatles geeks, Occupy populists and postmodern fiction nerds should merge sweetly, and sourly, in Norwegian Wood, director Tran Anh Hung’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s 1987 novel.
Director Brad Bird On The Iron Giant, Animation And His Fist Live-Action Film
I love that The Iron Giant has had a resilient afterlife. It was kind of rough when the film came out, because we all worked really hard on it. No one really seemed to know what it was when it was released, and not that many saw it in theaters.
Greatest Supervillain? No Joke, It’s the Joker
Happy Halloween! Looking for a nicely timed freakout?
Martin Scorsese Documents George Harrison’s Material World
Living in the Material World explores the so-called quiet Beatle‘s storied career using previously unseen archival materials and movies, as well as revealing interviews with Paul McCartney, Terry Gilliam, Eric Clapton and more.
Nuclear Cinema: Ten Prescient Meltdowns
Fukushima and worse could have been avoided if the public and proper authorities would have just watched the following 10 destabilizing cinema and documentary meltdowns.
Adam Curtis’ Killing Machines of Loving Grace
Humanity now sees through the dead eyes built into the machines to which we have ceded our lives.