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Animated Movie Reviews [BATCH 3] - Elemental, Smallfoot, and More!

An hour and a half of movie reviews, most animated, some not! Includes "Elemental" and several movies about Bigfoot.

Been awhile since I did one of these! It's a big ol' batch of movie review-vies. I start a little sleepy but wake up pretty quick as I have more to say. Apologies in advance for calling Smallfoot "Abominable" like fifteen times. I had the Abominable poster up and was looking at it while talking about Smallfoot.

TIMESTAMPS (Spoilers for all movies)

2:38 - Millennium Actress (8/10)
9:18 - Abominable (6/10)
18:29 - Smallfoot (6/10)
33:10 - Elemental (5.5 /10)
55:30 - Loving Vincent (8/10)
1:01:29 - The Bob's Burgers Movie (4/10)
1:04:30 - Evil Dead (4.5/10)
1:06:07 -  Rosemary's Baby  (3/10)

(I swear I reviewed Sword of the Stranger (9/10) in there somewhere really quickly but couldn't find it while reviewing. Maybe it got deleted? It's pretty good. Like the good parts of Cowboy Bebop + Princess Mononoke fused together but in a setting where it's really cold.)

Here's the weird music in Rosemary's Baby I promised I'd link.

Any animated movies you guys want me to review? I feel like I need to relax more. It'd be good to force myself to watch more stuff.

Animated Movie Reviews [BATCH 3] - Elemental, Smallfoot, and More!

Comments

My biggest annoyance with elemental is that it’s a racism allegory that doesn’t work since it’s the damn periodic stable. Just use humans if you want to talk about it for the love that is all is holy

Damian Banning

I'm really glad to see these audio reviews return! They're honestly my favourite content you put up here, I've probably listened to all of them by now, really good to stick on to kill some time while waiting on buses.

SparklyAlex1O1

It's a rare day when someone tells me I should've ranked something even lower. Kind of refreshing.

JelloApocalypse

Evil Dead 1 is honestly one of those movies that I enjoy mostly for the love of the craft, its genuinely one of the most inspiring and inventively made movies I’ve ever seen despite the fact that the budget is so small. the gore effects and camera work are probably the gold standard of indie filmmaking to me, i think about that one shot where the camera is on the ground and you can see Bruce Campbell jumping over it all the time. its just chock full of little endearing moments like that, moments where you can see the sheer effort it took to get this thing made. even the bad acting and occasional crew member showing up in the background of a shot becomes endearing in this context. i feel like the actual movie is probably about a 6 or light 7 as it is (at least by my standards) but once I heard the commentary tracks with Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert and the other one with Bruce Campbell it shot all the way up to a 9. Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness are definitely the better movies but Evil Dead is such a marvel of filmmaking that i think anyone who even has a passing interest in how movies are made should watch and read about it.

Justice Hainsworth

Huh, surprised about Elemental getting a 5.5. I guess I really missed what people find positive about it. I could barely watch the film

Bast 13

Ok per your review of Rosemary’s Baby (I haven’t watched it but I did read the book) I completely agree. It could have been interesting but didn’t lean into any part that made it cool and the lack of groundedness with regards to the cult was boring more than scary. However, I wholeheartedly believe Ira Levin’s other gaslight book, The Stepford Wives, is exactly what you’re looking for. It has two movie adaptations I believe, one from the 70s(?) which I’ve heard is pretty good and a faithful adaptation and one from like 2004/5 which changed a specific element from the twist to make the message “different” (derogatory). Perhaps they’d make a good comparison in a later review, but honestly I’d recommend reading the book. It’s about 150 pages and it’s such a quick read I burned through it in an evening. I highly recommend it for some good feminist horror that imo Rosemary’s Baby failed to replicate.

Silas H.

I always get so taken aback when someone implies they don’t know who Bruce Campbell is

Andrew

You know what jello, you’re right, you SHOULD talk about the baccano! novels. Coincidentally, I’ve recently started reading them! Or rather, pdfs of fan translations of most of them because physical copies of early books don’t exist anymore… :( at least most of them have been pretty good (except the 4th one, that translation was garbage, but i don’t think the book would have been great anyways so I’m not missing much). I’m so jealous you have a copy of book two. Anyway you should review them all and make a big spreadsheet of your rankings, thx

PurpleIsDebeste

Thanks a ton! I ended up listening at 1x, was good but yeah 2x woulda been nicer.

DWC

Throwing out some various animated films just 'cause: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 2006 is a classic you've almost definitely seen but don't think I've heard you mention it so figured it's worth mentioning. Redline 2009 is another classic which is way better than it has any right to be. I don't think you've ever talked about Incredibles 2, to my memory. Idk if you have anything interesting to say about it, but... it sure is a film. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 2023 is also a film which exists. The Adventures of Tintin 2011 is an interesting adaptation of the classic stories written by that polish dude who was roped into making Nazi propaganda in order to survive WW2. (Tintin comics are actually pretty good outside of those "tintin helps the nazi racists" ones) Lupin III: The First 2019 has a similar animation style IIRC to the Tintin 2011 film. Speaking of Lupin III, Detective Conan (Case Closed in the USA) has a plethora of films, some of which are worth watching, some of which verymuch are not. I don't think you're particularly fond of ridiculous detective stories (which do sometimes dip their toes into moon logic) but if I'm wrong about that, there's like twenty five films you can binge pretty easily on aniwatch.to or whatever other "alternative means yar har" site you choose. ...yeah, just some random suggestions there of all varying quality. I'm sure you've seen or are aware of most if not all of those, but... :shrug:.

Finn Underwood

Might be late in saying this, but at the bottom of the post, opposite side from the like button, the three buttons have a download option.

Act One

I'd be really interested in hearing you do a more in-depth review of Satoshi Kon's 4 films. Maybe even with Jay, or someone else. And unlike Shinkai, Kon is actually telling a different story each time. Each of his film's have a different genre and narrative.

Clever Chaves

Seconding the other person who said they’d like to hear more Satoshi Kon reviews, and I’d also love to hear your thoughts on Don Hertzfeldt’s films (It’s Such a Beautiful Day and the World of Tomorrow trilogy in particular)

Luke Beeman

I do think Ira Levin's novels are all pretty interesting, even if they don't tend to adapt very well. Poor "Stepford Wives" has two adaptions, one of which is as interesting as watching paint dry and the other a ridiculous farce that borderline mocks the source material. Both Rosemary's Baby and Stepford Wives has that running through line of the horror of women being viewed as replaceable or trapped in horrific situations with a husband who resents/uses her or she gets gaslit about the horrible situations she's forced into. All very reflective of what being a wife was like for a lot of people in the 50s and 60s! They both definitely have their share of silly story elements (I haven't read Rosemary's Baby, but the old person cult is very hard to take seriously in the movie and Stepford Wives has a former Disney engineer who builds the robots that replace all the wives which I still find to be pretty silly. Like I get where he's coming from but. It's also kind of hard to swallow) but I really love the heart of the stories being about how women are almost literally objectified by the men in their lives for their own gain. As for other movies you could watch, I'd absolutely love your thoughts on all the Trolls movies! And you could so some more obscure cult classic animated movies, like The Last Unicorn or Watership Down.

Emma Breslauer

People have also had 120 years to study it intricately.

Folkloric

The Evil Dead franchise are just the joke horror movies in a sitcom's Halloween special. For animated movie recommendations... could give the Breadwinner a watch. Made by the people who did Wolfwalkers. You could watch Nimona, not perfect but a lot of fun and like... really intense at the end in a way I did not expect. I know that's a cliche when insecure children animation fans are like, "Well actually Unicorn Sparkle Tea Party is like SUPER mature and way darker than yada yada," but for Nimona, it's uhm, well if you watch it you'll see. Leo, that Adam Sandler film, is """fine""". It is pleasantly surprising only because Adam Sandler doesn't make any fatphoic, transphobic, racist, or homophobic jokes... but to give legit credit where credit is due, the scenes with Leo and the kids are usually well written and pretty wholesome. Just be prepared for boring, boring, boring and surprise musical numbers and the occasional onscreen piss (still Adam Sandler). Speaking of Adam Sandler, DO NOT watch Eight Crazy Nights. I watched it with a friend and it might actually be the worst movie I've ever seen. I say this like you've been talking about how you've been just dying to see it lol. You probably know it's awful, but like, I wouldn't even recommend watching it to make fun of it. It's that bad. The Sea Beast was pretty alright. Plot is cool... it's a bit like How to Train Your Dragon but with the Spanish Empire instead of Vikings... kinda drawing a blank for anything else so maybe that's not good.

Folkloric

I'm not a horror movie buff, but I heard of a fairly newer horror flick called They/Them (pronounced They Slash Them, witty title abmittedly). It's a lie-action LGBTQ+ themed horror film about youths at a conversion camp, tons of hate crimes and murder hijynxs ensue. The character is an enby kid played by an enby actor, hence the name of the film. I've heard middling things about it, but I was wondering if it was something you have/were interested in seeing or not.

Rhysins

I didn't even know Bob's Burgers had a movie. Most I interact with the show is it is good show to have on in the background when working on something and half pay attention to

Ignis Astrorum

I will say about evil dead, like your said it yourself, the first one is probably the worst one, ED 2 even takes its first 10-15 minutes completely retconning the story, Bruce campbell gets a lot more confident and comfortable in his role and it becomes more horror comedy than straight horror.

Drednot

On your comment about style: I don't think it's worthwhile to consider someone's style as being more or less valuable based on how easy it is to replicate. For one thing, it's going to be easier to copy a style then develop a new one. And I think treating style as a sort of lighting strike that hits an artist hides how they actually form, which I reckon is more accurately described as looking at other works, imitating stuff you love, rebelling against what you hate, and figuring out how the new mess should work. I think a more appropriate measure (outside of individual experience) is how much it expands the artform, which van Gogh seems to have done a fair bit

SinfulSloth

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xhlazuad-y4 Here’s a link of the “Im obnoxious” kid

BigMoffers

Honestly every time I come accross a charater in media that annoys me, I think about that one kid fish in finding nemo who’s introducing himself as: “I’m obnoxious!” and 99.9% percent of the time is the only thing that makes me laugh when thinking about that character

BigMoffers

Please I need the trolls 3 review

Charlie_is_Fine

"Staring Danny di- Danny day- Danny the video" lol

Drednot

Would love to see you review the new TMNT movie

TheDerpiestofDerps

Bluey is the best cartoon ever made

JelloApocalypse

I’d love to hear u review the rest of Satoshi Kon’s catalogue! Pompo the Cinephile is another excellent anime movie i think u’ll enjoy. I’d also love to hear ur thoughts on Genndy Tartokvsky’s Primal, if u haven’t seen it.

DragonRageLee

Ahhhh man I missed these, cant describe the joy I felt seeing this in my email's inbox. Keep up the great work, and I'm excited for the book club to come back with dungeon meshi next month. B)

Kelzo

Is there a download option for the audio at all? I'd like to listen at 2x speed but apparently patreon doesn't have any sort of speed parameters.

DWC

Would love to see your thoughts on The Boy and the Heron. Also - you might unironically enjoy Bluey.

omc262

I'd be curious to see your take on Leo, the Adam Sandler movie that came out recently.

Tom Anonymous

As much as I love Bob's Burgers, I cannot defend the films twist villain. Some random guy made up specifically for the movie who had two appearances in the show before the film in which he did basically nothing. The suspects for the twist villain were major character from the show, major character from the show, and random guy with no personality we've barely seen before

Luke Negus

Man I'm gonna be honest I'm tired of watching movies when everyone on my Tumblr/Twitter feed is gushing over them because there's an 80% chance I'll find them kinda mid and I'll be like "It was fine" and then people get mad at me :(

JelloApocalypse

Genuinely shocked to not see Nimona on here lol

Kompy

What a wide assortment of vastly different reviews, this is gonna be a good one!

Drednot


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