Tag: trap doors

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Shaun the Sheep
The Beast
of Mossy Bottom

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom

Directors – Steve Cox, Matthew Walker – 2026 – UK – Cert. U – 80m

*****

When the sheep’s pumpkin patch is damaged, Shaun invents a regenerative potion, which the farmer later uses as hair restorer by mistake… – out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 18th

As Halloween approaches iin Mossy Bottom, the farmer (non-verbal voice: John Sparkes) would like nothing more than to invite the lady vet (non-verbal voice: Nina Sosanya) to the Halloween Hoedown, for which his two tickets have just arrived in the post. When she turns up to give injections to the sheep, who are hiding ineffectively in the barn, he keeps getting prevented from asking her by being draged around the farm by Bitzer his dog (non-verbal voice: also John Sparkes). It later turns out she too has two tickets and plans to invite him, but is similarly prevented by various incidents.

Meanwhile, unearthly apparitions – mysterious eyes appearing on a signpost – are revealed as Shaun (non-verbal voice: Justin Fletcher) and fellow sheep having put up a false background of the rural view behind the sign, to keep the farmer’s prying eyes away from their prized, secret Halloween pumpkin patch.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The King and the Mockingbird
(Le Roi et L’Oiseau)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014.

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi et L’Oiseau)

Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m

UK release date 11/04/2014

*****

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m

UK release date 18/04/2014

*****

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu, 風立ちぬ)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 2013 – Japan – Cert. PG – 126m

UK release date 09/05/2014

****

Animation is all-too often regarded – if not dismissed – as a children’s medium, yet it’s no more (or less) so than live action. Animated features aimed at a grown-up audience are rare. Incredibly, three are released this month.

The first, The King and the Mockingbird (1980), originally released here thirty years ago as The King And Mr. Bird and known equally by its French title Le Roi et L’Oiseau, may contain nothing you wouldn’t want children to see but is actually a remarkable fable about overcoming a totalitarian regime. Considered among the greatest animated films ever made, it’s a major influence on Miyazaki (see below). This labour of love by director/animator Paul Grimault, based on a poetic screenplay by Jacques Prévert (Les Enfants Du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945) deals with a despotic king in a towering castle festooned with trap doors which he uses to dispose of anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014.

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi Et L’Oiseau)

Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m

UK release date 11/04/2014

*****

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m

UK release date 18/04/2014

*****

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu, 風立ちぬ)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 2013 – Japan – Cert. PG – 126m

UK release date 09/05/2014

****

Animation is all-too often regarded – if not dismissed – as a children’s medium, yet it’s no more (or less) so than live action. Animated features aimed at a grown-up audience are rare. Incredibly, three are released this month.

The first, The King and the Mockingbird (1980), originally released here thirty years ago as The King And Mr. Bird and known equally by its French title Le Roi Et L’Oiseau, may contain nothing you wouldn’t want children to see but is actually a remarkable fable about overcoming a totalitarian regime. Considered among the greatest animated films ever made, it’s a major influence on Miyazaki (see below). This labour of love by director/animator Paul Grimault, based on a poetic screenplay by Jacques Prévert (Les Enfants Du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945) deals with a despotic king in a towering castle festooned with trap doors which he uses to dispose of anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Wind Rises
(Kaze Tachinu,
風立ちぬ)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014.

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi Et L’Oiseau)

Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m

UK release date 11/04/2014

*****

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m

UK release date 18/04/2014

*****

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu, 風立ちぬ)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 2013 – Japan – Cert. PG – 126m

UK release date 09/05/2014

****

Animation is all-too often regarded – if not dismissed – as a children’s medium, yet it’s no more (or less) so than live action. Animated features aimed at a grown-up audience are rare. Incredibly, three are released this month.

The first, The King and the Mockingbird (1980), originally released here thirty years ago as The King And Mr. Bird and known equally by its French title Le Roi Et L’Oiseau, may contain nothing you wouldn’t want children to see but is actually a remarkable fable about overcoming a totalitarian regime. Considered among the greatest animated films ever made, it’s a major influence on Miyazaki (see below). This labour of love by director/animator Paul Grimault, based on a poetic screenplay by Jacques Prévert (Les Enfants Du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945) deals with a despotic king in a towering castle festooned with trap doors which he uses to dispose of anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Castle
Of Cagliostro
(Rupan Sansei
Kariosutoro
No Shiro,
ルパン三世
カリオストロの城)

Original comic books created by Monkey Punch © Monkey Punch All rights reserved. © TMS All rights reserved.

DVD review originally published in Starlog, UK edition.

TO CATCH A THIEF

ANIME OF THE MONTH

THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO

(REG 2 DVD: ENGLISH / JAPANESE DUBBED, OPTIONAL ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

£19.99, Widescreen (1.85:1), Dolby Digital 2.0 (Manga)

One of Manga Video’s best kept secrets arrives on UK DVD. Arsene Lupin III is manga artist Monkey Punch’s descendant to Frenchman Maurice LeBlanc’s noted thief Arsene Lupin and the subject of copyright controversy in the US where the character had to be renamed Wolf or Rupan. Strong though the character may be, the factor that raises this particular film above much anime is the pedigree of writer-director Hayao Miyazaki.

© MP / T

A superb piece of genre film-making, Cagliostro allows Miyazaki to try out lots of ideas he’d rework later. Monkey Punch’s quasi‑European trappings, evidenced both here and in other Lupin III movies, are perfectly in tune with Miyazaki’s sensibilities. Fairytale plot elements concern a princess (a dead ringer for one of Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind’s characters) trapped in a tower by the evil Count Cagliostro and a castle with a 500-year-old secret (shades of Laputa‘s decaying castle in the sky). Then, for a film about a thief, there’s a surprising nod towards goodness; yet the film never becomes too lofty for its own good, being filled with such detours as banknote forgery, lethal security systems, unexpected trap doors and an impressive autogyro (Miyazaki has a reputation for strikingly designed aircraft and other flying objects).… Read the rest