"Klaus" is (half) a masterpiece...

Our resident animation expert will be looking at several of the movies vying for a nomination in Best Animated Feature. First up, a Christmas movie.

by Tim Brayton

The new animated feature Klaus is being pulled in a lot of directions. It's the directorial debut of Sergio Pablos, a former Disney animator who splits time between Hollywood projects (as screenwriter, he created the Despicable Me franchise) and nurturing his own company, SPA Studios, based in his hometown of Madrid. It's also the first animated feature produced by Netflix, which has been making sure to emphasize that fact in all of its marketing efforts. And it's not just any old Netflix production: this is part of the streaming service's increasingly deep bench of Christmas-themed movies.

It's hard not to think about this while one is watching the movie. Depending on how you approach it, Klaus is either a masterpiece, or a frankly irritating collection of tin-eared dialogue, odd casting choices, and dated clichés of kids' movie screenwriting...

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Charlize Theron is always correct

Mondays amirite? pic.twitter.com/FNz38dguZb

— Charlize Theron (@CharlizeAfrica) November 11, 2019

Ford v Ferrarri wins the weekend box office race

Weekend Box Office [UPDATED WITH ACTUALS] Nov 15th-17th 🔺 = New or Expanding / ★ = Recommended
W I D E	PLATFORM / SPECIALTY TITLES
FORD V FERRARI	PARASITE
1 🔺  FORD V FERRARI  $31.4 *new* REVIEW, PODCAST ★	1 🔺 PARASITE $1.8 on 620 screens (cum. $14.4) PODCAST, CLASS THEMES, BONG JOON HO ★
2 MIDWAY $8.5 (cum. $34.8) *	2 🔺 BETTER DAYS $328k on 88 screens (cum. $1.6)

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Best of the "Whodunnit?" Genre (Part Three)

Part One Gosford Park, etcetera
Part Two The Maltese Falcon, etcetera
...and now we conclude the countdown of the best whodunnits in honor of the impending release of the all star mystery Knives Out.

by Eurocheese

2. Memento
I know Christopher Nolan isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – fair enough. Whodunnits are essentially excuses to get inside the head of a killer. To start with a murder, realize the killer can’t trust his own thoughts , and try to put together who is pulling the strings in his mind… what an impressive conceit to thrill die hard mystery fans. Disorienting the audience in every scene while cutting in clips of a paranoid, trapped man trying to piece together his memories, without giving anything away? I have to believe Agatha Christie herself would applaud the finale...

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The Little Mermaid - She's gotta have it!

For the 30th anniversary of The Little Mermaid I wanted to reshare this piece I wrote about the movie ages ago. Still one of my favourite essays - Nathaniel R

The Little Mermaid (1989)  | Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker Screenplay by Roger Allers, Ron Clements, and John Musker (very loosely based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale) | Music by Alan Menken Lyrics by Howard Ashman | Starring the Voices of: Jodie Benson, Pat Carroll, Kenneth Mars and Samuel E Wright | Production Company Walt Disney | Released 11/17/1989

American members of Generation Y or Z and beyond may have a good deal of trouble imagining this but it's true: once upon a time, animated movies were considered highly uncool. They were strictly for babies. Teenagers disdained them. Adults took their children under duress. They barely caused a ripple at the box office. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences ignored them. CGI was not part of the national vernacular. Strange but true.

In a very short window of time, from November 1989 through February 1992, three major events changed modern perceptions of the animated film in a gargantuan way. Let's take them in reverse order: The third big-bang was the moment when Beauty & the Beast (1991) was nominated for six Oscars including Best Picture, the first time that a cartoon had received that pinnacle mainstream honor. The middle part of the three-part revolution was when hipster American audiences began to discover that there was more to the form than Walt Disney. Katsuhiro Ôtomo's Japanese sci-fi spellbinder Akira was the key that opened the door for anime, now very big and influential business in America. But the first key event in animation's rebirth (stateside at least) was the release of Disney's "28th animated classic" The Little Mermaid; an orgasmic reawakening of the most flexible and fantastical of film mediums...

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