Category Archives: Amos’ Animation Appraisal

Jan Šankmajer, for those who don’t know, is a Czech surrealist who was prominent in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s revolutionising the animation world through his stop-motion work. Filmmakers from Terry Gilliam, to Lord & Miller have taken influence from Šankmajer, although the most obvious influence of his style can be seen in anything theContinue reading “Alice (1988), Jan Švankmajer’s Masterwork”

The Wind Rises was one of the first Ghibli films I saw on the big screen, I’ll be honest I can’t remember if I saw it when it first released in 2013 or if I caught it at a re-showing in the following years but it was a beautiful film to catch in the theatreContinue reading “Studio Ghibli #18: The Wind Rises (2013)”

When the news hit that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train (yes this is the full title) had overtaken Hayao Miyzaki’s Oscar-winning masterpiece Spirited Away (you can read my column on the film here) at the Japanse Box-Office, a record it had held onto for over a decade, it felt weird butContinue reading “Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train (2020), a Return to Big Screen Shonen Action”

I went into this film, despite my optimism in my Tales From Earthsea review that Gorō Miyazaki still had more to offer, with a level of trepidation. At the time I sat down to watch the film Gorō’s latest Ghibli effort, Earwig and the Witch, just received a North American release and was met withContinue reading “Studio Ghibli #18: From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)”

February 23rd 2021 will go down forever as a historic day in Music history. After 28 years of working together, and 8 years after their last album release, the electronic duo Daft Punk uploaded a video to their youtube channel entitled “Epilogue”, a 7 minute short film revealing the retirement of the duo and theContinue reading “Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003), Goodbye Daft Punk.”

I’ve cheated a little bit with Arriety…. in the sense that so far I’ve been watching or rewatching all of these Ghibli films in their original Japanese audio with subtitles. But for Arriety, despite it being a completely new first watch for me, I chose to watch the English dub due to the sheer talentContinue reading “Studio Ghibli #17: Arrietty (2010)”

As I sat down to watch this film, I checked the handy list of Studio Ghibli films I made in order to keep track of their release order and came to the realisation that this is the second-to-last Hayao Miyazaki film left to watch. Before starting this journey through Studio Ghibli’s filmography I had alreadyContinue reading “Studio Ghibli #16: Ponyo (2008)”

Disney sucks. Let’s not split hairs. In my opinion their Studio-produced, profit focused approach to filmmaking is creating a creative stranglehold that can be most prominently seen in their approach to Superhero blockbusters, but has also reared its ugly head in the rest of their creative outlets. But despite this, there has always been aContinue reading “Soul (2020), Pixar’s Delightful Return to Form”

Satoshi Kon is one of the most recognisable directors within the animation medium. He is often regarded as one of the greatest directors to work within animation and any list of great animated/anime movies would be incomplete without the inclusion of at least one of his four feature films. If you weren’t already aware KonContinue reading “Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Satoshi Kon’s Christmas Masterpiece”

We’ve all seen the clip….. We all know what I’m going to have to talk about….. Okay, here goes; Today I’m writing about Gorō Miyazaki’s debut feature film, Tales From Earthsea, a film that is generally regarded as one of the weaker Ghibli films, and there’s even (and here is where the clip comes in)Continue reading “Studio Ghibli #15: Tales From Earthsea (2006)”