N.K. Carter

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (Petrov, 1992)

I personally think A Night at the Museum would be a much more interesting film if it took place in an art museum than a history museum. Imagine a trip through the Musee D’Orsay, wherin the beloved works of Monet, Manet, Rembrant and the like suddenly sprung to life, or Degas’ delicate ballet dancers leaping […]

N.K. Carter

A Monster in Paris (Bergeron, 2012)

A Monster in Paris is a film meticulously designed for international success. The poster might as well be advertising another Dreamworks movie: bright, angular, with the usual satisfied smirks — it even proudly proclaims “from the director of Shark Tale.” The film is actually from the French production company Europa, but you’d hardly know it. There’s little evidence […]

N.K. Carter

The 2012 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films

The Academy has done great work over the past few years in expanding the reach of the Oscar-nominated short films; if you live in the right cities, they could be playing in a theater near you, and if not, most of them are available on iTunes and other digital distribution sites. I’ve been watching the […]

N.K. Carter

The Secret World of Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2011)

The Secret World of Arrietty, the new Studio Ghibli film, isn’t really a Miyazaki, but you could easily mistake it for one. Disney’s marketing has carefully pitched the film as being “from the studio that brought you Spirited Away and Ponyo,” both Miyazakis, and it could happily fit somewhere between those films and another of […]

N.K. Carter

A Rankin-Bass Christmas

This less-than-seasonal post is brought to you by NVidia and their faulty logic boards. ————- For most Americans, stop-motion is something of a Yuletide affair. Don’t get me wrong; the surge of stop-motion in theaters lately has been extremely gratifying. Aardman Studios is stretching beyond their Wallace and Gromit brand, Laika is capitalizing on the success […]

N.K. Carter

Stumbling through the A&F Top 100: Au Hasard Balthazar

I was chastened horribly a few weeks ago when Image published its Arts & Faith Top 100 list. My grand total of films watched? Nine. I studied animation, not film in general, and that apparently has left me with severe gaps in my education. So to remedy that, I intend to take on two or […]

N.K. Carter

The Secret of Kells

The Secret of Kells is a movie full to bursting with the pure potential of animation, an aesthetic experience so impeccably designed that style and substance are indistinguishable.