Mickey Mouse is an cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks.
Elizabeth Hobbs is on the 2023 Oscars shortlist for The Debutante. It’s about a young woman who befriends a hyena. They seek to shatter the norms of behavior and societal expectations in shocking, wild ways. This is an animated short that will definitely get people talking. (This Animation Scoop interview with Hobbs was conducted as […]
DreamWorks Animation has found a new sport: outperforming far more costly and heavily promoted Disney movies. As a result, the latest entry, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (PIB2 for the duration of this review), is better, livelier, and far more creative than the tedious and disappointing Disney opus Strange World. One might think this […]
Disney Junior’s new family animated series SuperKitties premieres this Wednesday January 11th at 10:30am. Episodes will also be on Disney+. Creator and executive producer Paula Rosenthal and Co-EP Kirk Van Wormer join me for a cat-tacular conversation. (This Animation Scoop Q&A was edited for length and clarity.) Paula Rosenthal: It’s really paw-some to be here! […]
New Moon is one of the 15 finalists for the 2023 Best Animated Short Film Oscar. The story is taken from “A Boy and His Soul”, a stage play by Emmy winner Colman Domingo (“Euphoria”, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”). Domingo, in such vivid and moving ways, details growing-up with his mother in Philadelphia and, specifically, […]
Lachlan Pendragon recently won a Student Academy Award for his stop-motion animation short about stop-motion animation, An Ostrich Told Me The World is Fake and I Think I Believe It. Now he’s on the 2023 Oscars shortlist as one of the 15 finalists for Best Animated Short Film honors. Pendragon, from Brisbane, Australia, made this […]
Little Nicholas: Happy As Can Be is a delightful new animated film about the characters from the iconic French children’s book series Le Petit Nicolas, and their creators, author Rene Goscinny and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempe. Little Nicholas won Best Feature at this year’s Annecy Film Festival, and it recently had its awards-qualifying theatrical run in […]
I have not seen every film based on Carlos Collodi’s 1883 Italian novel Pinnochio; the essential story has spawned countless variations and thematic similarities. In truth, I have seen six or seven, none especially notable other than the 1940 Disney animated classic, which remains the ne plus ultra of the bunch. That said, the 2022 […]
On the Oscar shortlist for the upcoming Best Animated Short Film category is Passenger (“Pasajero”), from director Juan Pablo Zaramella. A man boards a train and discovers a lot more about himself and society. This is a short about behavior, rewards, consequences and much more, as Zaramella explains. (This Animation Scoop interview was conducted as […]
Start Your Engines! The Oscar shortlist has been unveiled — 15 animated short films vying for five spots on the Academy Awards ballot. Voting takes place in mid-January, with the nominations announcement coming Jan. 24. One of the shorts in contention is Sierra, from director Sander Joon, who’s based in Estonia. It’s the story of […]
Charles Solomon’s Animation Year End Review 2022
Although he wrote them in 1859, Charles Dickens might have been thinking of animation in 2022 when he penned the celebrated lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the […]