Tag: animation

Whisper of the Heart Blu-ray Review: Clever Whisper Or Heart Related Pun

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Blu-ray Releassed on 9th January 2012

Based on the manga of the same name, Whisper of the Heart is the 1995 Studio Ghibli coming-of-age film film that is now available on Blu-ray but despite its charm and beauty, the hardcore Ghibli crowd may find themselves dissatisfied with this one.

Shizuku Tsukishima (Brittany Snow), a middle-school girl whose nose is always in a book, embarks on her first adolescent relationship with the antagonistic yet sensitive Seiji. The two inspire each other to follow their dreams but Shizuku struggles to cope when Seiji’s passion for making violins leads him to move away to Italy. Fighting with her family over her future, Shizuku is sure that if she can write a whole book by the time Seiji returns, she’ll prove to them that she has what it takes to follow her heart. Do It!

Rango Review: West Is Best

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RANGO (PG): On General Release From Friday 4th March

Gore Verbinksi, best known for the Pirates of the Caribbean series, takes his first step into the weird and wonderful world of animation and he’s taking them with the very weird and the exceedingly wild Johnny Depp. They come together once again to bring life to Rango, an animated Western for kids which for some bizarre reason is also a drama about one chameleon’s (Depp) identity crisis. These two elements don’t always sit comfortably together but it’s definitely an interesting experiment.

The film opens with Rango performing a monologue in which he reveals that he’s struggling with feeling lost and alone in what appears to be a dreamlike desert where his only friends are a wind-up fish toy and a headless Barbie. In reality, he’s a pet chameleon travelling in the back of a car which, thanks to a pesky armadillo, is thrown from the car and left to his own devices. This is one of the best openings to a film I’ve ever seen, almost on par with Toy Story 3 and that’s going some. The sun hits Rango’s terrarium as it flies through the air like a light at the end of the tunnel signals freedom, sweet and terrible freedom. Do It!