Hotel Transylvania: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - Being completely honest, I grew up rather sheltered in terms of my exposure to Halloween or horror monsters. I do, however, remember my father accidentally recording a 1980s Dracula film on a VHS at work, when he had meant to record some Disney shorts for us kids growing up. I can't recall which Dracula film it was, but after having watched it a few times as a six-year old, my parents finally discovered it and promptly did away with it. Even today, I've never been much of one for horror films, but more recently, I've been growing more curious about exploring the back stories to some of the most famous horror villains like Dracula, Frankenstein, and so forth. Hotel Transylvania looked rather amusing when I first heard about it coming out, and in the spirit of the Halloween season, I decided to give it a look.

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Wreck-It Ralph: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - In my memory, I distinctively remember the day when my family bought our first personal computer. I was about five years old, I believe, and I remember having been at a family friend's house several weeks previous and they had showed us kids the computer games that could be played on such systems. Several years later, I was first introduced to Pac-Man on an arcade system at church. From a young age, video games have played a large role in expanding my imagination. In more recent years, however, there simply hasn't been enough time to fiddle around with them any more, plus with how realistic and graphic many of them are today, they no longer provide for a brief moment of immersive escapism as they once did. I always appreciated the clear distinction between reality and fantasy, which has been blurred so much in video games today. Nevertheless, when I first heard about Wreck-It Ralph earlier this year and saw the promotional trailer featuring many of the villains of an era of gaming gone by, it immediately struck the nostalgia nerve in my heart.

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Ice Age: Continental Drift: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - When I first saw Ice Age back in 2002, I would never have guess that 10 years down the road, we'd be on the 4th instalment of the series. Apparently everybody loved these movies and I didn't know it. The third film is even in the list of the top 10 highest grossing animated movies list, which was a surprise to me, though with that knowledge it is no surprise that there they have made a fourth. I guess it makes sense, since this is Blue Sky Studios' bread and butter and their only main franchise that can compete with the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks, even though their movie Rio was a big hit last year too, apparently. I'm glad that another studio is in the race though; it makes for a more even playing field.

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Brave: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - It’s hard to go wrong with Pixar, and I was rather delighted to see an advanced screening of their newest gem. I’d seen a teaser trailer, but all that really revealed to me was that there was a fiery red-haired Scots girl who is temperamental and amazing at archery. It left me curious as to what the meat of the movie was.

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Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - With Pixar films regularly blowing audiences away with cutting edge graphics, tight writing, and touching characterizations, it can be really easy to overlook other CG cartoon features. Even Disney’s own CG releases have been pretty forgettable. DreamWorks’s Madagascar series was no exception. Sure, it made oodles of money, but I found the first movie to be okay at best, and the second movie to be mediocre (and that animated series is hardly a gem). So my expectations weren’t high for this, the third installment in the movie franchise.

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