The Pirates! Band of Misfits: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - I'm not going to bury any sort of lead here. I really love Aardman studios and I have since I was a kid and watched their classic Wallace and Gromit cartoons. I always admired their brilliant stop motion animation and was a little disappointed when they decided to conform to standard CG animation, even if Flushed Away was modelled after their token character designs. Still, their story telling and quirky sense of humour usually wins through and that certainly is the case with The Pirates! Band of Misfits. This also marks a return to form for the studio as they have returned to their stop motion roots, incorporating CG animation for some of the special effects only.

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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: A film review

 - Vancouver, British Columbia - The fourth installment in the Harry Potter film franchise saw the face of another new director, Mike Newell, who was best known for his films Donnie Brasco, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Mona Lisa Smile. Not the most logical choice if I had to go by the sample of work, but he was a veteran film maker and must have given the studio and J.K. Rowling a satisfying treatment to land the job and take over where Alfonso Cuarón left off with Harry Potter's bar raised surprisingly high.

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