REVIEW - FINDING DORY (ANGUS MACLANE AND ANDREW STANTON)

Though the days when Pixar made one masterpiece of artistry after another may now be gone, and though its recent rate of producing animated classics may be poor, even today there are few who'd dispute the studio's astonishing ability in filmmaking. These folks know how to tell a story; Finding Dory is no masterpiece of artistry, nor is it an animated classic, but it's funny, touching, beautifully animated, and just about idiosyncratic enough to save face when set against its justly celebrated predecessors. Most pertinent of those predecessors is obviously 2003's Finding Nemo - what this film needs for structural stability and overall uniqueness, that film needed for emotional depth and tonal inhibition, and thus Dory makes for an equally satisfying swim, and a worthy sequel in spite of the 13-year gap (entirely imperceptible in watching). The four-strong writing team doesn't attempt to render their story - with its shift in perspective from Nemo's plight and his father's rescue mission to Dory's quest - particularly relevant to the first film's, though the two cross paths early on. Instead, they focus almost wholly on their new narrative, albeit with numerous diversions due to our protagonist's thorough lack of focus. This gives Finding Dory a vital sense of purpose and identity (a characteristic of all Pixar sequels); it also places huge faith in the legitimacy of this new central character and the audience's attachment to her. Dory is as dotty and as charming as ever, and Ellen DeGeneres' voice performance as enjoyable. With a general increase in comedy, this is a film defined by affable abandon, with Dory at its heart. But that heart is also heavier this time, and Dory packs an emotional punch that's absent from Nemo; as someone living with a permanent mental condition myself, it struck an acute chord with me. A slow opening act aside, this film swiftly settles into a lovely groove and earns its place in the Pixar pantheon.

REVIEW - PIPER (ALAN BARILLARO)

Trust Pixar to put a smile on your face. That seems to be the mandate for the animation studio's short films, and it's one which Alan Barillaro follows, perhaps a little too closely, in Piper. Barillaro is one of the most talented animators at the studio, and his skill for design is matched by his team's execution - this is extraordinary animation by any standards. Photoreal images in astonishing detail, accentuated by a colour scheme that's as realistic as it is aesthetically pleasing. If nothing else (and, thankfully, that's not the case), Piper is a most wondrously beautiful film. The decision to resist anthropomorphism of the animal characters, thus allowing Piper to adhere to a time-tested tradition of dialogue-free short features, is a wise one, only contributing to the characterization of these creatures enacting their lives as nature dictates. That decision doesn't permeate too deeply, however, and while a tendency toward cuteness (and cutesiness) is largely earnt and wholly excusable, it feels like an easy cop-out. Even with these CGI capabilities, no-one's necessarily expecting documentary realism from a Pixar short, but each and every concession toward appeasing the pre-school target demographic amounts to a betrayal of the film's artistic achievements, albeit merely a small betrayal. And indeed, it all puts a smile on your face. That's Piper's mandate, and one which it fulfills wholeheartedly.

FINDING DORY: TRAILER #3

Drag SeaWorld! Drag it to the bottom of the ocean and let it drown! Much as I, unlike many, do not consider Finding Nemo to be among Pixar Animation Studio's best works, it's nevertheless a lovely adventure movie, so my hopes and expectations are understandably high for the sequel, Finding Dory. Pixar are being their usual irritating selves with the release date strategy, though: out on the 17th of June in the US and on the 29th of July in the UK. Check out the first and second trailers for Finding Dory too.

NEW TRAILER FOR FINDING DORY

Pixar looks to bounce back from the underperformance of last year's The Good Dinosaur with Finding Dory - the sequel to one of their most popular films, 2003's Finding Nemo. With the exceptional popularity of their other film from last year, Inside Out, still in the minds of audiences, however, this film ought to have no problem in hitting high numbers at the box office when it's released in the US on the 17th of June. UK release date will be the 29th of July.

INSIDE OUT SWEEPS THE ANNIE AWARDS

The Academy didn't see fit to give Inside Out the same treatment they've given other, equally-successful, equally-acclaimed Pixar films in recent years, fobbing it off with two token nominations. At least Annie voters saw some sense, handing it out 10 awards from its 14 nominations; double noms in some categories mean that Inside Out misses only one potential win, taking every single other. While this does mean that other, deserving titles have slim pickings to choose from, I'm not complaining - this from the once-DreamWorks-dominated group that gave Kung Fu Panda every award it could find, snubbing WALL-E in the process. Pixar may be no underdog, but I was always rooting for it anyway. Here are their nominations, and below, their awards:

Best Animated Feature

Inside Out

Outstanding Directing in an Animated Feature Production

Pete Docter (Inside Out)

Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production

Phyllis Smith (Inside Out)

Outstanding Writing in an Animated Feature Production

Josh Cooley, Pete Docter and Meg LeFauve (Inside Out)

Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production

Tony Rosenast (Inside Out)

Outstanding Editorial in an Animated Feature Production

Kevin Nolting (Inside Out)

Outstanding Production Design in an Animated Feature Production

Ralph Eggleston (Inside Out)

Outstanding Animated Effects in an Animated Production

Michael Hall, Stephen Marshall, Michael K. O'Brien, Jon Reisch and Magnus Wrenninge (The Good Dinosaur)

Outstanding Animated Effects in a Live Action Production

Florent Andorra, Michael Balog, George Kaltenbrunner and Jim van Allen (Avengers: Age of Ultron)

Outstanding Music in an Animated Feature Production

Michael Giacchino (Inside Out)

Outstanding Character Animation in an Animated Production

Allison Rutland (Inside Out)

Outstanding Character Animation in a Live Action Production

Kevin Lan, Adrian Millington, Alexander Poei, Matthew Shumway and Blaine Toderian - 'Judy' (The Revenant)

Outstanding Character Design in an Animated Feature Production

Albert Lozano and Chris Sasaki (Inside Out)

Best Animated Feature - Independent

The Boy and the World

Best Student Film

Ed (Taya Neyestani)

Best Animated Short Subject

World of Tomorrow (Don Hertzfeldt)

Best Animated Special Production

He Named Me Malala

ST. LOUIS FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION AWARDS: SPOTLIGHT WINS BEST FILM

The St. Louis Film Critics Association has announced its award winners for the year! Tom McCarthy's Spotlight wins Best Film, Director and Original Screenplay on another potential stop on the way to Oscars in the same three categories. The Revenant makes a good showing too over a number of awards, but Pixar's Inside Out takes the runner-up slot for the top award. Have a look at St. Louis' nominations at this page, and their winners and runners-up below:

Best Film

1. Spotlight

2. Inside Out

Best Director

1. Tom McCarthy (Spotlight)

2. George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road)

Best Actor

1. Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant)

2. Ian McKellen (Mr. Holmes)

Best Actress

1. Brie Larson (Room)

2. Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn)

Best Supporting Actor

1. Sylvester Stallone (Creed)

2. Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies)

Best Supporting Actress

1. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina)

2. Rooney Mara (Carol)

Best Original Screenplay

1. Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer (Spotlight)

2. Alex Garland (Ex Machina)

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Drew Goddard and Andy Weir (The Martian)

2. Nick Hornby and Colm Toibin (Brooklyn)

Best Cinematography

1. Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant)

2. Edward Lachman (Carol)

Best Editing

1. Margaret Sixel (Mad Max: Fury Road)

2. Stephen Mirrione (The Revenant)

Best Art Direction

1. Colin Gibson (Mad Max: Fury Road)

2. Judy Becker (Carol)

=  Francois Seguin (Brooklyn)

=  Eve Stewart (The Danish Girl)

Best Visual Effects

1. Mad Max: Fury Road

2. The Walk

Best Score

1. Ennio Morricone (The Hateful Eight)

2. Michael Giacchino (Inside Out)

Best Soundtrack

1. Love & Mercy

2. Straight Outta Compton

Best Song

1. 'Writing's on the Wall' (Spectre)

2. 'See You Again' (Furious 7)

Best Animated Film

1. Inside Out

2. Anomalisa

=  The Good Dinosaur

=  The Peanuts Movie

Best Documentary

1. Amy

2. The Look of Silence

Best Foreign Language Film

1. Goodnight Mommy

2. Son of Saul

Best Comedy Film

1. Trainwreck

2. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Best Scene

1. 'Hugh is mauled by a grizzly' (The Revenant)

2. 'The walk between the Two Towers' (The Walk)

Worst Film

1. Fantastic Four

2. Aloha

2015 ANNIE AWARD NOMINATIONS - PIXAR LEADS WITH TWO MOST-NOMINATED FILMS

Surprising no-one, Pixar Animation Studios takes prominence with the 2015 Annie Award nominations. Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur claim the most and the second-most mentions, respectively, leaving rival studios in the dust! Breaking with tradition, the year's sole DreamWorks Animation production, Home, barely registers with voters. Among other things, these nominations seem to confirm that there's considerable love in the animation community for Aardman's Shaun the Sheep Movie, and deservedly so. Winners will be announced on the 6th of February. All the nominations below:

Best Animated Feature

Anomalisa

The Good Dinosaur

Inside Out

The Peanuts Movie

Shaun the Sheep Movie

Outstanding Directing in an Animated Feature Production

Roger Allers (Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet)

Mark Burton and Richard Starzak (Shaun the Sheep Movie)

Pete Docter (Inside Out)

Raul Garcia (Extraordinary Tales)

Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman (Anomalisa)

Steve Martino (The Peanuts Movie)

Yonebayashi Hiromasa (When Marnie Was There)

Outstanding Voice Acting in an Animated Feature Production

Pierre Coffin (Minions)

Alex Garfin (The Peanuts Movie)

Jon Hamm (Minions)

Tom Kenny (The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water)

Jennifer Jason Leigh (Anomalisa)

Hadley Belle Miller (The Peanuts Movie)

Amy Poehler (Inside Out)

Phyllis Smith (Inside Out)

Outstanding Writing in an Animated Feature Production

Mark Burton and Richard Starzak (Shaun the Sheep Movie)

Josh Cooley, Pete Docter and Meg LeFauve (Inside Out)

Yonebayashi Hiromasa (When Marnie Was There)

Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Feature Production

Enrico Casarosa, Tony Rosenast and J. P. Vine (The Good Dinosaur)

Habib Louati (Minions)

Bill Presing (The Good Dinosaur)

Tony Rosenast (Inside Out)

Antonio Santamaria (Extraordinary Tales)

Shi Do Mee (Inside Out)

Mike Smukavic (Hotel Transylvania 2)

Rosana Sullivan (The Good Dinosaur)

Outstanding Editorial in an Animated Feature Production

Jennifer Dolce (Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet)

Garret Elkins (Anomalisa)

Sim Evan-Jones (Shaun the Sheep Movie)

Kevin Nolting (Inside Out)

Outstanding Production Design in an Animated Feature Production

Ale Abreu (The Boy and the World)

Sharon Calahan, Bryn Imagire, Harley Jessup, Noah Klocek and Huy Nguyen (The Good Dinosaur)

Jason Carpenter (He Named Me Malala)

Ralph Eggleston (Inside Out)

Eric Guillon (Minions)

Gavin Lines and Matt Perry (Shaun the Sheep Movie)

Emil Mitev (Home)

Outstanding Animated Effects in an Animated Production

The Good Dinosaur

Home

Hotel Transylvania 2

Inside Out

Minions

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water

Outstanding Animated Effects in a Live Action Production

Avengers: Age of Ultron

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Jurassic World

The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials

Outstanding Music in an Animated Feature Production

Carter Burwell (Anomalisa)

Jeff Danna and Mychael Danna (The Good Dinosaur)

Emicida, Ruben Feffer, GEM Grupo Experimental de Musica and Gustavo Kurlat (The Boy and the World)

Michael Giacchino (Inside Out)

Kevin Riepl (Batman Unlimited: Monster Mayhem)

Outstanding Character Animation in an Animated Production

Hichem Arfaoui (Minions)

B. J. Crawford (The Peanuts Movie)

Mark Donald (Home)

Mark C. Harris (The Good Dinosaur)

Travis Hathaway (Inside Out)

K. C. Roeyer (The Good Dinosaur)

Allison Rutland (Inside Out)

Outstanding Character Animation in a Live Action Production

'Azog' (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies)

'The Hulk' (Avengers: Age of Ultron)

'Indominus Rex' (Jurassic World)

'Judy' (The Revenant)

'Smaug' (The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies)

'Ultron' (Avengers: Age of Ultron)

Outstanding Character Design in an Animated Feature Production

Stephen DeStefano and Craig Kellman (Hotel Transylvania 2)

Eric Guillon (Minions)

Albert Lozano and Chris Sasaki (Inside Out)

Matt Nolte (The Good Dinosaur)

Best Animated Feature - Independent

The Boy and the Beast

The Boy and the World

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet

When Marnie Was There

Best Student Film

Can I Stay? (Ringling College)

The Casebook of Nips & Porkington (Melody Wang)

Dodoba (Lee Yon Hui)

Ed (Taha Neyestani)

Life Smartphone (Xie Cheng Lin)

Mother (Stephanie Chiew)

Nice to Meeteor You (Li Yi Zhou)

Shift (Maria Cecilia Puglesi)

Best Animated Short Subject

Carface

Dissonance

If I Was God

On Ice

Sanjay's Super Team

World of Tomorrow

Best Animated Special Production

Cobain: Montage of Heck

Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas

He Named Me Malala

I Am a Witness

Kite

Niko and the Sword of Light

REVIEW - THE GOOD DINOSAUR (PETER SOHN)

Pixar expands its repertoire with another solid animation, destined to be treasured by audiences for many years to come. The Good Dinosaur, though on balance one of the studio's lower quality features, is better analysed within the context of the Pixar canon than that of the industry as a whole; its individuality accentuated against a run of typically verbose, contemporary cartoons. This is a more plaintive and contemplative film, and the attention to detail has been most pointedly placed upon landscape design - no doubt about it, the natural and background animation in The Good Dinosaur must rank among the most accomplished in the history of film to date. Character animation is considerably more cartoonish, a wise choice that supplies a pleasant distinction between the two styles, and furthers Pixar's tradition of creating more believable characters the less realistic they're drawn. As a film about a journey home, The Good Dinosaur is structurally episodic, comprised of short segments, some with self-contained narratives within the larger one, all connected by the purpose of furthering the emotional development of Arlo, the good dinosaur of the title. It's a gentle little message movie, one whose message is less important than the particulars that inform it, and one whose finest moments occur when it forgets that message altogether: stylistic sojourns like a beautiful, bittersweet moment atop a cloud-covered mountain, a central passage where the film turns into a Western - one of Pixar's trademark genre tips - and surely the first scene you can recall where an apatosaurus goes on an accidental drug bender. Talk about expanding your repertoire!

PIXAR'S FINDING DORY - TEASER TRAILER

It's been a while since we've heard from Pixar about Finding Dory - they've had a packed (and, thus far, pretty successful) 2015, with both Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur hitting theatres worldwide. Now we have a first look at the sequel to 2003's Finding Nemo, this time focusing on Ellen DeGeneres' beloved character Dory. The film is due to be released through much of the world next June, including the US on the 17th, though a typically long wait is in store for British Pixar fans, as we'll receive Finding Dory on the 29th of July.

THE GOOD DINOSAUR - TRAILER #3

On the one hand, I kinda hate Pixar for making me cry at every single fucking one of their stupid movies. On the other hand, I can't wait to burst into years again in the middle of the fucking cinema like a total dickhead when I see The Good Dinosaur. I like how this trailer utilises dialogue and its absence, akin to the trailer version of what talkies might have been like had the evolved alongside silent movies. So sort of like what life might have been like had dinosaurs and humans co-existed! Out in North America on the 25th of November and in the British Isles on the 27th. And this isn't the first trailer, shit no - check out trailer #1 and trailer #2 as well.