To commemorate the abrupt passing of the trailblazing animator, Spectacle Theater offers audiences a glimmering portal into the filmmaker’s handcrafted worlds.
Animation
Posted inFilm
Signs of Chinese Animation’s Resurgence
This romantic fantasy shows that while Chinese animation still has a long way to go, it is continuing to make progress after decades of lagging behind in relevance.
Posted inArt
Modern Fables for a Dystopian World
Wong Ping’s animated films present human and animal characters as psychologically complex, as well as fallible and unable to fully control their lives and desires.
Posted inArt
Remembering Richard Williams, the World’s Greatest Animator
The genius behind Roger Rabbit and The Thief and the Cobbler brought an unprecedented three-dimensional feeling to traditional animation.
Posted inArt
The Breathtakingly Subtle Moments in Kyoto Animation’s Films
No terrorist attack could diminish the deeply personal work of Kyoto Animation, a firm that has always championed the sophisticated storytelling of its women animators.
Posted inFilm
A Tribute to the Millions of Lives Destroyed in the Cambodian Genocide
Filmmaker Denis Do used interviews with his mother to craft the animated film Funan, an affecting portrait of a family swept up in the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
Posted inArt
An Animated Teaching Tool That Breaks Down How Criticism and Ideology Work
“(Some of) The Mechanics of Critique” is an instructional video by Lisi Raskin that unpacks how Enlightenment Era philosophies and epistemologies affect how we engage with the world around us.
Posted inArt
Hidden Animated Gems You Can Stream This Month
For this month’s streaming recommendations, we’ve gathered a selection of animated films, many of which are out of print and only available online.
Posted inArt
A Hand-Painted Animation Tells a Moving Story About Depression
Suzan Pitt’s Joy Street is strikingly unpretentious and emotionally frank — refreshing in an art world that is often emotionally detached and intellectually cool.
Posted inArt
A Feminist Animation Festival Launches in Los Angeles
The Association of Hysteric Curators has organized the Soft Bytes animation festival, featuring the work of dozens of artists.
Posted inArt
Remembering Studio Ghibli Co-Founder Isao Takahata, Who Imbued Animation with Emotion
Takahata’s genius lay in his effortless ability to portray the mundane — something not often associated with the motion-focused energy of animation.
Posted inFilm
This Year’s Oscar-Nominated Shorts Are Slam Dunks
From a film on basketball legend Kobe Bryant to an adaptation of Roald Dahl poems, this is the first crop of nominees in many years without a single dud.