The Big Picture - The Top 10 Animated Movies of 2022 and ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’

Episode Date: January 1, 2023

Sean is joined by Charles Holmes to talk about the amazing stop-motion achievement ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’ and the best animated movies of 2022. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Charles Holmes Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Sean Fennessey and this is The Big Picture. A conversation show about animation. I don't get to talk about animated movies too much on this show, and it's been a fascinating year in that respect, from hand-drawn to digital to stop-motion. We've really gotten a bounty in 2022. So, joining me to break down the year in animation, the Midnight Boy par excellence, Charles Holmes. What's up, man? Oh, what's going on? Pew, pew. I feel like I bullied you into this episode. No, animation you did not i promise you you you did just say

though that you have been watching too damn many animated films right now in fact it's causing some some tumult in your home is that true it is it is definitely causing that i mean also it is just instructed me how much my girlfriend and I's taste is so different. Because I saw Del Toro's Pinocchio and I'm like, amazing. I love this. And she's like, the vibes are off. And she just walks away. And then when I was watching Apollo 10 and a half, she's just like, what is this movie?

She does the thing where you walk in and you stop and you just sit down. She's like, oh, I like this. And I'm just like, this needs to be over right now. I'm so upset. Is she generally a fan of animated movies? Like, will she ride with you on most of these kinds of films? She actually, during this thing, I was surprised. I didn't expect her to be like an animation person,

but it was very wild which ones caught her eye. Because some, she'd be like, I'm not watching this. This is boy stuff. And then others, she would like sit down and be like, this is interesting. Can you pause until I like get back from getting groceries and we'll finish it? So that's actually what I think is the power of animation. Depending upon how it looks, it's one of the rare mediums where people will just stop. Even if they haven't seen the whole movie and be like, let me give this a ride. Yeah, it's a good point. Let's talk about Pinocchio to start because

it's probably the noisiest animated film being released at the end of the year. It's been on Netflix for a few weeks now. It, of course, comes from Guillermo del Toro, the acclaimed Oscar winning auteur. It's been a passion project of his for many, many years. I think it took

about 14 years to ultimately get on the screen from when he first started pitching it around town. Netflix, as is their want, finally made a dream come true for a filmmaker. Um, it is of course based on Carlo Collodi's, uh, serialized kind of short story novel about a puppet who becomes a boy. Um, this is a slightly re-imagined version of the movie. As with all Guillermo del Toro movies, it's about loss of innocence.

It's about fascism. It's about the ghoulish nature of human life and how the monsters that we imagine are sometimes not nearly as monstrous as the people that we encounter in our real lives. It stars Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann, Berne Gorman, and of course, Ron Perlman, who appears in every Guillermo del Toro movie.

What'd you think of Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio? I absolutely loved it. I think I had a very similar reaction that I did to James Cameron, where I am a sucker for artists spending way too long on something that they can only see. And I had a similar experience to Way of water where i'm like where the plot and the story might have failed me the care of the visuals just seeing what's unfolding on screen was so arresting that i as a writer i'm always locked in on the story and those are two movies recently where i'm like actually maybe the craft of this is way more important. I actually, I really, really did love it. I did too.

I wonder, do you always feel that way about animation? Like, can you always be taken away and sort of forget about maybe some of the flaws in the storytelling if something just looks dynamic enough? And if so, is that something that distinguishes animated movies maybe from other kinds of movies for you? Actually, usually no. Usually because I

think that I've been so Pixar pilled where Pixar has just, they have very, they have created the myth of like, they are the gatekeepers of pure storytelling. So like when I see movies, I'm always just like, it's no toy story. You know what I mean? Just in terms of it being perfectly structured. I think with Pinocchio, what's different is as a recovering artist, myself, a visual artist, I can just tell how hard this was and how there was a moment when it all clicked, when Pinocchio comes to life, and it's so haunting. That was actually the moment when my girlfriend is like, I've had enough, where Pinocchio comes to life, and he doesn't know how to walk right away. He almost walks like a monster.

It's like a baby learning how to walk for the first time, but 1,000 times more disturbing. And I'm just like, oh, this is why Del Toro has been going on a marathon being like, I had to credit my animators as actors because what they're doing is so difficult. I was like, oh, this is it. This is exactly what he's talking about. Because a lesser Pinocchio movie, Robert Zemeckis probably isn't thinking about this. It's a very odd time for Pinocchio. You know, Zemeckis made his, I guess it's described as a live action version, but it's actually just a digitally animated new version

that features a handful of actors in it. Like Tom Hanks. Like Tom Hanks, that is like deeply misaligned. I mean, it is kind of one of the nightmare mistakes of 2022 in many, many ways. I did watch that movie and it doesn't work. I think one of the interesting

questions about del Toro's version, which we should say stop motion animation, which is this sort of painstaking animation style that features miniatures that are models that are constantly being moved frame by frame to capture a sense of motion and even the worst made stop motion animation film looks really hard to do and this might be one of

the best examples of all time in terms of the sort of elegance of movement that you see in the detail in the model making and just the kind of like there's a rhythm to a stop motion animation film that is sort of surreal and otherworldly, but also, if done well, can feel really emotionally affecting. And it's been quite a year for stop motion animation. I've been trying to figure out why that is. Maybe it's just happenstance that we got three or four real true blue examples of these kinds of films. But Pinocchio is a really odd story uh the original Disney animated version of Pinocchio is fairly upsetting um and twisted oh yeah and I think it's a little bit of a gateway drug to a kind of genre cinema or genre fiction for a lot of young people maybe they don't even realize it

I think there's a kind of subconscious when some of the boys start transforming into creatures, you know, when they've been taken away. That's like a body horror. You know, it's really a body horror story. And it may sound like I'm trying to over-intellectualize Pinocchio, but I think that that's part of the point of the original story in many ways is this sort of ghoulish transformation that can happen in the aftermath of loss. And del Toro is really well suited to a story like that.

This is a guy who loves Frankenstein. You know, there's a Frankensteinian element to the telling of the story. But he also brings in, as I said, you know, the sense of Italy and Mussolini and the rise of fascism in the first half of the 20th century, as he does in so many of his stories that kind of moment what did you think of that part of the story i love the swing i like i was just like all right this is a guy who's just like gonna go for it he's going for the home run when he could get a bunt and like just be fine i don't know if it worked and the reason i think one of the

limitations to stop motion animation like if you look at something like Wendell and Wild, which was also a Netflix type of show that movie that came out around Halloween. I think they are, they have similar problems where stop motion is so difficult to do. The run times are usually like 90 minutes, two hours if you're lucky, just because it's so painstaking. Where it's like it's very hard to fit in a very complex story in there. Just because every movement, every word that they're saying needs to be animated by hand. I mean, animation is usually in the past done by hand, but we're talking about moving lips, moving limbs. And I think something as big as fascism is almost too much to take on in a stop motion Pinocchio film where it was like some of the politics, some of the things that were happening. I was like, you could have used five

or 10 more minutes to explain this away. Am I being way too harsh? No, I don't think so. I mean, the movie already is about an hour and 45 minutes which as you said is unusual for a stop-motion animation film and i understand why this is such a meaningful subject to del toro you know if you've seen pads pan's labyrinth or the devil's backbone or any films like that you know that the kind of like echoing effect of the way that fascistic governments control their societies or attempt to control their society is like just a huge thematic note for all of del toro's work it it feels a little misplaced because pinocchio pinocchio is already so rich with themes and big

ideas that it felt a little bit like gilding the lily in terms of the storytelling i understand why why it's meaningful to him but um it's a really really interesting movie and you know amanda and i've been talking in the last few weeks about whether or not a movie like this can or should get academy awards recognition and obviously will be nominated for best animated feature i think it's probably the favorite to win at this point. But whether or not it can be a Best Picture contender is an interesting subject because there's only been a handful of animated movies that have ever been nominated for Best Picture. I know you're more of a casual Oscar observer, but what do you think?

Do you think this has a chance this year? No, absolutely. I think I'll talk about it later, but I love animation. I love animation from around the world. I'm a big anime fan. And the thing that I always ding American audiences for, and this is in our comic books, this is in our cartoons, this is in everything, is that Americans are very literal. Where I don't know if we are taught to appreciate animation. I think Disney being so all-consuming

has made animation seem lesser because people think of it not as a medium, but as the thing that you plop your kids down when they're being annoying and you need to go cook dinner. And I think because Americans are so literal, it is like, unless you are seeing animation that looks so realistic, it is essentially real,

people don't care. People will probably look at Pinocchio and be like, all right, cool, stop motion. And they'll never think about how hard it is to make or how much passion goes into these things. So I have, I really don't think. Americans barely want to celebrate Miyazaki. They're not going to celebrate Tatoru Spinochia.

Well, I completely agree with you. That's such an interesting idea to me. In fact, some of my co-hosts on this show, I think, feel similarly. They are largely unimpressed and or believe that this is just the domain of children's entertainment. And in some cases, that is true. The bulk of animated films that are released every year are primarily targeted at kids. And in some respects, Pinocchio is targeted at kids, but not really. It's a very adult film. But I want to go back to what you were just saying, which is this idea that because we

have a lack of understanding of what goes into making something like this that it's easier to dismiss. But why at this stage in, I don't know, consumptive entertainment, Avatar the Way of Water or the way that we view Thanos in a Marvel movie or any of the kind of motion capture creatures that you see in a Marvel movie, we're more willing to accept and celebrate those things as kind of legible adult entertainment

and in fact, like like care about those things almost more than anything else that's in the culture at the moment as opposed to a pinocchio or the sea beast or mad god or any number of movies that we're going to talk about here like why do you think that motion capture and digital animation in the real world films quote-unquote real world films still hold so much power as opposed to animation i think what to me when i think about the marvel movies and i know i keep bringing up cameron but he's an interesting thing where it's like when you watch way of water it is not in conversation with avengers infinity war in terms of like james cameron is looking at cg as picasso would look

at like a paintbrush he's just like i'm going to do this to the nth degree to the level to show you the beauty of this tool where with a lot of marvel movies dc movies even the star wars movies all of the cg and animation is gamified it's no different to me than playing like Grand Theft Auto. It is something where it's just like, this is in service of, I need my kick right now. And I'm not looking at how beautiful Thanos is. I'm looking at whatever Thanos does in this movie is going to make me feel good about spending $20 today. And then in a year spending another $20 to see the other half of the story where it's with animation i think it's different to really appreciate it on a certain level

you have to understand how hard it is to make how hard it is to make a pixar film how long it takes this is things that like people spend sometimes half a decade on where it's like when you sit down to your like just the hair moving cause somebody months and months of trouble and heartache that's what i love personally in my art but i don't think most people want to think about that when people go to a marvel movie or a star wars movie they're sitting down to be like the cgi is besides the point it is just there so basically i could go wow and feel good about myself and never actually have to think about all of the cg artists from this year who were very rightfully so being like hey we're vastly underpaid and this is we've had

enough most people who are not you and me don't even know that happened this year yeah they want a frictionless entertainment i can't say I blame people for wanting something like that. But acknowledging the labor and the struggle, to me, that's not the totality of the experience. That's not the number one thing that I'm looking for. But I can really appreciate it. I was just revisiting Pinocchio yesterday. And admittedly, I sound like a strange 40-year-old man

continuously discussing the work of Pinocchio. But I was re-watching this movie, and I'm looking at Geppetto in the first 20 minutes of the film. Geppetto's got a big white beard. And he walks into a room and he sits down on the bed. And I was looking closely at the animation style, and you can see the sort of bristles and the top of his mustache almost like shimmer, like bounce a little bit

when he sits down on the bed. Now, that's not something that the artists, the filmmakers had to do. That is an example of an attention to detail that doesn't make the world feel more real, but it makes it feel more considered. And that's what really matters. And I think that there is a distinction point.

There's kind of a meeting point of what you're describing, which is like the labor and hard work that goes into something, and also a kind of respect for the audience and a desire to immerse you in the world more fully that something like Pinocchio really does extraordinarily well. And that the Marvel movies, as much as I've liked them in the past, and I know you and I have been on quite a journey the last few years with Marvel, both on this pod and you on the Midnight Boys with sort of like the undulating line of quality that they've been going through, in part because of the supply chain and how quickly they're moving through the artistry

and the way that they've increased their production. And so because a lot of their stuff doesn't look as good anymore, I think our opinions are starting to waver on some of their work. You know, Pinocchio, not very many people are empowered to make something that takes this long. But when someone is empowered to do it and they do get the budget and you get the time to me if it would it's just a huge mistake to ignore it and so I'm happy to celebrate it more broadly was this a good year in your view so I think that's like a two-prong question because there's the artistry of animation and I think there's the business and And I think if you want to be positive,

I think artistically, animation couldn't be in a better space. I think Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse really energized the medium. I think because Disney was so omnipresent for so many years, you can see when it's like the Disney Renaissance and everything looks like the Lion King or the Little Mermaid. And then you have Pixar's dominance where everything

from DreamWorks to whatever have you looks like a Pixar film. What people are chasing in the medium is the Pixar eyes. How bright are the irises? How silky smooth is the hair and i think what spider verse did is it comes in and it's like hey we get these movies can look different we can actually look at what the story needs and we can change the whole way we approach this you look at something like the bad guys for dreamworks or puss in boots both movies that look wildly different than anything we've gotten in the last 10 years we talked i believe we talked about mitchell's versus the machine that's another one that seemed very indebted to this idea of everything does not have to have that pixar filter to it uh so i think like artistically all of the movies from kids movies to adult movies i was like

these look amazing i think business-wise it's like where do you want to start you had warner bros discovery purging you know over 20 animation shows bob chapek uh while he was still in power got in trouble for essentially saying that once parents put their kids to bed, they don't want to watch animation. Strange World, Lightyear, both bombed. I think business-wise, we are getting to a point where animation is in a lot of trouble, and I don't know what the future is. I completely agree with you. It's really interesting because I felt like this was, this

started to bubble in 2021 when a handful of Pixar and Disney animation films were sent straight to Disney+. Obviously, we were in the throes of the pandemic at that time. Moviegoing was much more threatened in 20 and 21. It was logical as these companies were starting to build up their streaming base

to put some new content in those spaces. I understood it. It felt like the damn burst when Turning Red was sent directly to Disney Plus earlier this year. And Turning Red a movie we'll talk about a little bit more as we get into the episode. And there was a bit of an outcry about that. In part because it felt like the box office had returned around that same time the bad guys was released in movie theaters and was sort of a surprise success um and i think chapek took a lot of heat for that understandably as he was trying to kind of meet the demands of the stock

market and also fans of animated films and it felt like a critical turning point the failure of strange world which we haven't discussed in this show. The guys on The Watch actually have talked about it a time or two thus far. But the failure of that movie is kind of shocking. There have been very, very few films in Disney animation history that have tanked like that. And I don't know.

I assume you've seen the film. I have not yet because here's the thing. There you go. That's what happened charles but here's the thing bob chapin made me comfortable with being like this will be on disney plus on like christmas i'm like cool when my like little baby nephews and cousins come over i will probably watch strange world with them i probably had the same thing like you're a parent now at a certain point are you like am i going to pay money to go see this or am i just gonna wait the month month and a half

for this to just hit disney it's a it's a really really good question i'm not yet at the place where i'm taking my daughter to movies but i probably will be in a year or two and how we go about that experience is will be pretty interesting i mean i'm fortunate to be invited to a lot of screenings and one of the nice things that a lot of the animation studios do is they'll invite people to screenings and you can bring your kid along which i i always really appreciate some of the disney premieres actually i think i mentioned this on a show in the past um at the el capitan if you there'll be like an 11 a.m sunday screening that'll be for critics and industry people and also just tons of kids there. So that's a nice thing.

But I'm in a fortunate position. I don't have to necessarily think about, you know, are we going to pay the 40 or 50 bucks it costs to get into the movie theater that day? Or do I have to count on my kid being able to sit through it? And also, is that even a good use of a Saturday afternoon if six weeks later that film is going to be available at home? And also, how will she view expectation? If she sees a commercial on TV or, you know, an advertisement on Disney+, will she say, you know, I want to see that now? The level of expectation has shifted so radically. I remember when I was a kid, you know, I was growing up in the sort of the heart

of the new golden age of Disney animation, you know, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin and The Lion King. That's sort of, I was eight, nine, ten years old when those films were coming out. And I mean,

every one of those films was like the Super Bowl times ten. I mean, the way that those films were marketed and promoted, the way that they synergized every aspect of the release between the soundtracks and, you know,

the like Halloween costumes and the way that they made those characters a part of your life. And if you went to McDonald's, the way that they were thrust in your face and the Timon and Pumbaa

Happy Meal toys, like that stuff was so powerful. And a movie like Strange World, it shouldn't be too far away from that experience, but I don't think I, I saw Strange World and I liked it actually, but I don't think I can remember one character's name. And I certainly don't feel like I've been having that world shoved down my

throat since the film came out. Now, some of that might be the product of an ever more overstuffed cultural universe in which people can be much more a la carte. They don't, you don't have to accept that Timon and Pumbaa are a part of the cultural fabric because we have much more to choose from these days. But it's been remarkable to watch something like that have its impact significantly lessened because the truth is, Charles, as I am fond of saying on this show, watching it at home is just not as powerful like I seeing strange world on the big screen the animation that film was gorgeous the the sort of

visualization the inspiration that it gets from sort of like Fantastic Planet and all these incredible 1950s science fiction movies that's not going to come across when you're watching it with your nephews and nieces on a 28 inch television on a holiday when everybody's running around and cooking and eating cookies and opening presents like it's not the same, man. Well, can I ask you this? Because I think you're about to be in this zone. So maybe we'll talk about it in a year or two, but do children now even get the distinction between these films? Because when I was a kid, there was a feeling of the Disney Renaissance, and I knew what was happening with the Disney Renaissance was different from Pixar.

Pixar was a thing. When Pixar came out with the movie, it is like, even into my teens, I was in high school and it would be like, all right, Pixar has a new movie. Me and my friends are just going to go see it because it's Pixar.

And then you add the Shrek films and all of these different films. Like I could tell the difference when it was DreamWorks versus Pixar versus this and versus that. And I'm like, Pixar has been kind of kneecapped to such an extent with the pandemic. Disney Animation just had Strange World flop. It's not a Moana. It's not an Encanto.

Like I'm wondering, do kids even have that feeling anymore? Or can they even, do they even know that Minions is made by someone different than, you know, the people who made Moana? So over the summer, I went to North Carolina on a family vacation. I hadn't seen a number of members of my family since the pandemic had started. And we all stayed in a house in North Carolina. It was a really fun vacation there were nine children under the age of five all staying in this house this was a that sounds like mad it was it was let me put it this way while it was a lot of fun it was no vacation because every adult there was responsible for looking after at least one maniacal young child but one of the cool things about this house was

i don't know if you've ever stayed in a house like this like a shore house or you know yeah all along the coast but this house in particular because we had so many people i think we had 20 people or 22 people staying in this home the house had a screening room in it and every night the nine kids would go to the screening room and they would pick a movie to watch and so it was very instructive to kind of talk to the kids and hear about what they were watching. And the biggest hits in the house by far were the most were Lightyear, which had just been released to D+. So Lightyear was like, wow, fresh and hot. And so everybody wants to check it out, largely because they have this big emotional relationship, most of these kids, to Toy Story.

Toy Story is a franchise within the Pixar world that endures. And so the idea of seeing Buzz outside of a Toy Story movie was very exciting, especially like to my nephews who are four and five years old, and they're a little bit like further along in terms of understanding the storytelling. And then the other movies that were watched were Moana and Encanto and Frozen 2. Those were the only other movies that were watched, which I found fascinating. It's like not a Minions home, not a Despicable Me home, certainly not the bad guys or anything like that.

It was just Disney. And so I think that Disney retains a kind of dominance. Now, one thing that emerged while I was there with them was, I think it's called Spidey and His Friends, the animated series has started to take hold amongst the young boys and girls in that house. Now, obviously this is small sample size theater. What I'm talking about is anecdotal. It's just my family.

They mostly live on the East Coast. You know, they're all like middle class. There's, but their experience, I found so fascinating because it just didn't actually seem that different from where I was 25 years ago with this sort of thing. It was like, so it's the Disney jet stream segueing directly into Marvel. I mean, that's who I was when I was going from like 8 years old to 12 years old. That is the same trajectory that I followed. And I don't know if that is true for most people

in terms of the world of animation, but it does speak to that stranglehold that you've been talking about with Disney. Now, I don't think that those kids could tell you that there is a meaningful difference between Lightyear being a Pixar film and Encanto being a Disney animation film, for example. I don't really think that they're thinking in that way.

But I think that that's only just a question of how your parents raise you. And you can be damn well sure that with my daughter, I will be explaining to her the history of every single studio that releases their animated films. So she's going to know about it.

Does it matter? Do you think that means anything beyond two guys talking on a pod about how the industry around animation is shifting under our feet? I think it does matter because what I think the other story of this year

is that because at least I do think like Disney is Disney. Parents are going to buy Disney Plus. But if you're looking at the films that did well, your Minions, your bad guys, I do think that there is a level of other animation studios

probably smell blood in the water, where they're like, they see Strange World, they see Lightyear not doing what it needs to do. And you get something like, I'm going to talk about it later, you get the Sea Beast, where I was watching this, and I was just like, this should have been a Pixar film. Like, this should have been, like, why wasn't this? Like, I do think that there is, you have Luck, which is on Apple, was watching that. Netflix has had tumultuous experiences with their animation studio. But I do think a lot of these streaming services are like, we can get in on this.

Where if it's not IP, I do think Disney is having a very hard time. Can you name me the last Pixar film that was not IP that did gangbusters numbers? I can't even remember. Was it Cars? Gangbusters numbers? Well, let's take a look at the Pixar box office, Charles, because now you've piqued my interest here.

This is how we podcast. We pull up websites while we talk to each other. The last truly big hit that was an IP is probably Coco, which is five years ago. And Coco does have a, has a strong cultural impact,

I would say. I would say that is probably the last Pixar movie that really wedged its way into the culture and stayed there. You know, we've had movies like Incredibles 2

and Finding Dory in recent years that were very successful at the box office. In fact, I think those are the most successful films that the studio has released. But that feels more aligned with a kind of Marvel strategy, you know, an IP franchise strategy, as you say, than looking for original stories. That being said, I have to give Pixar credit.

They are continuing to release original stories. The last... That is true. You know, four of the last five, I think, have been original, some of which I have to give Pixar credit. They are continuing to release original stories. The last... That is true. You know, four of the last five, I think, have been original, some of which I think have been quite good. Likewise for Disney Animation. Disney Animation has been pumping out

a lot of original stories. So all of the things that we blame Disney proper for, or Marvel for, or Star Wars for, these other branches of those companies are doing well. What you said is interesting, though,

which is that there is, um, there are some gaps and there are some signs of weakness from that big mothership. I think illumination is probably the least discussed, most powerful company in animation right now. I mean, illumination is,

is dominant, you know, the minions film and the sort of attendant, you know, cultural spectacle of gentle Minions surrounding that movie, that was a pretty big deal. And the fact that they're holding audience

into their teens is kind of remarkable. But, you know, it's a studio that brought the Sing films, the Secret Life of Pets films, obviously the entire Despicable Me franchise. Like, those films are really, really successful. And I think they don't confer the same level of artistic credibility and a sense of greatness that

the Disney brands do provide, but they're working. The other thing is that they have the Super Mario Bros. movie coming out next year, which I'm just going to say right now, I need you to come back on the pod to discuss that film.

Sean, do you understand? I was on the train. I was on the fuck this, Chris Pratt, does sound like Mario, fuck this. And then with each trailer, I'm just like, guys, I don't know. Is this good? This is like, here's the thing.

I'll be honest. This is just Wreck-It Ralph to me, where I'm just like, it's not going to be better than Wreck-It Ralph. But I'm like just wreck it ralph to me where i'm just like it's not going to be better than wreck it ralph but i'm like they saw wreck it ralph and they're just like we could do this with the original guy uh but i i'll say have any of the trailers for mario uh change your mind about the film i i i think i'm coming around on it. I think I might enjoy it. I'll tell you one thing that I saw was, I think it was at the New York Comic Con. I saw Jack Black speak to a big audience

of rabid Super Mario Brothers fans about his performance as King Koopa. And he was so into it. And he was so... I guess he was Bowser. Is Bowser King Koopa? Are they related? I thought

Bowser was King of the Koopas. Any video game nerds do not yell at me. I know. I'm sorry. I apologize. Nevertheless. I thought he was King of the Koopas. I'm going to look this up while you keep talking. Okay. Jack Black was really committed. And I'm not a huge Chris Pratt fan these days. But Bobby, I can't read the message that you're sending. Please tell me. What are you saying?

Come on. Come on the mic, Bob. I said I'll be picketing the Super Mario's movie for AT Italian discrimination by casting Chris Pratt. So if you want to see that film, you'll have to walk past me and all of my Italian brothers brothers and sisters bobby all i will have to say is is that i thoroughly enjoyed a movie where a white boy was put into a blue alien with dreadlocks body so if i can enjoy that you'll be fine and just fact checked okay according to uh the mario wiki bowser sometimes known as king koopa boom bowser there you have it that's right i was raised right i know all the names of bowser

um i will be seeing the super mario brothers movie we will be covering it on this podcast charles will definitely be coming back to talk about it will it be good I don't know it's hard to say how for a dipshit movie podcaster like me I want the movie to be like ultra self aware with a lot of in jokes I don't know that that necessarily works for 8 year olds who are excited about Super Mario Brothers so they're going to have to split the atom on that one

how do you entertain someone like me and get positive press but also serve your core and base audience and make $500 million? It's not easy. I mean, that's, and that's part of kind of what we're talking about here is it's not easy because these films are very expensive. They take a long period of time to make, and you have to capitalize on an understood audience. It's hard to say, Hey, I have a story called strange world. You've never heard of it. You've never seen any of the characters before. It's actually based on a sort of obscure series of 50s and 60s films that no one has a reference point for.

And hope you like it. That's hard. I will say this also. If there's one thing that we need to kill in animation, we just need to bring back real voice actors. I cannot have famous actors voicing these people because I will be sitting there and like, it's fine at this point

I'll get used to it in the theater but I'm like no that's Chris Pratt's voice I know what Chris Pratt's voice sounds like there are so many movies from this year where it's just like the whole time I'm just like I know this voice I know this voice and I'm playing a guessing game for the first 20 minutes of the film being like wait wait like there's this actor who I know the voice of and then I look it up on Google and I'm like this is what this isn't what you want back when in my time it was voice actors voice actors please come back it is insanely distracting i in some cases i like it you know i enjoyed the bad guys in part because it was sam rockwell and mark maron hanging out and i just thought that that was fun to hear their voices.

Two voices that I'm just generally fond of. So I appreciated that. But in general, I think that there is an over-reliance on the famous voice actor or the famous movie star who is sidelining as a voice actor. Say hello to Tim Selects, Tim's everyday value menu. Enjoy the new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and Swiss pinwheel starting at only $2.99 plus tax.

Try one or try our full Tim's Selects lineup. Terms apply. Prices may vary at participating restaurants in Canada. It's time for Tim's. What do you think? Should we do some top fives? Should we do our list from this year? Is there anything else you want to say

about the state of the biz? Let's do our top fives because you brought up something about Mario that i think is going to be something that i want to attack with your top with your fifth pick great uh well why don't we start with your fifth because since you just mentioned it all right oh so my number five is the sea beast uh the sea beast was directed by uh chris williams who directed Bolt, Big Hero 6, co-director on Moana. He was working for Disney Animation

for over 25 years. So that speaks to kind of my thing where I was like, this just feels like a Pixar or a Disney Animation film. And what I really liked about this film was it was, like he's talked about it, it was like an action movie where

they're attacking sea beasts they are throwing spears into monsters like like scales and i was watching this movie and i'm like we're not supposed to do this but it transported me back to that time where when you were saying you're in the house where you're in that point where the boys are like maybe four or five six and they want something that's a little bit more daring a little bit more action-packed and this was the type of film where i was like oh okay they they know that there are people in the world or at least little kids in the world who can handle a little bit more action kids are watching mcu. And the CBs definitely from a story perspective just didn't treat me like an idiot. And I feel like it didn't treat kids like idiots.

It's a movie that's essentially about like, how do I put this? The movie is like, check your sources, kids. Which is like a weird thing for it to be where I was just like, is this movie about like teaching everyone that, hey, primary sources, check where you're getting your info from. Yeah, it was a fake news allegory, Charles. I was just, I was charmed by the Seabees.

Did you watch this film? I did and I liked it a lot and it's right on the outside of my list. I think Netflix has made a lot of impressive strides in the last five years in terms of animation for their feature films. I don't watch a lot of their animated shows. I know you mentioned that a gang of them have been canceled in recent years.

But their film division in particular, I think, is really, really strong. And I like this movie a lot. And I like it in part because of what you said, which is that it is a mature kids' film. And that's a hard thing to pull off and i really appreciated it and it's because the filmmakers are very seasoned and they were trained at you know the house of mouse and so they know how to make these films propulsive

and entertaining but to have clever and thoughtful ideas baked into the dna of the story that they're telling so i dug this one a lot. My number five is not exactly that, though it does come from the House of Mouse. And whether or not it's an animated film, I think is up for debate, but I believe that it is. It's Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. Another film that went straight to Disney Plus

that comes to us from Akiva Schaefer, who is one third of The Lonely Island and features the incredible voice work of John Mulaney andy sandberg as chip and dale amazing job this is our this is our who framed roger abbott charles i don't think it's the achievement that that film is but this is the closest that we've gotten it's a blend how dare you sean this is this couldn't even sniff anywhere close to who framed ro Roger Rabbit. Oh, Sean, what are you doing today? I don't think it's as good as

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but it does do the thing that I was just describing, which is that it scratches the itch of a too old consumer. You know, it's like it is showing us a lot of characters and ideas that we love from our animation

watching past and inserts them into like a, a modernized world. Um, Chippendale are by no means like my favorite Disney characters. I kind of have no relationship to them, to be honest with you. Uh, wait,

did you not watch rescue? I did, but I know I'm not too old. I was watching it. I think as it was originally airing, but it was always fine. I was more of a dark green duck guy. I'm being real. Ooh, dark green duck was tight. i was more of a darkwing duck guy i'm being real oh

darkwing duck was tight would you green light a darkwing duck no doubt i mean i'm here praising chip and dale on a pod like give me the darkwing duck movie let's get live action give it to me let's talk later okay um this movie is very silly it features a whole cavalcade of various disney characters features lots of famous people and famous people doing voice work uh dennis haisbert keegan michael key will arnett tim robinson seth rogan jk jk simmons uh i thought this movie was fun i thought it was a lark obviously is like seemingly a very expensive lark but i enjoyed it a lot so it's on my list does Does it qualify? This definitely qualifies because I think this is an animation movie

about animation where so many of the jokes, even the having Chip and Dale, one of them be originally animated and CGI, it is, that I found so charming.

I thought that was clever. Yeah. There's so many clever things about this movie that I loved. The thing that I'm going to attack, though, is I think we're done with the, we need to get off this meta ship, okay?

I think the Lego movie was one of the worst things to happen to movies in a while, where it's this winking thing, where it's just like, hey, guys, we know what you know. And Lego movie has that, Chip and Dale has that, Wreck-It Ralph has that.

And I think some of these movies are very good, but I've just had my fill. Like if the Mario movie is another wink wink, like, hey guys, we know you're an adult watching this. So here's a couple for you. No charge. I'm going to lose my mind.

I'm done with the meta jokes. I am not. In fact, I want my ego satisfied as I watch films. I want the filmmaker to say, I want my ego satisfied as I watch films. I want the filmmaker to say, I know that you know that you know that I know. And I see you, just like an avatar. What's your number four? So I'm not

going to belabor this. My number four is Jujutsu Kaisen Zero, which I doubt you've watched. I did not. Jujutsu Kaisen is originally a manga. Very, very popular. This anime is weird because it adapts a prequel to the story that the original mangaka created to get the actual series. So it's just explaining it to an American audience is very hard.

I love this movie. It is beautifully animated. I put this on here partially because I wanted to just say Jujutsu Kaisen on the big picture. I also put it on here because Sean, you watch One Piece Red. I did. And you did not tell me what you thought. Did you understand what was going on? What was the moment where you're just like, what the fuck did charles tell me to watch uh i mean you summed it up i did watch one piece film red which i i guess i mean how long is the arc of that story like at what place am i coming in give me an mcu parallel

like if this was my first mcu film what would it be? Well, One Piece, the story has been going on for 25 plus years. Okay, dear God. So I put you basically at Endgame or Infinity War. That's starting with One Piece film, Red? Yes. We are almost done with One Piece. It will most likely be done in the next couple years. And I gave you probably the second to last

or third to last film in this franchise. I mean, you know, I thought it looked amazing and was completely incoherent to me. I felt like I was tripping watching it. And did you understand why the boy was stretching or why all these people had weird powers? No, I didn't see it on a big screen. And I feel like that's, I missed out on something.

I mean, there's obviously, that's the other thing that is worth noting is there is this wave of, it's primarily Japanese animation that is coming stateside that has this kind of niche but core audience

that shows out to movie theaters. Like, I think we saw this with the Dragon Ball Z film earlier this year too, where kind of consistently we're seeing manga or anime films, adaptations of well-known works, continuations of well-known stories that are, you know, they remind me of a couple of other strains of reliable black films like Tyler Perry films, where they kind of have consistent audiences or spiritual, religious, Christian films that have reliable audiences where it's like, this movie can kind of be counted on

to make anywhere from $6 to $35 million at the US box office every time you put a new one out and it's been properly promoted. I don't know ultimately what One Piece film Red did, but it seemed like it did reasonably well. It did very, very well.

And just in terms of the type of movie that it is, and I think it speaks to the business of when you look at Netflix, I watched a bunch of anime films on Netflix. They probably see the numbers and they're like, hey, this to your point, this isn't going to do Wednesday numbers or Stranger Things numbers. But if we green light this, there is a core group that will watch any single anime thing we do. And I think that that group is just going to continue to grow. But yeah, that's why I put

Jujutsu Kaisen on number four. What's your number four? I won't say anything negative about Jujutsu Kaisen, and so you won't say anything negative about Apollo 10.5. I'm just going to tell you that right now. That's my number four. Oh, this is going to be hard. Apollo 10.5 is a new film from

Richard Linklater, one of my favorite directors is, I believe his third rotoscope animation film after, um, uh, waking life and a scanner darkly. And he hasn't made a film like this in a long time. And it's a memory movie. It's a movie seen through the eyes of a kid growing up in Texas during the

Apollo missions, who becomes obsessed with NASA and the space race and who kind of inserts himself into, who imagines himself participating in NASA while also just remembering his life in Texas in the 1960s and 70s. And I thought this was an amazing film. And I'm just, I'm so hurt that you were not a fan. And is it just because you're just like, this is one more old white man remembering his childhood? Is that your issue?

What's the problem with this movie? I have multiple issues. I talked about how Americans are a very literal audience. And I think rotoscoping is just like the perfect example of, I get what it is. It's like, I think it is an art form. This is animation. It should be like in the competition for Oscars.

That's not my problem. My problem was, I was was just like this would have just been a live action movie uh 20 years ago this is just the type of movie where i was getting that feeling of like all of the actors you know who they are you know their faces it's this type of movie where i'm like you could not get this made if you try to do the live action version but you can make the animated version and he's probably like that wasn't why but that's how i felt i think that's i mean i think that that's a good reading i think that ultimately this is a film that would have been too expensive to make as a live action film because of the the kind of collision of this you know home life texas stuff mixed with this space travel stuff the space travel stuff i just don't think i mean rich Richard Linklater has never made a movie on a grand scale like that. And I'm

not sure that Netflix would have funded a movie like that. But if you use green screen and rotoscoping technology in an animated format, then you can make that movie. Then you can tell that story. Now, whether or not you like that story, maybe that that will be the second part of your complaint but um continue my other thing is is this is this is almost torn my uh my home apart where i had to reveal to my girlfriend one of my very bad opinions where i'm like not a big coming of age uh movie guy just as a genre it is a genre that especially in film it's either 100 works for me it's either 100% works for me. It's either like dazed and confused or it is like Apollo 10 and a half where it's just like I'm either all in or I'm all out. Like Fablements this year, all in.

Just like power movies. Magical. Love it. Apollo 10 and a half. And I think also I would be less annoyed if Apollo 10 and a half came out in any other year. I think this is a stacked year for very talented, very legendary directors being like, okay, I'm doing my coming of age story now. And I'm just like, guys, I know you couldn't have planned this all out, but I've at least seen like at least four or five Oscar movies in a very short time where I'm like, oh, you're all doing the thing, which is weird. You know?

Yeah, no, you're right. It is part of a wave that, you know, when I had James Gray on the pod, I proposed to him that I thought that the pandemic pulled out a lot of feelings for people. And it's clear that for Spielberg in particular, he was just so bored during the pandemic that he needed to start working on something. He's talked about this. It's not been true for everyone, but if you look at Bardo and After Sun and this Apollo 10 and a half,

and there's a whole laundry list of movies that are all kind of reflecting on adolescence and what it means to people's lives. I thought this one was good though. I really liked it. I mean, I'm really very much in the bag for Linklater, so I've got an open heart when it comes to his stories, but I dug it.

Okay, what's your number three? My number three is a film that we both liked. I think when I came on the big pick, it was one of my favorite movies mid-year, is Belle. I think Belle is exactly what I want from anime. It's exactly what I want from

just this type of story where you're taking, similar to Del Toro's Pinocchio, you're taking similar to del toro's pinocchio you're taking this classic story like beauty and the beast and you're telling it in a new refreshing way i thought i would hate this movie because it is about the metaverse but i was like and there's if there's been too many coming of age uh. There's definitely been too many stories about the metaverse, but this one worked for me. It was charming. I liked the music.

When I went to my local indie theater, the programmer there, I guess I was like one of the only people to see the movie. And he's like, tell me what you think about this. And I'm like, dude,

have you, are you not pro, like, have you not watched this yet? And I get out of the theater and I'm like, I love it, dude.

I don't think it's going to make you any money in the long run but i love this movie it's very good i liked it as well incredible animation style an incredible you know realization of the idea of the metaverse which makes my head hurt but nevertheless i thought it was a good film my number three is mad god which i think I've mentioned just once. Speaking of long, long, long, long, long in the works, works of animation and stop motion. This is Phil Tippett's kind of mega masterpiece of pain, anguish, and sadness. Magnum opus. It is truly a magnum opus. You know, Phil Tippett is a kind of creature effects,

stop motion, digital effects genius. He's worked on the Star Wars films, Jurassic Park, Robocop. He's kind of like the mad scientist of all of the sequences in movies from the last 30 years that take your breath away. He's clearly got a twisted mind because this is a twisted film about basically a descent into

hell uh and a figure that goes into a demonic hellscape and needs to find something and survive and it feels like a trip directly into phil's brain but it is so slavishly animated and created and imagined that just its sheer force of will like i have to acknowledge its greatness it's really really impressive it's not a fun watch per se it's actually quite punishing when you spend a lot of time with it but it is only 83 minutes to your point earlier about stop motion films being usually a little bit shorter and it's just a really impressive work it's on shutter right now actually if people want to check it out. It's worth seeing. So that's my number three. Sean, I will just say,

I've watched so many animated movies for this. Like, I was going through the list. I was just, like, picking up on everything that I missed this year. And Mad God was the one where I've known about this forever. I've watched documentaries about this man. I'm just, like, I'm so into this in theory.

But the little boy in me that was raised in the black church just like, I'm so into this in theory, but the little boy in me that was raised in the black church was like, no child. This will have to be for Sean and Sean alone. If people told me that they found this difficult, I would very much understand that.

I want to remember, what is the name of the Phil Tippett documentary? Because that actually is really worth watching if people are interested in how movies are made. So that film is called Mad Dreams and Monsters.

And I would really recommend that one. So I've watched that. Yes. That film is very good. You can rent that on Amazon or Apple or anywhere you check out movies. Okay. We're up to number two. So you and I have two and one are the same films, but they're inverted on our lists.

So your number two is my number one. So what is it? Turning Red. And can I say, I think we are probably the biggest Turning Red fans. I think that it was a crime after I saw it at home that this was released just at Disney+. This was one of those movies where I'm like,

I wish I had seen this in theaters. Like this is the type of like, I wish I had seen this in theaters. This is the type of original story that I think Pixar should really be chasing because I think the charm of this movie, when I talk about Pixar and how it looks, for a lot of years, it looked really samey, all of the characters, the models. Turning Red was one of the first films where they designed the humans in this different way. They're short and they're chunky and they're not ugly, but they look like real teenage girls who are awkward and coming into adolescence. And I thought the way this movie discussed things that really aren't seen in movies ever uh about what it means for

young women to get their periods and what it means for young girls to like fall in love with their favorite boy band it just handled it in such a amazing way and i want to ask you sean does this movie hit you over the head more now that you're a father with a daughter where you're just like this is what I want more of yeah it's hard to not be an absolute disgraceful parody of myself by doing

like girl dad shit when talking about this movie but I you know it's it is it is true it is it is undeniable that if you have a daughter and you see a movie like this that it is that much more

powerful I think I definitely would have liked this movie regardless. I really liked Ome. She's kind of voiced those stories that she's telling. I think she's really funny. I think she's really smart about the kind of insecurities that power adolescents. So I would have enjoyed it regardless.

But, you know, I was kind of a weird little kid. My wife was kind of a weird little kid. And I think we're probably gonna have a little weird little kid. And so, you know, these feelings of, of like alienation and passion and obsession with pop culture and trying to figure out how you fit in in the world

and like being really confident, but also embarrassed at the same time, which is kind of a hallmark of this lead character in the film. I just, I found like very relatable. I found myself thinking about my daughter a lot. I completely agree with what you said about how it looks. It looks just a little bit different from what we've seen from Pixar.

It's a much more, even though it's fantastical about, you know, turning into this giant red Panda. It is still, um, oddly more tactile, I think than some of the recent Pixar movies.

And I thought it was a lot of fun and very sweet. And also it turned at the risk of spoiling it for anybody who hasn't seen fun and very sweet and also it turned it at the risk of spoiling it for anybody who hasn't seen it it turns into a kaiju movie at the end too which is like one of my favorite kinds of movies you know like it's a real monster movie by the end of the film which I thought was just fantastic and you know it obviously is uh it is very much about like a kind of cultural history amongst this Canadian family of of immigrants and sort of like thinking back on like your ancestors and what's meaningful to your cultural history. But it's also just a kind of a rollicking adolescent dramedy.

And I thought it was great. I mean, it's like right on the outskirts of my top 10 for films of the year period. So I'm a huge, huge fan of this one. So I will ask you this. I put pinocchio at number one and it's purely like this is really like a 1a 1b type situation the only reason pinocchio beat turning red is like at the end of the day i was like what would you want to stare at more and like i would buy frames of pinocchio and hang it up in my household like it is a movie where i could put it on silent and just be like,

I just want to watch this. And I like the, I think the story from turning red, uh, is better. I think turning red is more rewatchable, but if I'm just like, as a pure visual medium,

I'm just like, I just want to watch Pinocchio as a piece of art. Why do you think turning red is just a little bit better than Pinocchio for you? I think it's just more broadly entertaining, as you said. I think it's just a more fun time at the movies. I think Pinocchio is a gobsmacking achievement of animation, and that is worthy of praise.

It's number two on my list. It's not like it's number 14. And I have a lot of time for del Toro's storytelling style, so it's not that I think it's boring or anything like that it's just at the end of the day it is Pinocchio

we know the story of Pinocchio and so there is kind of a there's a ceiling on how extraordinary it can be for me the thing is I completely relate to what you just said

about it because when I was revisiting the film well let me go back the first time I saw it I saw it as part of AFI Fest and so I saw it on the big screen

and it was really wonderful in that way it was a date night my wife and i went my wife loves guillermo del toro and animation you know it was a real like dinner and a movie night and so we went to the movie uh had a great time and then we both sat down we were like why was that movie about fascism it should have been about pinocchio nevertheless um the second time i watched it i was watching it last night at home on Netflix, where most people will end up seeing it. And I actually listened to a podcast while I was watching it because I just wanted to focus on the animation.

I just wanted to look at it a little bit more closely and worry a little bit less about the dialogue and the storytelling. And it was very powerful. I think you're right that if you had a cell from this movie, it would look beautiful up on your wall. You know that some of those sequences that take place in the church or in the open field with the tree i mean there's an incredible visualization happening in the story and it's quite good it's just to me it's it wasn't as ultimately as effective as turning red was honestly you're selling me now i'm just like

flip your list man let's go we lawyer ourselves but yo john this has been, this has been so, this has been so fun. Look at us talking about animation. Just two grown men who are definitely not weird, right? And are very normal and normal members of society

who like animated things, right? There's nothing wrong with that. This is Chris Ryan's night. This and Andy talking about Bluey are Chris Ryan's night. Chris, Chris, not only was he not invited to this pod, he never listens to the big picture, but he definitely

won't listen to this episode. Charles, I appreciate you. Thanks so much. Where are you at? You're on the Ringiverse. You're one half of the Midnight Boys. You're on the Prestige TV podcast. Yeah, Prestige TV, talking about, you know, stuff that's not Marvel.

And then if you want somebody, an old man yelling at the sky about Marvel and star Wars, tune into the midnight boys on ringer verse. Thanks Charles. Really appreciate you, man. Uh, thank you to Bobby Wagner also for his work on this episode.

When we return on Tuesday, we'll be talking about the most anticipated movies of 2023. We'll see you then.