TheRetroCritic

From the makers of Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers comes Millennium Actress , the story of an ageing actress telling her life story for a TV interviewer and his cameraman as the latter two imagine everything she went through by transporting themselves into her stories. It's a cute idea in that it links the present with the past without having to resort to constant flashback and forths or one long drawn-out voice-over. This is a much more slow-burning film than Satoshi Kon's aforementioned works, which makes sense when you realise it's essentially a melodrama. Similarly to how Perfect Blue merged real life with the world of film, Chiyoko's story dips into her various acting jobs without transition so every so often we end up with her on the Moon, in medieval times or surrounded by geishas in the middle of a certain scene before we realise we've followed her into that world. The interviewer and his camera guy act as both comic relief and as a link to the pres

Ever wonder what the singers of some of your favourite anime themes actually look like? Well, here's a selection of classic intro songs sung live! First, Ichiro Mizuki singing the Mazinger Z theme and being awesome: Now, a truly energetic performance by Hironobu Kageyama singing "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" , the immortal intro theme to Dragon Ball Z : Let's get some Doraemon action going with Satoko Yamano singing her intro for the show (the one after Kumiko Osugi's original): Time to step things up a notch with Make-Up's classic Saint Seya theme : Another memorable one you might recall is Yoko Takahashi's theme for Neon Genesis Evangelion : And, to end things with a bang, here's Gundam Wing 's intro song "Just Communication" by Two-Mix: Any more to recommend or any specific ones you'd like me to post? Let us know in the comments below ;)

Growing up in France, where I discovered anime, I was introduced to Grendizer under the name Goldorak and it was all kinds of badass. The show boasted not one, not two but FOUR different intros. The first one, sung by Enrique, was a direct adaptation of the original Japanese intro and, apparently, it ended up being censored because the word "race" was used in the lyrics even if it was referring to big-ass robots: The second intro, by Noam, was much more light-hearted and kid-friendly. Also much more boring: The third intro was another version of Enrique's first intro, this time sung by The Goldies and improved slightly: French anime theme go-to guy back in the day, Bernard Minet, then gave us this intro which, weirdly, ended up being my favourite of the bunch: Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, here's the original Grendizer theme which is, of course, just as epic as it always was:

Here's an anime feature I'd been wanting to check out for a long time, the good-looking visuals the trailers boasted being the primary source of interest. Origin: Spirits Of The Past is, indeed, a visually stunning film. Its well crafted mix of 3D textures, detailed backgrounds and fluid animation, when put together with a grand, epic score like Taku Iwasaki's, creates an altogether gorgeous film which really aspires for something meaningful. The film is set in post-apocalyptic Earth which, following a failed experiment on the Moon, is separated between the forest (and its spirits) and battle-friendly humans who want to get rid of the forest altogether since it controls the world's water supply. In the middle of it all is Neutral City, a peaceful place acting as a bridge between both sides. One day, a couple of kids wander off into the forest and find a young woman, Toola, who was sleeping in a glass box, they wake her up and, turns out, she was cryogenically froz

And you thought Daniel Craig made a tough Bond… You clearly haven’t met Golgo 13. One of the longest running mangas out there, Golgo 13 has prompted all kinds of things from live-action movies to games and this first animated feature. Golgo 13: The Professional follows Duke, a stern hitman with a heart of stone who goes from job to job, taking out the people he’s been hired to get rid of, never getting emotionally involved. This is shown with all the grisly details, every gun shot looks like its pulverising these people from within, and we’re never made to particularly like this seemingly soulless killer. That is, until he meets the maniacal toothless Snake, a demented, reptile-like, Joker-like madman who actually enjoys terrifying people and even reveals rapist tendencies towards the end. He’s so odious that Golgo 13, in comparison, comes off as a true class act. Throughout the film, our hitman sure meets some shady douchebags including two twin brothers called Gold and Si

It's about time that plane-flying Italian pilot pigs got their own movie! Set between WWI and II, Porco Rosso follows an ex-fighter pilot-turned-freelance bounty hunter, who was cursed some time ago to physically look exactly like a pig, as he befriends a young mechanic called Fio and faces off against a bunch of moronic air pirates. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, this one's not too dense in terms of story but it does have a lot of subtleties about it which help make the film's straight-forward plot a little fuller and more interesting. This is more of a character piece, the film slowly but surely letting us discover the real man behind the pig (yes, I realise how silly this sounds) and, like Fio, we get to eventually filter out the introverted character's true humanity. It's a sweet, mature movie with some top notch animation which really starts showing off during the exciting and beautiful-looking action sequences. Porco Rosso thankfully

So I just re-watched Akira . Luckily, it wasn't quite like this :P

Based on Masamune Shirow's popular manga, Appleseed  is a sci-fi animated feature set in a post-World War III test city called Olympus, a utopia peopled with humans, cyborgs and bioroids and run by some kind of super computer. Kinda like a more cyberpunky, better version of Elysium . The film follows an ESWAT team (Enhanced SWAT) as they try to stop some cyborg known as A.J. Sebastian who seems to be responsible for more and more terrorist attacks within Olympus. As it turns out, he might not be working alone and there's even some suspicion that there might be a traitor within the police department itself. Then again, there's also the growing feeling that this utopia might not exactly be all that perfect either so the morals of this whole affair are blurred throughout. You could compare the film to something like Ghost In The Shell but it's certainly much lighter in tone and in content. The film does a good job at setting up its concept but it doesn't really

In the early days of Pixar's world domination, this little film about a universe where monsters harness the fear of human children which they frighten at night (through their closets) to use as energy came out and although on paper it sounds like the most terrifying thing you'll ever see, the movie was quite the opposite. Aimed at younger viewers, Monsters Inc. is closer to, say, the likes of A Bug's Life or Cars in terms of its target audience but better than both. Thankfully, it's just about charming enough to keep older viewers' interest there throughout. We follow two monsters, one voiced by John Goodman, the other by Billy Crystal, who mistakenly end up with a kid human transcending the human world into their own. This causes all sorts of shenanigans, as you can imagine, since children are seen as the monsters in this world, and it all builds up to a confrontation with Steve Buscemi's chameleon-style monster (the last part of that phrase sounds a bi

Tim Burton's own short Frankenweenie certainly had potential so a remake sounded good but risky. After all, Burton is being criticized these days for doing the same type of thing over and over and his work gets it in the neck for lacking originality altogether so an adaptation of his own short was always going to provoke critics. Not this time, though. Dark Shadows was enjoyable enough but there really wasn't that much to it, Alice In Wonderland did really well at the box-office but the feedback wasn't exactly positive. Well, it's Disney time again and, believe it or not, they finally got it right! And the irony is they got it right with a film based on a short they rejected back in the day for being too dark. If anything, this slick new stop-motion Frankenweenie is darker and infinitely more twisted than its low-budget little brother. Burton has assembled a vintage Burton cast this time with the likes of Martin Short ( Mars Attacks! ), Catherine O'Hara ( B

Man the critics were rough on this one... Now I'm one of the first to bash whatever new tired kid-friendly animated flicks come out these days: Madagascar 3 , Ice Age 4 , The Lorax ... not for me. That said, there are the occasional ones that slip through the cracks and actually end up being pretty good ( ParaNorman , The Pirates ). Hotel Transylvania I found to be in-between. On the one hand you've got its gorgeous animation, its clever premise, its fun winks to old horror movies, its colorful characters and on the other you have... ...the singing. Actually you have an Adam Sandler Dracula RAP. I'll let that sink in. ... Theeeere it is. Ok, so that sounds like hell but trust me: Hotel Transylvania is worth a go. For one thing it's a lot of fun. It's pretty darn relentless and certainly never wastes any of its time: it's fast, punchy and nuts going for a Tex Avery-style random toon-craziness we haven't seen achieved quite this well sinc

With Aardman, Henry Selick and Tim Burton currently the main guys still pushing stop-motion animation forward in a big way, I was surprised to learn that ParaNorman is not actually by any of them. From Sam Fell, who brought you The Tale Of Despereaux and Flushed Away (both of which I personally wasn't too keen on) ,  with co-director/writer Chris Butler being one of Coraline 's main art peeps, it looks like the stop-motion masters finally have some new competition in town. ParaNorman is a supernatural horror/comedy which takes the familiar "I see dead people" scenario and gives it a fresh, yet very much retro, makeover. As a matter of fact, the film kicks off with a Grindhouse-style fake horror B movie trailer which sets the tone beautifully. It's a shame the film softens a bit when it actually gets going but that's not to say that it forgets its dark and twisted roots. Far from it. Check out that scene where Norman is trying to take some book which his

With Bane and Catwoman taking on The Bat this month, I thought I'd take a quick look back at my own favourite Batman villains. Bear in mind I haven't read every single Batman comic-book or seen every single episode of every single cartoon series so there might be some bad guys out there I am not familiar with or not familiar with enough to include in this list. Might amend the list later, we'll see... In the meantime, here are my own picks for best bat-villains: 10 HARLEY QUINN If you'd asked me about Harley Quinn as a kid I would have probably spat in your face. I really wasn't a big fan of the character back in the days of the Animated Series , mostly because she just seemed tacked-on as a character and seemed to only be there to interrupt The Joker and serve as comic relief. That may all be true to a certain extent but looking back at some of the episodes she was in I realized they did try to make her as three dimensional as they could and you do

After Disney's big comeback  The Little Mermaid , it was now the dawn of a new era and the opportunity for the studio to think big and stop just making animal versions of things, for a little while at least. So here we have Beauty And The Beast , another classic fairy-tale being given the Disney treatment, and if you watched it growing up then you probably know there's not much to whine about: it's definitely one of the good ones. The film looks fantastic, the score is excellent, the story is timeless. You've got some great voice acting from the likes of Robby Benson (Beast) and Paige O'Hara (Belle), not to mention Angela Lansbury as... a talking teapot. The songs in the film are celebrated, the title song even won the Academy Award, but they're arguably not quite on the level of the songs in The Little Mermaid, Aladdin or even The Lion King . This is one of those rare Disney movies where the score is actually way better than the songs themselves. "Be

By far the weirdest animation of 2009, 9 is really more for hyperactive younger teens than little kids who probably will feel much less stressed out watching Up : 9 is literally one big sci-fi action sequence after another. The film should be applauded for its slightly more subtle environmental message, a rarity these days. Borrowing from 50's sci-fi ( War of the Worlds ) and old horror films ( Frankenstein ) mostly, 9 creates something pretty original and entertaining regardless if not particularly compelling. Dialog and story-wise this is simple, predictable fare with no great surprises and no particularly memorable moments on offer: 9 is bland when it should be bursting with creativity. To be honest, when making a film about hand-made little creatures with stitches, fabrics etc. stop-motion really is the way to go. A lot of texture is lost in the CGI, as detailed as it is, to make room for the scary robots and their big battles. Mixing CGI and stop-motion on this one, muc

Before Disney had the mega-hit it was looking for with Frozen , there was an attempt to nail the non-Pixar 3D animation formula with  Tangled , a new take on the classic Rapunzel fairy-tale.   With The Princess and the Frog , it looked like Disney was ready to be Disney again, bringing back a unique style of 2D animation now long dormant. Sadly, Tangled isn't another hand-drawn effort but rather a quality, polished-looking 3D treat which looks about 10 times better than any of the Shrek films yet still very 90's in spirit... in a good way. Tangled looks modern but it's very much a throwback to the likes of The Little Mermaid so your enjoyment of the film will probably depend on whether you like that type of Disney film or if you hate it with a passion. The story of Rapunzel, like the Frog Prince, is an inevitable, safe choice for Disney but both stories have clearly been handled with a lot of heart and with 80's kids in mind. Now the film itself, it should be