DOCUMENTARY THOUGHTS - 'Floyd Norman: An Animated Life'

"I wasn't even aware that I was an African-American," claims Floyd Norman, legendary animator and star of Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. Though themes of systemic oppression (racism, feminism, and even ageism) pop up frequently, co-directors Michael Fiore and Eric Sharkey are far more interested in Norman's laid-back, ever-youthful personality.

At once sincere and sarcastic, Norman is infamous for being a light-hearted and often mischievous presence in the workplace. He has animated and boarded countless shows and films: Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids, a few early Pixar films, and just about everything with Hanna-Barbera's name on it.

Most notable, however, is his ongoing love-hate relationship with a not-so-obscure corporation. Starting out as the first black animator on a Disney feature (Sleeping Beauty) he has been let go on multiple grounds (the draft, Disney's death, reaching retirement, and flat-out firing) and welcomed back time and time again. Just as Disney has restricted Norman in other ways (he was forced to exclude a chapter on ageism from his guidebook Animated Life) sections of this documentary feels suspiciously bound by Disney culture, not limited to propaganda for upcoming projects Norman has worked on.

Life, Animated, this year's other Disney-centric documentary, also felt too Disney-fied. Like that film, Floyd Norman contains original animation that would've fit the mold of Life, Animated more comfortably than the elegant animation its filmmakers decided on. Nirali Somaia and a team of other young artists render wacky anecdotes from Norman's life in digital black-and-white (hand-drawn and After Effects), and the rougher, simplified character designs resemble both Norman's style of caricature and his loose personality quite well.

Co-director Fiore's editing, while quick on its feet, does not feel particularly smoothed over. Opening sequences are re-used unnecessarily, more of Norman's pranks could have been explored, and we sometimes lose focus of Norman altogether in favor of historical context, cultural and otherwise.

It will probably surprise viewers how long a life span this film covers as much as Norman's enduring employment surprises him. As we follow Norman's career, the secret to his longevity becomes clear: attitude. Norman never ran short of ways to express his dissatisfaction with the Disney company (satirical cartoons, mostly), and his colleagues never forgot it. Whether he will be employed or not by the time he passes is as debatable as whether Aurora's dress stays pink or blue after Sleeping Beauty draws to a close.

MOVIE THOUGHTS - 'Kubo And The Two Strings'

Is the voice cast whitewashed? Yes. Is this symptomatic of systemic racism that pervades in most Hollywood casting, animated or otherwise? Definitely. Does this film represent a missed opportunity to give an ensemble cast of Asian actors non-token roles in an American production? No question. But Kubo And The Two Strings is the fourth stop-motion/CG/hand-drawn hybrid extravaganza from the Oregon-based powerhouse studio Laika, and though it falls just a hair short of the likes of Coraline and ParaNorman, it is absolutely worth the price of admission.

In ancient Japan, Kubo is a young samisen player living in hiding with his mother. She shields him from her sisters and father, moon spirits hellbent on blinding Kubo as a means of immortalizing him and converting him to their cold, emotionally-distant lifestyles. When Kubo's aunts track him down, it is a race against time to find his late father's enchanted samurai armor, the only protection he will have against his grandfather, the Moon King. On the way he meets Monkey, a talisman brought to life to protect Kubo, and Beetle, a cursed, insect-like warrior who aids Kubo in his encounters with beasts who guard pieces of the armor...

For better and worse, this is a melancholy tale of familial loss, and even by Laika's standards this a very understated adventure story. The first ten minutes of Kubo patiently set up Kubo's daily routine with his mother and keep the mood mellow. Screenwriter Chris Butler previously generated true empathy for his ostracized young protagonist in ParaNorman, and by the time Kubo is completely stranded and wonders if anyone he knows is even alive, you really do fear for his life.

Yet Butler and co-writer Marc Haimes make some critical missteps and unveil two twists that seriously undercut Kubo's feelings of loss up to those points. The second act feels oddly barren at times, and I wonder if the narrative would have benefited from adding a third ally to Kubo's team. Composer Dario Marianelli previously proved himself capable of fast-paced action on Laika's The Boxtrolls, but considering the variety of off-kilter musical talent brought to Coraline and ParaNorman, I wish the orchestral sound had been abandoned in favor of more squarely Eastern sensibilities.

All of this said, Kubo's joys are too many to count. Kubo can bring pieces of paper to life with his music, and in a film packed with creative fight sequences, the most beguiling of all is the story of his father's quest, visualized entirely with living origami. From start to finish you will pine to drink up the high-value colors, particularly during crowd shots where costume designer Deborah Cook's gorgeous kimonos are on display. Laika is known for finding resourceful ways to make its worlds as lived-in as possible: the 3D-printed faces in Kubo have traditional woodblock-printed textures, and props like swords are specially built to emulate motion blur.

First-time director Travis Knight has the blessed distinction of being both the CEO and a lead animator at Laika: he has the artists' best interests at heart, and has often stated that there will never be a Laika sequel/reboot/remake under his reign. Kubo And The Two Strings is the most arresting animated feature of the year, and by the time the fabulous 2D-animated credits roll, you will be grateful for having something as unique as this to take your kids to see.

MOVIE THOUGHTS - 'Phantom Boy'

If you are an American lover of obscure animation it is tempting to believe, in the face of routine, obnoxious CG animation, that independent or foreign features have a responsibility to be more aesthetically and emotionally sophisticated than the norm. While Phantom Boy is the former, it is not necessarily the latter, but it is a good reminder that all animation has the right to settle for less, so long as it strives to offer something new.

Co-directors Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli follow up their little 2010 caper A Cat In Paris with the story of Leo, a pre-teen boy battling cancer who discovers that his ailment allows him to detatch from his mortal bounds at will and fly over the urban canopy unseen. Pretty soon he befriends Alex, a hospitalized, down-on-his-luck cop who enlists Leo's help in remotely locating a criminal known as 'The Face' and bringing him to justice.

Over the past couple of months alone, Phantom Boy and The Secret Life Of Pets have offered a couple of my favorite cinematic incarnations of New York City, and for entirely opposite reasons. Where Pets gleefully exaggerated the height and quantity of Manhattan's skyscrapers, Phantom Boy celebrates the city's grunginess by casting harsh, noon-day sun and shadow upon sketchy, desaturated renderings of the cityscape. It is a more honest and contained depiction.

Felicioli continues to channel his Cubist influences with background work that often throws the laws of perspective to the four winds, and off-kilter, slightly unsettling character designs that should theoretically work in the crime genre's favor. But as with A Cat In Paris, we are saddled with an over-the-top (albeit uniquely disfigured) villain who undercuts any real threat, and a script that, while serviceable, shoehorns exposition in when the plot should already be well underway.

As is often the case, the small touches are the takeaways, from the brown-and-yellow color scheme to Serge Besset's beguiling main string theme (an upgrade from A Cat In Paris) to the way ghost-Leo gingerly wriggles his way back into his real body. It is by far the year's most worthwhile unambitious animated diversion.

MOVIE THOUGHTS - 'The Little Prince'

In the world of fiction, tone is the trickiest element to pin down. Rather than being a literal ingredient like casting, cinematography, or narrative structure, it is the sum of all of these; the x-factor that determines whether an audience will collectively roll its eyes or lean in further for the same story. Author and pilot Antoine de Saint Exupery wielded masterful command over the delicate tone of his 1943 children's story The Little Prince, which invites very particular adjectives over the course of the titular Prince's metaphorical encounters: understated, mystical, plaintive, melancholy, elusive...

As the trailers have promised, the new animated messterpiece The Little Prince, helmed by Kung Fu Panda co-director Mark Osborne, honors these qualities during breathtaking (albeit condensed) stop-motion depictions of chapters from the novella, but indulges in overstated and overblown emotions for an invented CGI frame story that actually makes up the majority of the film. This is NOT a straight adaptation of The Little Prince. For better and worse, it is instead a feature-length engagement with the original text's themes of growing up mindfully.

We are in a modern-day utopia of efficiency and colorlessness that would make the Little Prince scoff. After an unnamed Girl (Interstellar's Mackenzie Foy) flubs up the key question during her interview for acceptance into private school, her mother puts her on a summer long study plan that has been divvied up into blocks of time no longer than fifteen minutes each. That is until the wacky old coot next door (voiced sweetly by Jeff Bridges) introduces her to the childhood joys of The Little Prince story and instills in her a passion for whimsy and optimism, all highlighted with saccharine, out-of place string swells by Hans Zimmer and Richard Harvey.

This first half plays as if nervous studio executives called for a modern-day framing device to simplify already accessible ideas (Paramount dropped the film just days before its intended U.S. theatrical release). Sure enough, the two storylines rub against each other awkwardly. Stories rooted in metaphor demand fierce concentration from the get-go, so when the film shifts from stargazing on the old man's roof to the Prince's symbolic visits to neighboring planets, The Little Prince feels out of place in its own movie!

Then the second half comes along, where the Girl retreats into her imagination to discover whether it is better to mull over the fate of a loved one, or to put faith in their continued spirit. Everything works. Everything from the expansion of the utopian landscape (which cleverly recalls an image from the book of a baobab infestation) to the gaunt, Tim Burton-esque character designs (Lou Romano of Pixar fame proveded the CG production design) to even the rescue of an older Little Prince, all works because it is metaphorical and believably something a child would concoct in his or her mind. This entire section does its own thing and owns it.

Yet up until then I found myself pining for a cut of the film featuring just the stop-motion sequences. Production designer Alexander Juhasz adorns everything from hair to desert sand with conspicuous fabric surfaces, and hangs the stars rom strings, all designed to steer this world away from the literal. And yet the character designs are elegant translations of their literary counterparts, which I particularly appreciated when the Aviator, searching for purpose in his adventures, evolves from a paper cutout to a full-fledged model upon meeting the titular Prince.

Other inspired moments are small but valuable. Throwaway exchanges between the Girl and the old man are choice (at one point she scales a tree and remarks that she is afraid. "Why do you think I sent you?" is his reply). Even Hans Zimmer contributes some hypnotic solo string ostinatos and unnerving percussive elements. Perhaps the CG framing device, however bombastic in execution, will resonate with millennials facing intense professional and social pressure.

On Animation Studios from France completed the animation in Montreal. Mark Osborne fancifully pitched the film with a suitcase containing Prince paraphernalia nearly 400 times over several years. The dedication shows, and even while I believe Spike Jonze's adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are stands as a more faithful adaptation of the tone of The Little Prince than this film, it is gratifying that this ambitious project has found its way to American audiences.

DOCUMENTARY THOUGHTS - 'Life, Animated'

Generations of children can claim that Disney animation provided a formative influence on their worldviews, but Owen Suskind, the subject of the new documentary Life, Animated (part-life, part-animated), is one in a handful who can attest to its observable impact.

Owen, who heralds from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was diagnosed with regressive autism at the age of three, and consequently remained silent for years until his parents, Ron (Pulitzer-winning writer for the Wall Street Journal) and Cornelia Suskind, discovered his deep resonance with Disney features, specifically with supporting characters who tend to elude the spotlight. This non-linear film, based on Ron Suskind's biography, chronicles Owen's quest to navigate the ups and downs of growing up, all with the aid of Disney as his reference guide.

Emotional realism in any film, fictional or not, is challenging when Disney is involved. For a better part of the first half, which builds up Owen's entrance into a self-sufficient lifestyle, I found myself wishing for a less manipulative tone. The electronic score by Dylan Thomas and Todd Griffin felt saccharine, and the parallels between Owen's real-life drama and the Disney sequences he simultaneously revisits felt suspiciously on-point.

Then Owen settles into assisted living, and the tone of the film settles down as well. Owen's grievances over romantic heartbreak and job-hunting woes feel uncompromising, and we get further acquainted with Walter, Owen's loving but grounded brother whose mere mention of Disney porn excuses much of the film's gratuitous Disney propaganda. Director Roger Ross Williams knows Ron Suskind from years of working with him in broadcast news, so his presence in Owen's life during principal photography must have felt comfortable enough to forgive some obtrusive camerawork.

The aforementioned original animation in the film depicts Owen's emotional experiences. It germinates as sketchy, black-and-white pastel storyboards that represent his loneliness and uncertainty, but blossoms into fluid, full-color fantasy as he delves into his imagination and recruits Disney sidekicks to help vanquish 'Fuzzbutch', the embodiment of darkness in his life. The progression is obvious but nonetheless effective.

I attended a screening of the film with a moderated Q&A with Mr. and Mrs. Suskind, and they claimed that Owen felt the animation - provided by heads of the French animation and visual effects studio Mac Guff (Despicable Me) was almost how he envisioned his escapades. While the animators sought to be true to Owen's point-of-view, I wonder if the their work might have benefited from hewing closer to Owen's own crude, imperfect childhood renderings of the classic characters.

But the animation, and the film on the whole, respects Owen's individuality and does not try to celebrate or over-emphasize his continuing integration into society. Only after the screening did the Suskinds inform us that, along with working at a Cape Cod multiplex, Owen co-hosts a radio program and teaches kids how to draw. Owen's story is a worthwhile glimpse into what autism feels like from the inside out, and I recommend finding it before it leaves cinemas by the end of August!

RE-RELEASE THOUGHTS - 'Only Yesterday'

For international fans of Studio Ghibli, this really is the end. But what a fine note to go out on.

Even if it weren't for the segments that bluntly deal with menstruation at an early age, it's conceivable that Disney would have hesitated to give Only Yesterday a U.S. release just for its plaintive, slice-of-life tone. But fantasy elements or not, GKids now has Ghibli's back all the way, and Isao Takahata's 1991 feature has rightly earned a PG-rating: kids can take it.

Based on Omoide Poro Poro by Hotaru Okamoto and Yuko Tone, Only Yesterday tells of Taeko, a twenty-something Tokyo-based office employee on a ten-day vacation at a countryside farm with very distant relatives. En route, she begins to relive her up-and-down life in fifth grade, recalling everything from her frustrations with dividing fractions to her shot-down stage aspirations.

Though the fully-realized character designs are closer to Miyazaki than the sketchier quality of Kaguya and the Yamadas, the white vignette through which we view Taeko's childhood and the decided interest in episodic misadventures over a three-act plot line are all Takahata's trademarks. There's even something unusually natural about the way older Taeko's cheeks stick out when she smiles (I was able to catch a showing of the original Japanese version for which Takahata broke tradition and recorded the present-day dialogue prior to animation, thus giving the dialogue a chance to inform the visuals, rather than vice-versa).

The episodic storytelling occasionally clashes with Western expectations of follow-through, beginning with the abrupt closure of young Taeko's first crush and ending with the strangely late introduction of an unkempt boy she once picked on at school. But the satisfactions, ranging from Katsu Hoshi's sweet score to the small-scale beauty of dew beads reflecting the countryside sunrise, dwarf any caveats. Here is an admirably gentle story that milks drama out of everyday situations, and says it's okay to be late to the work-out-your-life party.

The Disney Problem

It's no secret that Walt Disney Animation Studios is in the middle of a second Renaissance right now. Whether it began with a specific feature (my vote is The Princess And The Frog) or with John Lasseter's promotion to Chief Creative Officer during production on Meet The Robinsons is still ambiguous. But the studio's last several features have maintained a consistent standard of quality and detail that is encroaching on Pixar's reputation more and more with each project. Zootopia (my favorite since Wreck-It Ralph) may have just upped the ante by throwing an eerily timely allegory for prejudice into the mix.

But is there a downside to this Renaissance? About one year ago, Big Hero 6 stole the Best Animated Feature Oscar from Cartoon Saloon's Song Of The Sea and arguably the best Dreamworks film in too long, How To Train Your Dragon 2. Big Hero 6 may have given us a vivid mashup of Tokyo and San Fransisco to go with its solid storytelling, but did it really need to win?

In an age where there are more feature animation studios and distribution companies competing against Disney than ever before, why do families still equate good animated features exclusively with the Disney brand? To be clear, this problem does not exist in television. Disney Television may also be blooming at the moment, but when Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and adult-oriented shows like South Park and The Simpsons (the latter of whom groomed Zootopia director Rich Moore) did not rule the playing field, Hanna-Barbera did. There's just no competition.

The first puzzle pieces to sort out are the qualities that link good Disney features. Some of these reflect a long-standing house style: a saturated color palette. Body language characterized by strong poses and emotional clarity. Character designs based in anatomical reality, (Walt Disney pushed this really hard). And of course, wide-eyed wonder (I actually have trouble telling Anna and Judy Hopps apart). There's also the need to adhere to traditional three-act structure in a detailed yet concise manner. The conflict is uncomplicated. The protagonist signposts his or her goal at every turn. The second act break where all hope seems lost is made deadly clear.

These aesthetic and storytelling choices inform the other less tangible qualities that have an awful lot to do with tone. The air is optimistic and light-hearted. There is rarely a looming sense that things will end badly for our heroes. And of course, even the darkest scene in the film is tempered with a great deal of entertainment value, some aimed at kids and some aimed at adults. The formula has A) worked before, and B) worked consistently, so beyond the studio's recent variety of subject matter, there is little reason to shake things up.

Pixar doesn't veer too far from this model, but there was a time when Lasseter felt the need for the studio to go beyond *insert talking animal/object here*. When Brad Bird began The Incredibles, everything changed: the character designs pushed exaggeration. The humor grew more sophisticated. The conflict often spoke directly to adults and left kids out for minutes at a time. And this sensibility seeped into the trio of excellence known as Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up, but aesthetic, structure, and tone of each of those films were still wholly different from one another.

Studios like Dreamworks Animation are similar to Pixar in that they vary up an established formula slightly without quite breaking the chain. While Disney makes sure every pose tells you exactly how the character is feeling in plain terms, Hiccup and Astrid's gestures toward one another during the opening of How To Train Your Dragon 2 are full of subtlety and uncertainty. And where Disney usually employs framing that moves the action toward clear vanishing points, HTTYD2 is full of complex, shallow compositions that feature a lot of left-to-right, background action: there's more than one story taking place over the course of one shot.

If you're an parent wondering what other animated features you can take your family to outside of your familiar niche, look no further than GKids: they're an American distribution company bringing a wide variety of international films to cinemas, and they all look and feel completely different from one another. If you're an adult looking for animated features just for you...well, you'll have to delve into old and recent history. Movies like Watership Down, Mary And Max, Rocks In My Pockets, and Pink Floyd - The Wall are all animated because they are a natural fit for their mature content, and had absolutely nothing to do with a family-friendly marketing imperative.

It's very difficult to discuss the issues surrounding mainstream Disney features without making it sounds like I dislike them: far from it. I adore them. They have a welcome place on my radar. I just don't want them to be the only thing on my radar, and neither should deserving viewers like yourself. I hope good feature animation can follow in television's footsteps and come to mean not just one thing, but anything. Any tone or any look for any race, any gender, and especially any age.