animation Archives - Vanyaland https://vanyaland.com/tag/animation/ The proven voice in music since 2013 Thu, 20 Nov 2025 20:21:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://redefined.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/31135224/cropped-V-SOCIAL-2023-32x32.png animation Archives - Vanyaland https://vanyaland.com/tag/animation/ 32 32 We’re upset by how cute this ‘Hoppers’ trailer is https://vanyaland.com/2025/11/20/were-upset-by-how-cute-this-hoppers-trailer-is/ Thu, 20 Nov 2025 18:27:43 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10042695 We don’t often take credit for industry-wide trends, but we’re going to when it comes to Pixar pivoting away from making moral fables with occasional humor and back to making bug-fucking-nuts Tex Avery-style animated comedies.* Sure, Hoppers will probably have some sort of grade-A treacle at the center of its chaotic chocolatey coating, but man, we’re just so excited to see these guys have some true, honest-to-god fun again. After all, it’s a movie essentially making fun of the Avatar […]

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]]> Get a first look at Hulu’s ‘Predator: Killer of Killers’ https://vanyaland.com/2025/04/09/get-a-first-look-at-hulus-predator-killer-of-killers/ Wed, 09 Apr 2025 15:37:48 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10041153 Fans of that one ugly motherfucker known as the Predator will be eating good in 2025. Sure, we already knew that director Dan Trachtenberg, who breathed new life into the franchise with Prey a few years ago, would be returning for Predator: Badlands, a new theatrical film that will make its debut in the fall, but Trachtenberg likes to keep busy. So, imagine our surprise when Hulu dropped the Predator: Killer of Killers trailer on Tuesday, a straight-to-streaming animated anthology […]

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]]> ‘Moana 2’ Review: More of the same, but that’s not a bad thing https://vanyaland.com/2024/11/27/moana-2-review-more-of-the-same-but-thats-not-a-bad-thing/ Wed, 27 Nov 2024 16:13:05 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10040188 Disney’s Moana 2 might be a pretty mid sequel, but it is an intelligent course correction to what nearly sank the House of Mouse in the early ‘20s. The pandemic had an obvious effect on most of the company’s operations, of course, but faced with the closure of their two most relevant revenue streams, then-CEO Bob Chapek followed the carrot-on-a-string of streaming, never mind that there was a box waiting for him at its end, propped up by a single […]

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]]> ‘Inside Out 2’ Review: Pixar’s turned upside down https://vanyaland.com/2024/06/12/inside-out-2-review-pixars-turned-upside-down/ Wed, 12 Jun 2024 19:00:00 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10038753 It’s genuinely surprising to me that Pixar is still somewhat as acclaimed as it once was, nearly 13 years removed from what we’d all collectively agree was when the Golden Age of the studio came to an unceremonious close with Cars 2. This is a studio that has been hollowed out by its corporate masters, who were once kept at a decent distance from managerial oversight and algorithmic analysis by their structure, which enabled them a kind of autonomy uncommon […]

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]]> Let the ‘Robot Dreams’ teaser bring a little joy to your day https://vanyaland.com/2024/01/04/let-the-robot-dreams-teaser-bring-a-little-joy-to-your-day/ Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:06:33 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10036830 Ever since we saw Pablo Berger’s Robot Dreams at TIFF last year, it feels like we’ve had a semi-monthly occasion to yell from the digital mountaintops about just how fucking great this movie is. And it’s true — unlike many of its more formally accomplished or acclaimed or serious counterparts, this simple story set in an incredibly complex little world has stuck to us like glue, and not a day goes by when we don’t think about it in some […]

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]]> The Boy and the Heron’ Review: Miyazaki delivers a masterpiece https://vanyaland.com/2023/12/08/the-boy-and-the-heron-review-miyazaki-delivers-a-masterpiece/ Fri, 08 Dec 2023 15:11:00 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10036744 Editor’s Note: This review originally ran as part of our coverage of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. Check out our extensive review slate of TIFF 2023, revisit our official preview and complete archives of prior editions.  After an extremely productive three decades of filmmaking, it looked like Hayao Miyazaki was practically finished with the medium. His last release, The Wind Rises, was unlike a lot of the more fanciful and fantasy-oriented pictures he’d put out over the course of his career – Miyazaki tended to support […]

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]]> TIFF 2023: Miyazaki’s ‘The Boy and the Heron’ is, unsurprisingly, a masterpiece https://vanyaland.com/2023/09/22/tiff-2023-miyazakis-the-boy-and-the-heron-is-unsurprisingly-a-masterpiece/ Fri, 22 Sep 2023 16:48:12 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10036077 Editor’s Note: Vanyaland film editor Nick Johnston is back in Canada all week covering the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. We wish we were up there with him! Check out our continuing coverage of TIFF 2023, read our official preview, and revisit our complete archives of prior editions.  After an extremely productive three decades of filmmaking, it looked like Hayao Miyazaki was practically finished with the medium. His last release, The Wind Rises, was unlike a lot of the more fanciful and fantasy-oriented pictures he’d put […]

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]]> ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem’ Review: Turtle Power https://vanyaland.com/2023/08/01/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-mutant-mayhem-review-turtle-power/ Tue, 01 Aug 2023 16:25:50 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10035578 I’ll go ahead and confirm it for you: Jeff Rowe’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem not-so-shamelessly rips off the Spider-Verse movies in about every way you can imagine. It’s a hyper-stylized depiction of a property that has seen all sorts of adaptations to the screens, both silver and static-coated. Hell, this isn’t even the first time an animated Turtles movie has made its way to the big screen, with 2007’s TMNT providing the perfect cover for teenagers looking to […]

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]]> ‘Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse’ Review: Does what a Spidey should https://vanyaland.com/2023/06/02/spider-man-across-the-spider-verse-review-does-what-a-spidey-should/ Fri, 02 Jun 2023 17:55:53 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10035016 If there’s one unifying trait that almost every live-action superhero film shares, it’s that they don’t care much for their source medium. Now, I don’t mean this in the way that a whole lot of nerds often do when they take to their subreddits and still-active BBSes – few people genuinely do not give a fuck about whether or not the mythic poetry of Matter-Eater Lad’s origin will be fluently translated to the screen into the somehow inevitable Legion of […]

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]]> Release the ‘Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken’ trailer https://vanyaland.com/2023/05/23/release-the-ruby-gillman-teenage-kraken-trailer/ Tue, 23 May 2023 17:50:23 +0000 https://vanyaland.com/?p=10034556 Ah, Dreamworks Animation. You were once the top of the pops — Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon — and now you’ve been shown up by Sony of all companies, to say nothing of your in-house competitor Illumination and their total dominance of children’s non-Disney entertainment options. Maybe it was all of the “Dreamworks face” memes. Maybe it was a couple of non-starter franchise films that were just D.O.A. before they could get that sweet sequel cash. […]

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