Movie Review: Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Movie Review: Mr. Peabody and Sherman                                                                               10-11-18

Based on the 60s cartoon duo created by Jay Ward (creator of Rocky & Bullwinkle), Mr. Peabody and Sherman tells the story of the smartest dog on Earth, Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) and his adopted human boy Sherman (Max Charles). He and Mr. Peabody take frequent trips through time, visiting many places of the past. When Sherman gets in a fight with Penny Peterson (Ariel Winter) at school and bites her, Mr. Peabody decides to invite Penny and her parents over for dinner to settle the dispute. However, Sherman gets pressured by Penny, and he takes her back in time to Egypt. Now Sherman, along with Mr. Peabody, have to embark on a journey through time to get Penny back and return home.
I think Mr. Peabody and Sherman is an underrated DreamWorks film that ranks among Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How To Train Your Dragon with animation that matches the Jay Ward style, relatable characters, and a story that differentiates itself from Meet the Robinsons. For starters, the cameos of historical figures like Michelangelo, King Tut, and Mary Antoinette are depicted in a way that doesn't offend the countries and time periods they come from.

The DreamWorks story crew also made Mr. Peabody into a three-dimensional character who delivers some of the best puns in the movie.

It's also interesting to see Ariel Winter, known for voicing Sofia the First, voice a not-so-innocent girl reminiscent of Cindy Vortex from Jimmy Neutron.

Penny teases Sherman about his dog whistle.

Unfortunately, Mr. Peabody and Sherman tanked at the box-office, and ended up being one of PDI's final films with DreamWorks. 'Sherman' was a box-office failure because it had to compete against The LEGO Movie and 300: Rise of an Empire, both of which earned more money.
In conclusion, while not as good as other animated movies in 2014 like How To Train Your Dragon 2, Big Hero 6, or Song of the Sea, is, in my opinion, definitely better than Muppets Most Wanted, which I personally found disappointing. My thoughts about that film are in the link below.
https://asateriale.blogspot.com/2016/10/my-issues-with-muppet-most-wanted.html
More about PDI (Pacific Data Images) is explained in the link below.
https://asateriale.blogspot.com/2018/04/a-brief-history-of-pdi.html
Rating: 3.75 stars out of 5

Oscarless Cartoons Bonus 3

Oscarless Cartoons Bonus 3: Partly Cloudy (2009)

In this hilarious Pixar short, one big question is answered: Where do babies come from? Well, in this film, babies of all species are made from living clouds, and storks deliver the babies, puppies, kittens, and ducklings to every corner of the world.

Unfortunately, for Peck, his cloud boss, Gus, always ends up making dangerous baby animals to deliver. When Gus shows Peck a baby alligator, the alligator immediately bites Peck.

Peck pulls the gator off his head and delivers it to Florida. When Peck comes back, Gus is ready with a ram lamb, who immediately rams into Peck.

After getting hit by the ram, Peck looks at a gentler cloud with a puppy, and the stork seemed happier.

However, when Peck looked at Gus, he decided to deliver the ram to the mountains. When Peck returned, Gus had a cloud in the shape of a sheep, but it instead, turned out to be a prickly hedgehog.

Peck reluctantly delivers the hedgehog to who knows where, but when Peck returned, he had quills sticking out of his head.

After pulling the quills out, Gus shows Peck his next creation: A giant toothy shark pup!

Peck decided to see one of the happier clouds for advice, but Gus thinks that the bird's going to abandon him for a friendlier cloud, and Gus cries rain.

To Gus's surprise, Peck wasn't going to abandon him after all; He was just getting some protective gear. Gus and Peck are friends again, and the cloud decides to give him one more baby: An electric eel, which of course, shocks Peck.

The idea for this charming short came from director Peter Sohn when he was a kid. He was influenced by the storks from Dumbo, but he always wondered how the babies were made. Sohn decided that the babies in Dumbo were made from clouds, and the babies needed to be delivered by air.

When Sohn was a kid, his mother didn't speak English, so the only way they could communicate together was through watching movies together. When his mom was confused about a certain scene, since she only spoke Korean, Peter Sohn would try his best to translate what the characters were saying from English to Korean. However, he didn't always translate it right.

Peter Sohn also admits that the characters Peck and Gus are based on him and his mother, while the dangerous baby animals represent the miscommunications that Sohn had with his mother long ago.
The football gear that Peck dons at the end represents Sohn's gesture of love saying 'I love you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm gonna always be there for you.'

Well, that's all I have to say about Oscarless Cartoons Bonus Round #3! On October 12th, I will review the underrated DreamWorks film Mr. Peabody and Sherman!

Movie Review: Smallfoot

Movie Review: Smallfoot                                                                                                                       9-28-18

From Warner Animation Group, the people behind The LEGO Movie and Storks, and cult filmmaker Karey Kirkpatrick comes Smallfoot. On the top of Mt. Everest lies a village of yetis. They live by strict rules and rituals written on stones. Migo (Channing Tattum) is destined to be the next gong-ringer, as it's said that the sun will rise once the gong has rung. After being launched over the gong and over the village by mistake, Migo discovers a human that crashed on the mountain, which he calls a Smallfoot. When Migo tells the other yetis that he saw a Smallfoot, the Stone-Maker (Common) banishes him, as one of the stones says that there's no such thing as Smallfoot. Migo meets a group of yetis called SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society), who have found evidence of this legendary creature, and Migo sets off on a quest to prove that Smallfoot exists.

Instead of being animated at Australia-based Animal Logic like The LEGO Movies, Smallfoot was animated at Sony Pictures Imageworks. They have provided the animation for all of Sony Pictures Animation's films except for The Star and Peter Rabbit. Imageworks also did the animation for The Angry Birds Movie and Warner Animation Group's own Storks.

Notice any similarities to Hotel Transylvania? That;s because they were done at the same animation studio: Sony Pictures Imageworks!

Now, what did I think of this movie? I actually enjoyed it! One thing that surprised me is that Smallfoot is actually a musical. There are five songs in the film, and while not as catchy as those in CGI musicals like Tangled, Frozen, and Moana, they are much better than the ones in The Lorax, The Hero of Color City, and Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return.

Aside from that, the story is also rather deep. I don't want to say much, since I might spoil the movie, but let's say it's a bit like Brother Bear: One creature discovers a human, which others are afraid of, and discovers that they're not as bad as they seem to be.

If I were to make one complaint, I personally felt that since the film is set in China, the human characters should've looked more Asian.

In conclusion, Smallfoot is a film that both kids and adults are gonna get a kick out of.

Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.

Plus 4 pairs of footprints