Another staggering offering from the same Irish director and animation studio that brought us The Secret of Kells. This movie deals with Irish fairy folklore, but it is really about processing grief and not hiding from it. The threat in the movie comes from Macha, a fairy who takes away people’s pain and sorrow and keeps it in jars, but in doing so turns them into stone. She is trying to help, but she doesn’t understand that people need to…

An outrageously gorgeous animated movie out of Ireland, telling the 9th century story of the creation of the Book of Kells. I have been to Trinity College in Dublin twice to see the Book of Kells, and I would go again. It is an illuminated production of the four gospels, created and kept safe during the time of the Viking raids upon the monasteries and towns of Ireland. The story in the movie is of Brendan a young boy in…

This movie, produced by Seth Rogen’s Point Grey production company, employs both hand-drawn and CGI animation to create an explosive yet old school vibe for the Turtles. I grew up in the neighbourhood next to Rogen’s Point Grey (we could sometimes hear his haunting laugh at night), and there was a legendary Comic Book Shoppe within walking distance. It is there that I discovered the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, back in their black and white, pre-cartoon, pre-pizza and cowabunga days.…

A masterwork of meta-fiction by the genius world-builder behind Ghibli studios. It tells the story of 12 year old Mahito who loses his mother during WW2, and moves with his father and pregnant step-mother (also his aunt) to an estate in the country. Here he is lured by a strange heron into a magical, forbidden tower that contains a forbidden parallel world created by his own great-grand-uncle. The tower/world is a metaphor for the fictional world-building done by the likes…