Unexpected Journey 

Cartoon Saloon is an animation studio that should be appreciated more. They tell unique stories with unique animation, proving that 2D animation is still alive and well.

I love The Last Jedi. I don’t think there has been a Star Wars movie in quite some time that brought something new, something fresh to the table.

The movie is centered around the title character who goes on a Christmas adventure.

As a huge fan of Sean Baker’s Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket, I’ve wanted to watch Anora since before it even was released. But life got in the way, my watchlist grew, and honestly, the fact that it was marketed as a romantic comedy put me off. Even with all the critical praise and the five Academy Awards it won last year, I just kept postponing it indefinitely.

Its predictability shouldn’t distract from the enjoyment that the pure cinematic imagination behind the camera elicits. It is a movie of crises both moral and mortal, oozing with CGI, and thoroughly enjoyable.

I came across Urchin by chance and decided to watch it because of the title. It made me think of the spiky animal that lives at the bottom of the ocean, and the old Dickensian novels, where an urchin was an orphaned, homeless child in shaggy and dirty clothes.