Best Seat on the Couch

From cartoonist ND Stevenson, the mind behind She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, we get Nimona, a gorgeously animated sci-fantasy film that's risen from its ashes after almost being axed by Disney a few years ago. Ballister and Nimona give excellent performances and together they tell a rich and genuine story centering around duty, purpose, and the struggles that real-life LGBTQ+ individuals face in today's world, in ways that a few of us have never seen before! That isn't to say that Marcus enjoyed every aspect of this movie, but we talk about whether of that is justified, too. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

The gang punches their tickets back onto the Star Wars train with the second season of Star Wars: Visions, the non-canon anthology series showcasing animation studios from around the world. This time around we're not locked into Anime-only, and get to see cool stop-motion from Aardman (of Wallace and Gromit fame) and Triggerfish, anime from Studio Mir, and awesome visual stories from lesser-known studios like El Guiri and La Cachette. We discuss them all in this episode, talk about which ones hit and which ones missed, and give everyone their fair share of flowers. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

Pretty incredible that we're nearing the end of the Miyazaki-Studio Ghibli pantheon, but My Neighbor Totoro (1988) is perhaps one of the most well-known entries in that catalogue, even if it's not as wondrous and fantastical as Princess Mononoke or Castle in the Sky. As Alex says, instead imagine that you could capture a sunny day with a picnic into a movie, and meeting an 8ft tall fluffy alien being who takes a cat to work while you're eating. But even if the stakes are lower, there's a family and childhood story worth watching here. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

In this Breaking News segment of Best Seat on the Couch, the gang is coming in hot off the heels of not one, but two in-theatre screenings of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, this year's smash hit animated blockbuster. We get more Gwen, more Spider-people, more multiverse, more top-notch artistry, more soundtrack bangers, and a thrilling third act - just go see the movie! Content warning: MAJOR SPOILERS, strong language.

This week on Best Seat on the Couch, the gang takes the wayback machine straight to Alex's childhood with The Land Before Time, a movie that existed really before our modern understanding of dinosaurs did. A movie voice acted by literal children makes for a very convincing kids' movie, and the journey itself is fun! There's action scenes, the Bambi scene before Bambi came out, a weirdly biblical quest for the Promised Land/Great Valley, and plenty of cute children dinosaurs doing their thing. One thing's for certain – we are not the target audience anymore. Content warning: strong language.

On this week's episode, according to Michael, we're talking about the movie Chicken Little tried (not very hard) to be, apparently. As he draws the connections on the whiteboard and makes the connections the other 3 of us failed to see, it is clear that Michael is actually correct. But where Chicken Little failed to justify its baseball subplot to create the father-son connection, How to Train Your Dragon allows Hiccup and Stoick's father-son relationship to blossom over the course of Hiccup's friendship with Toothless and success in the dragon training ring. Not to mention, this movie's cast of characters is much better, Hiccup's character arc is more believable and genuine, and the Hiccup and Toothless relationship is done nearly perfectly. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

It's honestly pretty incredible that Chicken Little kickstarted the reverse of Disney's post-Renaissance slump as its very first 3D animated film, because this movie is frankly pretty bad. It does not look good (no offense to the hundreds of animators that learned Maya for this), its plot is weirdly disjointed between a feel-good baseball film and an alien invasion film, and pretty much every side character ranges from disappointing to absolute garbage - as Michael states, the first 20 minutes made him want to die, and Marcus rants for 3 minutes on why Buck "Ace" Cluck is the singular worst father figure character he's ever seen in cinema. But all that being said, there are some bright spots in this movie, and to be honest the alien subplot is fairly captivating, so I suppose it's better that the movie improves over its runtime as opposed to the opposite. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

I was surprised to discover that our episode on Shrek was over 2 years ago, as it feels like our discussion on that movie's themes - and its recent induction into the Library of Congress's National Film Registry - was fresh in our minds as we tackled the sequel Shrek 2. Solidly a great movie but arguably a perfect sequel, Shrek 2 builds upon the world from the original with the introduction of Far Far Away, introduces an absolute grand slam of a character in Puss in Boots in addition to worthy side characters like Fiona's parents and Prince Charming, fleshes out Shrek's own personal growth with self-worth and his relationship with Fiona, and somehow folds in contemporary popular music into this film even better than the original did. Come with us and let Iris see that Shrek 2 is love, Shrek 2 is life. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

At long last, 6 months later, the Gang has finally arrived at the end of their Bizarre Adventure. Stone Ocean is the final anime adaptation available to the JoJo's manga and wrapped up just last year in December, and with it comes what is perhaps the most intriguing and captivating story yet. The story, characters, villains, and conceit are so good that it actually has convinced Michael to not be mad at this show for being good - and that's not to ignore the fact that the stand battles and Araki shenanigans continue to live up to the astronomical level of hype. We wrap up with a nice JoJo's retrospective on the entire series as a whole as well, and end the episode with a vow to binge through Part 7 when it comes to a screen near you. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.

In its infancy, DreamWorks Animation studios began its quest to swing at Disney and attempt not to miss. Their best animators were tasked with a project flanked with music by Hans Zimmer and an ensemble voice cast, and anyone who couldn't make the cut was relegated to animating Shrek. That project was The Prince of Egypt, and the gang rapidly discovers that the number of members with religious upbringings outnumbers the number without (sorry Michael) as we delve deep into this discussion. We love the tone of the movie, the strength of its music numbers, and the DreamWorks flare that comes through in small moments in the film. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.