Animation & Cartoons

Critic Milo Miles reviews the new four-DVD set, Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938. The animated series features the classic Popeye cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers studios. Miles calls the set a first-rate reissue.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews “The Simpsons Movie.”

Al Jean knows Marge, Homer, Bart and the gang better than almost anyone. He's executive producer and writer for The Simpsons, and he's been with the show since it began. The new Simpsons movie, he's been heard to say, is about "what happens when a man doesn't listen to his wife."

Before The Simpsons, Jean worked on TV's A.L.F. and It's Garry Shandling's Show.

Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt stars in Ratatouille, the new animated feature from Pixar. He's also a writer and stand-up comic, who starred in his own comedy specials and appeared in the TV shows The King of Queens and Reno 911! He'll release a new comedy album, called Werewolves and Lollipops, on July 10.

Two momentous films open nationwide on the same day. Sicko radically challenges our perspective on health care. Ratatouille radically challenges our perspective on rats in kitchens. Cynics will say there's a better chance of a rodent becoming a chef than of universal health care for Americans. That underestimates the big fighting rat at the center of Sicko.

Director Brad Bird and actor Patton Oswalt talk about their film Ratatouille.

The new picture, from digital-animation powerhouse Pixar, opens nationwide tomorrow; it's a comedy about a foodie rat who becomes a chef in a top Paris kitchen.

Bird previously directed and wrote The Incredibles and The Iron Giant.

Oswalt, who provides the voice of the leading rat, Remy, is a writer and stand-up comedian. He's also something of a serious foodie himself — which is in part why Bird wanted him to play his furry hero.

Misunderstood giants? None have ever been as popular as Shrek, star of two huge summer hits since 2001. Paramount's grumpy-green-ogre franchise is the epitome of the hand-hold movie: family flicks that serve up action, tomfoolery and life-lessons for the kids, nonstop pop-culture in-jokes for the adults, and fart jokes for the whole family.

Film historian Rudy Behlmer wrote the CD liner notes for the sound track of the film King Kong.

Two extremely popular versions of the Cinderella story were produced in the 1950s. Both are now available on DVD, and classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz has a review.

Writer Mark Cotta Vaz's new book is Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Howl's Moving Castle, the new Disney film made by Hayao Miyazaki, who made the Academy-Award winning animated film Spirited Away.

Comic Tom Kenny is the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon's animated star of television and lately the movies, too. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is now out on DVD. Originally broadcast on Nov. 16, 2004.

We talk with Brad Bird, who wrote and directed the Academy Award-winning film The Incredibles, about a suburban family with superpowers. The mix of average characters and extraordinary abilities has turned the animated characters into celebrities.

He directs and provides voices for the new series Robot Chicken on Cartoon Network, which he describes as "SNL meets The Nightmare Before Christmas." It's a fast-paced, irreverent stop-action animated variety show.

Critic David Edelstein reviews The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, now in theaters. He calls the TV cartoon that spawned the animated film "a joyful spasm of whacked-out surrealism," but says the film has a much more straightforward plot and some pedestrian characters.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new Pixar animated film The Incredibles. Voiced by Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter, among others, the comic film tracks a family of superheroes who must abandon a quiet life in the suburbs to fight evil.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews music from the film The Triplets of Belleville, now on DVD.

Music critic Milo Miles looks the 1971 animated feature The Point. Pop musician Harry Nilsson wrote the story and the songs. It's just been released on DVD (BMG).

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Finding Nemo and The Triplets of Belleville — both nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature film.

He created model-animation and composite-cinematography techniques. His trademark Dynamation method made possible a whole genre of science fiction and fantasy films. His work include The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts and Clash of the Titans.