The Netflix feature The Mitchells vs. the Machines (Mike Rianda, 2021) gets the Fantasy/Animation treatment, as Chris and Alex offer up a discussion in this episode of the film’s dysfunctional family dynamics, road movie structure, and its spectacular sentient robots techno-narrative. Topics include the contribution of Sony Pictures Animation to the Hollywood computer-animated film industry and stylistic links to both Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2009) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey & Rodney Rothman, 2018); The Mitchells vs. the Machines’ critique of technology that seemingly sits at odds with its own visual enjoyment of the pleasures of screen culture; timeless vs. timely storytelling via the contemporaneity of the film’s intertextual referencing and depiction of digital natives; the historical whiteness of AI and the racialising of voice-activated virtual digital assistants; the realisation of Katie’s queerness and the fraught logic of equating screen visibility with progress; the potential to read the family through neurodivergent frameworks; and how Mike Rianda’s film provides an ultimately uneven and highly performative portrayal of ‘madcap’ antics, female creativity, and outsiderdom.
**Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**
Footnote #20 - Christmas
The Snowman (1982) (with James Walters)
Footnote #19 - Morphing
Willow (Ron Howard, 1988)
Footnote #18 - Studio Ghibli (with Susan Napier)
Spirited Away (2001) (with Susan Napier)
Footnote #17 - Metaphor
Inside Out (2015) (with Eric Herhuth)
Footnote #16 - Dual Address (with Noel Brown)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) (with Noel Brown)
Footnote #15 - Motion Capture
In Conversation with Nancy Beiman
Footnote #14 - Thinning
Speed Racer (2008) (with Tim Robey)
Footnote #13 - Folklore and Folkloric
Flee (2021) (with Cristina Formenti)
Footnote #12 - The Lightning Sketch (with Malcolm Cook)
Mothra (1961) (with Alex Davidson)
Footnote #11 - Society for Animation Studies (with Chris Pallant)
Osmosis Jones (2001) (with Tom Sito)
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