Next Club Meeting:November 21, 2026,at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.
This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires in today's pop culture, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.
DreamWorks' Forgotten Island wound up being a massive flop, bringing in only $12 million opening weekend. Could this be a very bad sign for critically acclaimed ORIGINAL animated movies in an age of Hollywood consolidation? Oh, almost certainly...
(I love the number of Filipino clichés & stereotypes shown in this 4 minute clip.)
DreamWorks Animation, the studio that brought you unforgettable bonds between a boy and a dragon in How to Train Your Dragon, an ogre and a donkey in Shrek, and a robot and a gosling in The Wild Robot, now welcomes a dazzling and emotional story about two lifelong best friends who must come together before they drift apart in Forgotten Island.
The new original film is written and directed by Academy Award® nominee Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado and is produced by Academy Award® nominee Mark Swift, the filmmaking team behind Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.
Grammy and Academy Award® winning supernova H.E.R. and Liza Soberano (Lisa Frankenstein, Alone/Together) star as high school graduates Jo and Raissa, who have been best friends since grade school but are now about to embark on separate life paths.
While celebrating their last night together, Jo and Raissa stumble upon a mysterious portal that transports them to the fantastical island of Nakali, packed with magical and mythological creatures they grew up hearing stories about from their Filipino families.
Some of these figures will become friends, some foes. Joined by well-meaning-but- hapless weredog Raww (Dave Franco) and a small-but-mighty pack of pals, Jo and Raissa must face The Dreaded Manananggal (Tony winning icon Lea Salonga), the most feared creature on the island. When they discover that the memories of their entire friendship are the price for returning home, Jo and Raissa will race to find a way to leave the island before they forget each other forever.
The film’s all-star voice cast also includes Emmy nominee Jenny Slate (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Dying for Sex), Manny Jacinto (The Good Place, Top Gun: Maverick), BAFTA nominee Dolly de Leon (Triangle of Sadness, Ghostlight), global comedy superstar Jo Koy (Haunted Mansion, Jo Koy: Live from Brooklyn) and Emmy winner Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show, M3GAN).
The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot—ROZZUM unit 7134, “Roz” for short — that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.
The Wild Robot stars Academy Award® winner Lupita Nyong’o (Us, The Black Panther franchise) as robot Roz; Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Pedro Pascal (The Last of Us, The Mandalorian) as fox Fink; Emmy winner Catherine O’Hara (Schitt’s Creek, Best in Show) as opossum Pinktail; Oscar® nominee Bill Nighy (Living, Love Actually) as goose Longneck; Kit Connor (Heartstopper, Rocketman) as gosling Brightbill and Oscar® nominee Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once, this summer’s The Fall Guy) as Vontra, a robot that will intersect with Roz’s life on the island.
The film also features the voice talents of Emmy winning pop-culture icon Mark Hamill (Star Wars franchise, The Boy and the Heron), Matt Berry (What We Do in the Shadows, The SpongeBob Movie franchise) and Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee Ving Rhames (Mission: Impossible films, Pulp Fiction).
A powerful story about the discovery of self, a thrilling examination of the bridge between technology and nature and a moving exploration of what it means to be alive and connected to all living things, The Wild Robot is written and directed by three-time Oscar® nominee Chris Sanders—the writer-director of DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon, The Croods, and Disney’s Lilo & Stitch—and is produced by Jeff Hermann (DreamWorks Animation’s The Boss Baby 2: Family Business; co-producer, Kung Fu Panda franchise).
Peter Brown’s The Wild Robot, an illustrated middle-grade novel first published in 2016, became a phenomenon, rocketing to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The book has since inspired a trilogy that now includes The Wild Robot Escapes and The Wild Robot Protects. Brown’s work on the Wild Robot series and his other bestselling books have earned him a Caldecott Honor, a Horn Book Award, two E.B. White Awards, two E.B. White Honors, a Children’s Choice Award for Illustrator of the Year, two Irma Black Honors, a Golden Kite Award and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award.
From DreamWorks Animation comes a new adaptation of a literary sensation,
Peter Brown’s beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot.
Sometimes the hero you are meant to be lies just beneath the surface.
This summer, DreamWorks Animation dives into the turbulent waters of high school with a hilarious, heartfelt action comedy about a shy teenager who discovers that she’s part of a legendary royal lineage of mythical sea krakens and that her destiny, in the depths of the oceans, is bigger than she ever dreamed.
Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible.
She’s math-tutoring her skater-boy crush (Jaboukie Young-White, Ralph Breaks the Internet), who only seems to admire her for her fractals, and she’s prevented from hanging out with the cool kids at the beach because her over-protective supermom (Oscar nominee Toni Collette, Knives Out), has forbade Ruby from ever getting in the water.
But when she breaks her mom’s #1 rule, Ruby will discover that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Academy Award winner Jane Fonda), the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas.
The Kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids who have been battling with the Kraken for eons. There’s one major, and immediate, problem with that: The school’s beautiful, popular new girl, Chelsea (Emmy winner Annie Murphy, Schitt’s Creek) just happens to be a mermaid. Ruby will ultimately need to embrace who she is and go big to protect those she loves most.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken stars an extraordinary cast that includes Emmy winner Colman Domingo (Fear the Walking Dead) as Ruby’s supportive dad, Emmy nominee Sam Richardson (Veep) as Ruby’s enthusiastic uncle and Blue Chapman (Council of Dads) as Ruby’s cool little brother.
The upcoming animated movie stars Lana Condor, Jaboukie Young-White,
Toni Collette, Jane Fonda, Annie Murphy, Colman Domingo, Sam Richardson,
and Blue Chapman. Directed by Academy Award nominated filmmaker Kirk DeMicco (Vivo, The Croods) and produced by Kelly Cooney Cilella (Trolls World Tour, Trolls), with Faryn Pearl (The Croods: A New Age, Trolls World Tour) serving as co-director, the film features a comedic powerhouse supporting cast, including Emmy nominee Will Forte (The Last Man on Earth), Emmy nominee Nicole Byer (Nailed It!), YouTube Diamond creator Liza Koshy (Liza on Demand), Ramona Young (Never Have I Ever), Eduardo Franco (Stranger Things) and Echo Kellum (Arrow).
Set 1,300 years after the events of 'How to Train Your Dragon', a
group of misfit kids brought to the site of a geological anomaly by
their parents uncover the truth about dragons and where they have been
hiding.
The Croods need a new place to live. So, the first prehistoric family
sets off into the world in search of a safer place to call home. When
they discover an idyllic walled-in paradise that meets all their needs,
they think their problems are solved … except for one thing. Another
family already lives there: the Bettermans. The Bettermans (emphasis on
the “better”)—with their elaborate tree house, amazing inventions and
irrigated acres of fresh produce—are a couple of steps above the Croods
on the evolutionary ladder. When they take the Croods in as the world’s
first houseguests, it isn’t long before tensions escalate between the
cave family and the modern family. Just when all seems lost, a new
threat will propel both families on an epic adventure outside the safety
of the wall, one that will force them to embrace their differences,
draw strength from each other and forge a future together.
When Kipo is separated from her family, she must learn to navigate a peculiar and dangerous surface world full of adorable, but deadly creatures! Luckily, she won't have to do it alone. Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts now on Netflix!
DreamWorks Animation and Pearl Studio’s co-production Abominable takes audiences on an epic 2,000-mile adventure from the streets of Shanghai to the breathtaking Himalayan snowscapes.
When teenage Yi (Chloe Bennet, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) encounters a young Yeti on the roof of her apartment building in Shanghai, she and her mischievous friends, Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and Peng (Albert Tsai), name him “Everest” and embark on an epic quest to reunite the magical creature with his family at the highest point on Earth.
But the trio of friends will have to stay one-step ahead of Burnish (Eddie Izzard), a wealthy man intent on capturing a Yeti, and zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson) to help Everest get home.
Abominable is written and directed by Jill Culton (Open Season, Monsters, Inc., Toy Story 2) and is produced by Suzanne Buirgy (Kung Fu Panda 2, Home). Peilin Chou of Pearl Studio also produces. The film is executive produced by Tim Johnson (Over the Hedge, Home, ANTZ) and is co-directed by Todd Wilderman (Trolls, The Croods).
Abominable will be released by Universal Pictures worldwide beginning September 27, 2019. In China, the film will be distributed by Pearl.
DreamWorks Larrikins is a cancelled animated musical film that’s supposed to be about a bilby who gets kicked out of his sheltered life of his family burrow and he ventures out and finds himself launched on a musical adventure across the mystical Australian outback. But sadly in 2017 this film got shut down by Dreamworks and we were really sad and disappointed to hear about it, especially the director of the movie Tim Minchin, after he heard about the cancellation of the movie he was furious and saddened that his four years of hard work on this film got shut down by Dreamworks. This could’ve been a really great and beautiful movie. But don’t worry with this petition, we can raise our voices, we can make Dreamworks put this movie back into production and bring it to theaters so we can make Tim Minchin’s dream come true! And we will really be appreciated if you people spread the word! So please sign this petition, thank you for reading!
Adora, Glimmer, and Bow embark on a journey of discovery that leads them to the desolate Crimson Waste. Meanwhile, Hordak and Entrapta push Catra aside while they conjure up a master plan that only The Princess Alliance can stop. The journey of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power continues on Netflix August 2nd!
[Source: Syfy] Looking for a delightful streaming show to chase those post-holiday blues away? Netflix has you covered, and no, it isn't a sequel/mashup called Bird Box Bandersnatch 2: The College Years. Guillermo del Toro's next installment in the animated Tales of Arcadia saga is here— what he and his companions began in Trollhunters (one of the most underrated shows around), he continues in 3Below: Tales of Arcadia.
The show takes us across the stars to the planet Arkaridion-5, where Princess Aja (Tatiana Maslany) and Prince Krel (Diego Luna) are forced to flee after an intergalactic dictator stages a coup. They escape aboard a sentient mothership (voiced by Glenn Close) along with their guardian, Varvatos Vex (Nick Offerman) and their alien dog, Luug. They have to hide, so the mothership (or "Mother") chooses a planet that is so out of the way (and awful) that they will never be found. Lo and behold, Mother chooses a "mudball" called Earth, a place literally "named after dirt."
So to Earth they go, and in order to to blend in when going outside (and not appear like the shimmery, four-armed aliens they really are), Mother disguises them as three earth beings that no one will notice — Aja as a girl, Krel as a Latino boy, and Vex as a senior citizen.
Of course they land in the town of Arcadia, and as we know from Trollhunters, the place already sees its fair share of crazy stuff. The show has everything you'd expect from a del Toro project: humor, heart, great action, subversion, and a huge amount of fun. One moment, it's stating a double message about our heroes being illegal aliens, and the next moment Luug is farting laser beams. With a lesser team in place, such tonal shifts might give you some serious whiplash, but with del Toro, Rodrigo Blaas, Marc Guggenheim, and Chad Hammes at the helm, the ship always flies like a dream.
There's a lot (seriously, a lot) of new programming that is being offered right now, and 3Below: Tales of Arcadia deserves to be at the top of your queue... just in case the alien dog farting laser beams didn't get it there already.
On the heels of their six-time Academy Award®-winning smash, La La Land, Oscar®-winning director Damien Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling reteam for Universal Pictures’ First Man, the riveting story behind the first manned mission to the moon, focusing on Neil Armstrong and the decade leading to the historic Apollo 11 flight. A visceral and intimate account told from Armstrong’s perspective, based on the book by James R. Hansen, the film explores the triumphs and the cost—on Armstrong, his family, his colleagues and the nation itself—of one of the most dangerous missions in history. Written by Academy Award® winner Josh Singer (Spotlight, The Post), the epic drama of leading under the pressure of grace and tragedy is produced by Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen (The Twilight Saga, The Fault in Our Stars) through their Temple Hill Entertainment banner, alongside Isaac Klausner (Love, Simon) and Chazelle. Steven Spielberg, Adam Merims and Singer executive produce, while DreamWorks Pictures co-finances the film.
Valuable lessons are learned among the dragon riders all while they work together to finally unearth the true leader of the Dragon Flyers, discover an unlikely ally, and struggle to fight when the fate of all dragon-kind is put at risk. Hiccup, Toothless, and the rest of the riders embark on the most daring journey yet in an all new season of Dragons: Race to the Edge comes Netflix February 16!
Two mischievous kids hypnotize their mean high school principal and turn him into their comic book creation, the kind-hearted and elastic-banded Captain Underpants.
From the creators of Shrek comes the most smart, funny, irreverent animated comedy of the year, DreamWorks’ Trolls. This holiday season, enter a colorful, wondrous world populated by hilariously unforgettable characters and discover the story of the overly optimistic Trolls, with a constant song on their lips, and the comedicly pessimistic Bergens, who are only happy when they have trolls in their stomach.
Featuring original music from Justin Timberlake, the film stars the voice talent of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Russell Brand, James Corden, Kunal Nayyar, Ron Funches, Icona Pop, Gwen Stefani and many more.
DreamWorks' Trolls is a fresh, broad comedy filled with music, heart and hair-raising adventures. In November of 2016, nothing can prepare you for our new Troll world.
In 2016, one of the most successful animated franchises in the world returns with its biggest comedy adventure yet, KUNG FU PANDA 3. When Po's long-lost panda father suddenly reappears, the reunited duo travels to a secret panda paradise to meet scores of hilarious new panda characters. But when the supernatural villain Kai begins to sweep across China defeating all the kung fu masters, Po must do the impossible—learn to train a village full of his fun-loving, clumsy brethren to become the ultimate band of Kung Fu Pandas!
Mr. Peabody (voiced by Ty Burrell) is a business titan, inventor, scientist, Nobel Laureate, gourmand, two-time Olympic medalist, and genius... who also happens to be a dog. Using his most ingenious invention, the WABAC machine, Mr. Peabody and his adopted boy Sherman (Max Charles) hurtle back in time to experience world-changing events first-hand and interact with some of the greatest characters of all time. But when Sherman breaks the rules of time travel, our two heroes find themselves in a race to repair history and save the future, while Mr. Peabody may face his biggest challenge yet - being a parent.
