Flip The Frog: The Complete Series
Thunderbean’s greatest achievement is here, as Steve Stanchfield and his team bring Ub Iwerks’ 1930s creation to high definition disc, with all shorts lovingly restored and accompanied by scads of quality bonus features. |
The Puppetoon Movie Volume 3
With 21 stop-motion puppet films and seven hand-drawn animated shorts, this third volume of George Pal’s classic cartoons is overflowing with creativity, fun, and simply amazing artistry! |
Star Trek – Lower Decks: Season 1
Really, this is a Star Trek show! The missions are real, but seen through a comedy lens. The writing is sharp, the performances are great, and Trek fans can enjoy some genuine character comedy without being subjected to camp. |
The Croods: A New Age
Everyone’s favorite stone-age family — no, not that one! — are back for more of the same. |
The Puppetoon Movie: Volume 2
Featuring brilliant restoration work, this new compilation of classic George Pal stop-motion shorts astounds the viewer with its animation, music, and color. Also included are rare European films, including ones with hand-drawn animation. |
Warning From Space
Arrow Video brings out the Japanese classic, allowing a reappraisal after years of low-quality TV broadcasts and public domain DVDs. It’s good, too, once you get past the silly-looking starfish aliens. |
Star Wars – Rebels: Complete Season Four
Lucasfilm’s TV show brings pain to our heroes, who constantly have to turn losses into wins. The final season provides both tears and cheers in the best Star Wars tradition. |
Mary And The Witch’s Flower
Studio Ghibli fans will be happy that sort-of successor Studio Ponoc has made a beautiful debut film. The tale of a girl who finds herself a witch may be familiar on the surface, but the seeds of future greatness are obvious. |
The Breadwinner
This Oscar-nominated film tells of a young Afgan girl who disguises herself as a boy to support her family, after her father is arrested by the Taliban, in an eye-opening story that sees oppression fought with courage and love. |
Justice League Action – Superpowers Unite: Season One, Part One
The World’s Greatest Superheroes battle the forces of evil in colorful bite-sized stories that are perfect for younger kids and their parents. |
Star Wars – Rebels: Complete Season Three
The crew of the Ghost face off against Grand Admiral Thrawn as the penultimate season of Rebels sees the Alliance fully formed and the story inches towards A New Hope. |
The Powerpuff Girls: The Last Donnycorn
The Powerpuff Girls come dangerously close to not saving the day in this disappointingly underwhelming collection of episodes. |
Adventure Time: The Complete Seventh Season
Continuing its creative storytelling and ambitious world-building, this show doesn’t lose any of its spark, also experimenting with its first miniseries: Marceline-centric Stakes. |
The Red Turtle
The award-winning Studio Ghibli film, that actually is a European production, has characters that never speak, but the film has plenty to say. |
Tangled: Before Ever After
The Tangled television series kicks off with this debut movie, whose job is simply to restore Rapunzel’s golden locks for the ongoing show in an entertaining enough fashion. |
Sing
Fun and funny, with a killer, wide-ranging soundtrack that overcomes its cartoon karaoke concept, and some great character animation, Sing turns out to be the best singing contest on screens right now. |
Miss Hokusai
This tale of famous Japanese artists – a man and his daughter – is told using Buddhist ideas of life’s simple pleasures, rather than trying to fit a Western-style genre. Its rewards are subtle and may be unexpected. |
Moana: Ultimate Collectors Edition
Disney’s second animated smash of 2016 is this brilliant action adventure musical from masters of the craft John Musker and Ron Clements, and this disc presentation is as solid as they come! |
Mickey And The Roadster Racers
This Mickey Mouse Clubhouse spin-off offers plenty of slapstick-heavy action for kids, even as some adults wonder how much mileage Disney can get out of it. |
The Powerpuff Girls: Tiara Trouble
Though it may not capture the absurd magic of the original series, the new Powerpuff Girls still provides plenty of laughs for both kids and adults. |
Trolls: Party Edition
The delightful DreamWorks musical hit looks great on disc, even if the number of extras included isn’t exactly hair-raising. |
Pinocchio: Walt Disney Signature Collection
Walt Disney’s epic masterpiece joins the Signature line, with a typically light treatment where the (lack of new) supplements can’t hold a candle to the brilliant feature. |
Adventure Time: Islands
The event mini-series fulfills its promise of revealing the answers to a few of the hit series’ greatest mysteries, as Finn, Jake, and Susan Stong sail off on a journey to find more humans and the secrets to their pasts. |
Lego Star Wars – The Freemaker Adventures: Complete Season One
This slick and exciting Lucasfilm show earns a surprising amount of credit for crafting a credible Star Wars story, even if it is told in a humorous fashion. |
Pete’s Dragon
One of Disney’s biggest surprises of the year is this wonderfully good-natured gem, a mighty fine family film that stands out from all the other talking animals and fish currently out there. Just lovely. |
The BFG
Spielberg directs a rare misfire that draws on Roald Dahl’s book, Amblin production values and Disney magic, but disappointingly fails to deliver on all lackluster counts. |
The Secret Life Of Pets
Illumination’s latest finally breaks away from those Minions, with a less distinctive movie that still delivers laughs even if it gets close to being lost in the animal comedy fray. |
Kubo And The Two Strings
Laika steps up stop-motion, and largely western animation in general, with this beautiful and deeply heartfelt tale, nicely showcased on this disc. |
Finding Dory
Pixar’s Nemo sequel is a movie in search of a plot and, despite huge audience approval, one just doesn’t get the feeling the filmmakers were really invested in what amounts to being a major creative disappointment. |
The Venture Bros.: The Complete Sixth Season
The Ventures relocate to NYC, The Monarch takes on a bold new identity as his wife also takes a new job, and this very funny show finds its best rhythm yet. |