Page 2 August 26, 2021
Entertainment
Film Review Check It Out
‘Cryptozoo’ is a Highly Imaginative Adventure
About Conserving Fantasy Creatures
By Ryan Rojas for cinemacy.com
Treat yourself to a psychedelically-animated
experience with writer/director Dash Shaw’s new
film Cryptozoo, a fantasy-adventure about the
existence of imaginary creatures that feels like
something akin to the 1973 counter-culture film
Fantastic Planet. But beyond it being a mindless
watch, it also shows humans’ varying efforts
of safeguarding as well as domesticating endangered
species and understanding the “other”
in the hopes of conceiving a utopian world.
With its child-like, trippy visuals, it’s easy to
feel like you’re catching a contact high from
just watching the film. It’s simply rendered;
the flat, 2-D hand-drawn animation of pencil
lines and blotty ink, along with its stop-motion
fluidity, feels as if the doodles from the corner
of a stoned high schooler’s notebook came to
life in vivid wonder.
Cryptozoo, courtesy Magnolia Pictures.
Cryptozoo doesn’t so much require an active
effort to follow along with, story-wise, and
instead opts to slow you down. Its glaciallymoving
pace feels like a nice drift into a lazy,
spellbinding daydream.
You’ll first need to know what “cryptids” are,
which the film explains as animals whose existence
is unknown or doubted (which, if you’re
unaware, are rooted in cultural folklore and mythology).
Lauren Gray (Lake Bell) is an activist
who frees cryptids from black market opportunists.
When the US government sets its sights on
capturing the Baku–a cryptid that can suck out
dreams–for weaponizing its powers to “wipe out
the dreams of the counter culture,” Lauren teams
up with Medusa-humanoid Phoebe (Angeliki
Papoulia) to save the creature and their world
(because “without dreams, there is no future”).
Cartoonish and yet beautifully textured, Dash
Shaw (My Entire High School Sinking Into the
Sea) and Jane Samborski (Cryptozoo‘s animation
director) pair wonderfully in bringing a
balanced mix of limitless imagination. They also
give millennial-minded reverence for counterculture
graphic art of the 60s, which extends to
the idealism of the time that is at the heart of this
film as well. They’re both earnestly-minded
artists with pure-hearted love for these imaginary
creatures, and it’s obvious that this film
shouldn’t be written off as just a “trippy movie.”
Shaw explores our flawed human logic of the
“Cryptozoo,” which Lauren calls a “sanctuary
to preserve the animals” – but it’s as much
that as it is a Seaworld-esque amusement
park. The themes of domestication, preservation,
exploitation, and control pop up as well.
And it’s all staged against the evil, controlling
US government, whose demonization is both
infantile as it is accurate (swap out “cryptids”
with indigenous people and it’s a story about
our history of dominating other cultures).
Highly inventive and imaginative, Cryptozoo is
a playful fantasy adventure with altruistic ideas
of man’s relationship with the natural world
and animal liberation. Dash Shaw proves that
a child’s eye and mind is the best way to see
magic and understand oppression and letting
things be free. Take a trip to Cryptozoo and
into a world that imagines how a more ideal
way of life can be lived.
1h 35min. ‘Cryptozoo’ is now playing in
select theaters and available to rent digitally. •
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The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
By Cathie Hinkle-Library Assistant
In this honey of a book we find three
main characters; Alice, Jake and Harry who
are brought together under unusual circumstances.
Alice, a beekeeper, has recently lost
her husband and is experiencing grief and
panic attacks. Her sweet bees are not even
able to bring her any relief. Jake is a teenager,
who takes pride in his exceptionally
large mohawk. He lives in an abusive home
and recently suffered a tragic accident which
caused him to become a paraplegic. Harry,
our final colorful character, has extreme
anxiety and social insecurities.
Our story unfolds as Alice, who is transporting
a truckload of honeybee’s home
experiences a panic attack and runs into
Jake as he is scooting along the road in his
wheelchair. Jake is unhurt and when finds
out what Alice is transporting becomes
truly interested. Alice wants to just be left
alone but Jake, and his thirst for learning
about her bees, leads to an unlikely friendship.
Harry, although he suffers from anxiety,
needs to work. He applies to Alice’s want
ad and much to his surprise, he gets the
job and two lifelong friends as well. The
book also has a subplot that deals with a
sneaky pesticide company and how the three
friends face their fears in order to stay true
to themselves and to protect the bees that
they love.
This book hums with humanity, gentleness
and the task of overcoming fears and how
we, just like bees, protect and nurture our
chosen family.
To check out this and other heartwarming
youth titles, please stop by the library or
check out our website, www.elsegundolibrary.
org, to apply for your free library card. We
are open 9am-9pm Monday-Thursday and
10am-5pm Saturday and Sunday. •
The Music of Bees by Eileen Garvin
Cathie Hinkle
Ryan Rojas
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