20131221: Animation Review--Strange Frame

Strange Frame: Love & Sax

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American animated feature length film, 2012, NR, 96 minutes, drama, romance, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 7.6/10.0 from 1,207 audience ratings.  Estimated budget: 2 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No score yet...', and 94% liked it from 42 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.3/5.0 from 15,736 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: G. B. Hijim.
6. Starring: Claudia Black as Parker C. Boyd, Tara Strong as Naia X., Ron Glass as Philo D Grenman, Cree Summer as Reesa Abi Kiran Ariana Livingston III, Tim Curry as Dorlan Mig, Juliette Landau as Bitsea, Alan Tudyk as Chat.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Naia is a singer, Parker a saxophone player.  They made good music together until they encountered Dorlan Mig, who drugged both of them.  He threw out Parker, and denied her access to Naia.


2. Parker barely manages to keep her best saxophones.  She eventually meets Grenman, the all-around fixit man on a spaceship.  This gives her a safe home and friends.  However, the ship's onboard AI is going psycho, and is sabotaging the ship.


3. It's the late 28th century, and humanity lives mostly off Earth: Mars, the Jovian satellites, large asteroids, and places further out, rather like in Cowboy Bebop.  There is a war among the various planets, satellites, space stations, and asteroids.  AI and robotics are enormously further along than on 21st century Earth.


4. Parker sells one of her saxes to help pay the bills on Grenman's ship. She investigates her former band.  She takes the bass of the player Atem, who abandoned it and his clothes.  Parker promises to give the bass to Atem if she finds him.  She meets Chat, another band member, and tries to figure what Dorlan did with Naia.


5. She attends one of Naia's current shows, takes recordings, feels the singing with her singer's sense..  Parker becomes quarter owner of the ship, and the crew sets about to help her to kidnap the 'fake' Naia.


6. Will Parker succeed in rescuing the real Naia?  Will the captain succeed in regaining complete control of his ship from the AI?  Will Dorlan get his just reward?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Lush voices, fine music, good story, hideous visuals.
2. Four stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Art: 4/10 Terrible. Ugly.  An assault on the eyes.  A festival of hideous images.


2. Sound: 10/10 Voices and incidental music were fine.


3. Voicing: 10/10 Claudia Black was brilliant, Ron Glass excellent.


4. Screenplay: 10/10 A touching and inventive story set in the Cowboy Bebop like future environment.