A veritable moving, living, colorful scrapbooking experience, Netflix’s multi-award nominated The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a moving animated journal full of highly textured CG, integrated with hand-drawn 2D animation, live-action footage, and puppetry. Its distinct style sets it apart from others in its class… a comic look at an apocalyptic adventure – daring to classify a family film as one that is comedic and apocalyptic in the same sentence.
Check out “The Art of The Mitchells vs. The Machines” here.
Debbie Diamond Sarto is assistant news editor at Animation World Network.
Netflix has released on its awards site a free, brand-new book, “The Art of The Mitchells vs. The Machines,” offering colorful insight into the film. Director Mike Rianda’s mom, Debbie Rianda, gets some digs in as author of the book’s forward. She describes her son’s admonition that directors’ moms “typically weren’t involved in meetings with major celebrities” when discussing casting decisions. As a mom, also named Debbie, I will agree with the director’s mother on this point when she described it as “a bad strategic move” (however she did concede it was somehow still pulled off without her help) – mothers belong in the planning and implementation of their kids careers and projects in almost every instance.
In case you missed it, the mad capped adventure features an ordinary family thrust into the middle of its biggest family challenge yet… saving the world from the robot apocalypse. Piece of cake. It all starts when creative outsider Katie Mitchell is accepted into the film school of her dreams and is eager to leave home and find “her people.” Her nature-loving dad insists on having the whole family drive her to school and bond during one last totally-not-awkward-or-forced road trip. But just when the trip can’t get any worse, the family suddenly finds itself in the middle of the robot uprising! Everything from smart phones, to roombas, to evil Furbys are employed to capture every human on the planet. Now it’s up to the Mitchells, including upbeat mom Linda, quirky little brother Aaron, their squishy pug, Monchi, and two friendly, but simple-minded robots to save humanity.
The movie is now streaming on Netflix.
The movie was produced by the dynamic duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, producers of the Oscar-winning animated feature, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and The LEGO Movie. The film is written by former Gravity Falls scribes Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe, who also serve as director and co-director. It stars Rianda; Abbi Jacobson; Danny McBride; Maya Rudolph; Eric Andre; Olivia Colman; Blake Griffin; Fred Armisen; Beck Bennett; Chrissy Teigen; John Legend; Charlyne Yi; Conan O’Brien; Sasheer Zamata; Elle Mills; Alex Hirsch; and Jay Pharoah. And Doug the Pug. Lord, Miller, and Kurt Albrecht produced the film; Will Allegra, Louis Koo Tin Lok executive produced.
