Animation Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In this month's Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson makes his first foray into animation with an adaptation of Roald Dahl's story about an upwardly mobile fox (George Clooney) whose drive to steal chickens threatens his family and community. While it's Anderson's first non-live action project, Mr. Fox nonetheless shares qualities with his other films, including a meticulous attention to detail, stylish design, and idiosyncratic characters. So how did the live-action auteur tackle the challenges of stop-motion filmmaking, especially considering that he spent much of the production in an entirely different country than his crew?

HitFix has a fun little glimpse of the director at work that shows us how Anderson collaborated with his animation team to bring the characters of Fantastic Mr. Fox to life. From his base in Paris, Anderson shot video storyboards of scenes and character movements by acting out scenes and blocking himself. He then emailed the videos to his crew in London, who took their visual cues from Anderson's performances. The end results, when viewed side-by-side with Anderson's versions, are near identical.

Hit the jump and watch Anderson as Mr. Fox, Kristofferson, Ash, and other characters from The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

There are a few advantages to being a Canadian: we've got great beer, not to mention we've got that whole free healthcare thing going on. But if I had to choose one reason why I love my country, it would be that CBC made sure that I got to see Nelvana's Rock & Rule the way it was meant to be.

Rock & Rule was the story of a fading rock god by the name of Mok (who's a little bit Bowie and a little bit Iggy) with an apocalyptic plan for immortality. His diabolical scheme consists of unleashing a demon by finding the perfect voice, and where might that voice be? Well, that's where a down-on-their-luck band headed by two young lovers by the names of Angel and Omar come in.

The film nearly bankrupted Nelvana and in order to get the film into US theaters, MGM/UA demanded script changes and different voice actors. But that's what you get for messing with perfection, because the film never found an audience stateside after being released under the unfortunate name, Ring of Power. Luckily the movie has found a cult following over the years and you can now find the original version on DVD.

After the jump: my favorite song from Rock & Rule and another Nelvana classic, The Devil and Daniel Mouse...

Cinematical got a sneak peek at several of the scenes from Sony's upcoming CGI film Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs recently, and about the worst thing we can say about it is that it's Pixar ... ish. Which is a bit like saying, "Gee, your watch sure looks like a Rolex." Not entirely insulting. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and Cloudy looks extremely sharp, the jokes are funny, and it made me very hungry. Plus it has a great voice cast featuring Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Bruce Campbell, Neal Patrick Harris, Andy Samberg, Tracy Morgan, James Caan, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Will Forte and Mr. T (!). So who's complaining?

Writer/directors Christopher Miller and Phil Lord, creators of the gone-before-its-time Clone High (which I can't praise enough -- unfortunately it's only available via bootleg, or in Canada), took us through the story behind the children's book turned into only the third CGI big-screen extravaganza from Sony Pictures Animation (who also doled out Open Season and Surf's Up). They also showed off some of the completed scenes in 3D, and you can read all about it and check out some new images behind the jump. This wasn't very high on my radar this year, but now that I've had a taste, we're ready for a full serving.

DreamWorks Animation has gone 3-D wacky, announcing eight upcoming animated flicks in various stages of production.

Variety reports that CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg will show investors the DWA schedule in New York this week, as part of their new plan to release five new features every two years.

Considering that Monsters vs. Aliens was the company's only 2009 release, that's a pretty ambitious goal. And like fellow studios Pixar, Buena Vista, Fox, et al, DreamWorks is throwing all their money at 3-D features for the next few years.

The current DreamWorks Animation schedule is as follows:

How to Train Your Dragon (March 26, 2010) -- Based on the kids' book by British author Cressida Cowell, the comedy focuses on a young Viking lad named Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), son of chieftain Stoic the Vast (Gerard Butler), who must train a tiny, toothless dragon as a rite of passage. It also features Jonah Hill and America Ferrera.

Shrek Forever After (May 21, 2010) -- Hey look, another Shrek sequel. Well, you can't blame DWA for squeezing every penny from their most profitable franchise. The title appears to be inspired, in fact, by the "Shrek Ever After" toy line that came out in 2008, which isn't a great sign (it was originally titled Shrek Goes Fourth, and the very fact that it was clever obviously meant that it needed to be dumbed down.) Mike Myers returns as Shrek, who's been tricked by Rumpelstiltskin (Paul McCartney) into visiting a bizarro-Shrek world in which ogres are hunted, Rumpelstiltskin is king, and Shrek's never met Fiona. All -- and I mean all -- of the primary actors from the previous films return, making for one seriously crowded story.

I had a ball describing Fear(s) of the Dark to my fellow movie freaks. After really enjoying the film at last January's Sundance Film Festival (and calling Fantastic Fest Master Chief Tim League to give him the scoop), I made sure to come up with an apt description for the film. "Hmm, what's it about?" my fellow fest-goers would ask, to which I'd reply "Oh, it's your typical French animated ... horror ... anthology. In black & white." The next response was either "Oooh, cool," (my friends) or "Meh, not my speed." (total strangers).

Created by a collection of gifted graphic artists that includes names like Charles Burns, Romain Slocombe, and Marie Caillou, Fear(s) of the Dark is not exactly a Creepshow-style omnibus, but for genre fans who can appreciate a little culture now and again, I'd call it a very cool little treat. And if you're a big fan of graphic arts or the craft of animation, then I suspect you'll devour this French delicacy with a very large spoon. Plus, best of all, it's creepy!

Fear(s) of the Dark opens on in New York City (and On Demand! Like in your living room!) on October 24 before rolling into other towns -- and yep, it's also screening a few times at Austin's Fantastic Fest -- but we're very proud to bring you the first official poster for the film. Trust me when I say the poster fits the movie quite well. Click below for the noir-ness!

Disney has Pixar. Fox has Blue Sky. Paramount has, for now, Dreamworks. As seemingly the last studio to get into animated features, Universal has offered up the trailer for their maiden effort, The Tale of Despereaux, over at Yahoo! Movies.

Based upon the 2003 Newbury Award-winning novel by Kate DiCamillo, the film follows the adventurous antics of Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick), a mouse with large ears and - I'm just guessing here - an even bigger heart, as he bucks the status quo of cowardice that seems to have imprisoned his kind to a fearsome existence.

Besides being an animated tale of a brave rodent with a tongue-tricky title and thus fated to merit comparison to those which have recently set lofty standards for similar fare, this project genuinely looks and sounds pleasant enough for all its yay-for-being-yourself familiarity. Besides, there's only more hope to be had when we're looking at a voice cast that includes the likes of Broderick, Kevin Kline, Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Stanley Tucci, William H. Macy, and Tony Hale, not to mention a Harry Potter veteran or two.

With its eye on the year-end holiday season, The Tale of Despereaux is scheduled to hit theaters on December 19th.

Yahoo! Movies has the first look at the trailer for Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and yes, all those sassy creatures that moviegoers dug to the tune of $193.5 million in the summer of 2005 are back, and this time... the penguins still seem to be stealing the show (I don't really have anything against the first movie, but the penguin-centric holiday short spin-off was itself far more amusing and, as such, has been included after the jump.)

From the look (sound?) of things, the entire voice cast is back, as lion Alex (Ben Stiller), hippo Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith), giraffe Melman (David Schwimmer), and zebra Marty (Chris Rock) try to return home to New York City from the eponymous island on which they were last stranded. Sacha Baron Cohen also appears to be returning to his role as the nutty Julien, king of the lemurs. Those working on the production have been tight-lipped as to whether or not hijinks and/or pop culture references ensue.

With original directors Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath at the helm, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa - although they're technically already in Africa - is scheduled to open opposite the latest from James Bond on November 7.

Whether or not shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force or The Simpsons succeeded in translating their television dynamics to the big screen depends on your point of view, but the release of Speed Racer this weekend raises a more specific question about the viability of turning an animated series into a live action spectacle on the big screen. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Underdog both suggest how this goal can go wrong -- namely, by imploding on its absurd conceits. You may disagree with the inclusion of some of the following titles, all of which culled their material from animation, but it's fair to say that each of them takes its subject matter at face value, allowing the natural ingredients of the original sources to remain intact. Well, maybe not Super Mario Bros., but that one is a special case (fire away, if you must). Until somebody makes an Animaniacs movie with real actors, I'm sticking to this list.

1. Popeye (1980)

Robert Altman's offbeat ode to the famous Fleisher cartoon starring the spinach-eating strongman and his darling Olive Oil is the great misunderstood work of the director's career. Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall manage to bring utterly ridiculous characters into a realm of believability that you could never imagine when watching the show. Suddenly, Popeye made sense -- goofy, almost surreal sense, but sense nonetheless -- in the real world. Thanks to veteran adult cartoonist Jules Feiffer's screenplay and a soundtrack so catchy Paul Thomas Anderson borrowed from it twenty years later in Punch-Drunk Love, the classic status of Popeye can't be denied.

Let me just say first that, I consider Bo Welch's The Cat in the Hat (2003) the worst movie I've seen in my more than ten years of reviewing movies, and Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) is not far behind, and would no doubt rank somewhere in the bottom fifty. Jim Carrey returns from the title role in The Grinch as the voice of the title role in Horton Hears a Who! so I was skeptical at best about the quality of the new film. Not to mention that most CGI animated films not produced by Pixar tend to range from forgettable to awful. What a happy surprise, then, to see one of those rare animated films -- and an even rarer family film -- which ventures into that elusive middle ground, providing wholesome entertainment for kids as well as a few belly laughs for adults.

Directed by Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino, both making their feature debut, Horton begins by effortlessly rendering in 3D space that familiar 2D world of Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss), with its curvy trees and oval-shaped hills and dales. We meet our hero, Horton (voiced by Jim Carrey), a pachyderm whose personality teeters between dutiful and lazy, helpless and self-reliant, goofy and dedicated. He teaches a class of young animals about various forms of jungle life, but not without a bit of inadvertent, entertaining slapstick. One day, a speck of fluff floats past his sizable ears and he hears a voice emanating from it. He rescues the speck, deposits it on top of a clover and learns that, living upon the speck, is an entire miniature society called Whoville (not to be confused with the Whoville in The Grinch) and run, more or less, by the Mayor (voiced by Steve Carell).

I am almost totally caught up on the films of 2007. The only major awards contender I haven't seen yet is Pixar's Ratatouille. Damn you Netflix and your "Very Long Wait" status! I've heard great things though, and now I've got an added reason to check out the DVD. Over at JimHillmedia, a Disney-focused news site, a reader wrote in: "Can you please help me win a bet at work? A co-worker of mine says that WALL-E makes a brief cameo appearance in Ratatouille. More importantly, this guy has bet me $100 that I'll never ever be able to find that robot in this movie." (WALL-E is the title character of Pixar's next film -- WALL-E.) The post answers that question and adds a really neat compilation of lots of the "cameos," in-jokes, and easter eggs in Pixar shorts and features.

It seems there are all kinds of callbacks and interconnections in the Pixar universe, and you fans of the films should definitely check out the site. It will help you watch the movies with fresh eyes. Some of the crossovers are very fast and will require a pause button. For example, the birds from the Pixar short "For the Birds" appear in Cars...for a tenth of a second. Others are much easier to spot. Look carefully at those toys in Monsters, Inc. and you'll see some old friends. A boy at the dentist in Finding Nemo is reading an Incredibles comic. And did you know that a "Pizza Planet" truck drives through each and every Pixar feature? Oh, and by the way, it sounds like that guy who wrote in to the site was duped. if you want to find WALL-E, he's not in Ratatouille, just the disc's special features. Rats!