STOP MOTION ANIMATION HEADS ON DISPLAY MOVIE
STOP MOTION ANIMATION HEADS ON DISPLAY SERIES
STOP MOTION ANIMATION HEADS ON DISPLAY TV

In their Oscar-winning feature debut (a coproduction between Park’s Aardman Animations and DreamWorks), the two are hired to protect their town’s vegetable patches from ravenous rabbits.

STOP MOTION ANIMATION HEADS ON DISPLAY SERIES

Geoff AndrewĪn eccentric inventor and his loyal canine companion hunt a mutant bunny.īest quote: “I’m sorry, Gromit-I know you’re doing this for my own good, but the fact is I’m just crackers about cheese.”ĭefining moment: Gromit follows the oversize bunny in a vehicular chase that goes below ground.īritish animator Nick Park made his name with a series of award-winning stop-motion shorts featuring Wallace, an inventor whose creations often go awry, and Gromit, his devoted dog. And therefore, perhaps not a film for children. This is no saccharine celebration of innocence, but a foray into the darker recesses of childhood fears and desires. It’s brilliantly imaginative, bitingly witty and fittingly Freudian. Blending live action (Kristyna Kohoutová, who plays the heroine, is the only human in the film) with various forms of stop-motion animation, Svankmajer creates a wonderland notable for its bizarre dreamlike logic and its grotesque beauty: Skeletal creatures scuttle and steaks crawl while Alice, no stranger to thoughts of cruel whimsy, changes size and becomes her own doll. Jan Svankmajer’s first feature is a characteristically inventive but rigorous account of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, faithful in spirit to the original while remaining conspicuously true to his own highly distinctive brand of surrealism. This Lewis Carroll adaptation, from a brilliant Czech surrealist, is too wild and wonderful for kids.īest quote: “Alice thought to herself, Now you will see a film…made for children…perhaps.”ĭefining moment: The Mad Hatter’s tea party: hilarious, anarchic and a fabulous example of Svankmajer’s ability to make the impossible seem absolutely real. (The heart breaks when Felicity claws her husband’s furry face in frustration at his blithely destructive impulses.) As the foxes find their way of life increasingly threatened, the question arises: How do you use your nature to your advantage? The answers aren’t easy, but it should be clear that Anderson isn’t out to cater to anyone except the audience he knows so well. Fox leaning against a tree, an image accompanied, in a very Andersonian touch, by the Wellingtons’ 1954 tune “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.”Īs with all of the director’s films, potent emotions underlie the comic-strip surface: Both Fox and his sullen son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), must come to terms with their instinctual ambitions, which tend to clash with their everyday responsibilities. You’re captivated right from the first gorgeously autumnal shot of Mr. Anderson’s dioramic visuals and pithy plotting translate perfectly to a cartoon world. There’s nothing docile about Wes Anderson’s first foray into animation. But when Fox’s wife, Felicity (Meryl Streep), informs him that they have a pup on the way, our vulpine protagonist realizes he has to tame the beast within. Fox (George Clooney) likes to complain about his days making life hell for his human nemeses, farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean (one fat, one short, one lean). But in the end, he’s just another dead rat in a garbage pail behind a Chinese restaurant.”ĭefining moment: Fox and friends come face-to-face with a mysterious black wolf. Cath ClarkeĪn idiosyncratic auteur gets animated with this stop-motion take on Roald Dahl’s children’s novel.īest quote: “Redemption? Sure. The dialogue is deliciously macabre, the storytelling dizzyingly inventive and the characters touchingly sweet. That translates into mind-boggling detail, right down to the mayor’s spider tie. Working with more than 227 puppets, they completed just one minute of the film a week.

STOP MOTION ANIMATION HEADS ON DISPLAY MOVIE

Jack crafts a plan to kidnap Father Christmas, or Sandy Claws, as he calls him.ĭirected by stop-motion maestro Henry Selick from Burton’s story, the movie took 15 animators almost three years to make.

It’s the story of Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween Town, who discovers a portal to Christmas Town and likes what he sees-children throwing snowballs instead of heads. Burton’s graveyard fairy tale is a good old-fashioned musical, with song-and-dance numbers that would get Gene Kelly tapping his feet. But the powers that be thought the idea “too weird,” and the project went on the back burner until Beetlejuice and Batman made Burton a hot property.

STOP MOTION ANIMATION HEADS ON DISPLAY TV

A year later, Burton pitched A Nightmare Before Christmas to his bosses as a TV special. It all started in 1982, with a poem written by Tim Burton, then a humble animator at Disney. Best quote: “Jack, you make wounds ooze and flesh crawl!” (It’s a compliment.)ĭefining moment: The opening song, gloriously and ghoulishly upbeat.

Stop motion animation heads on display