River ,'War Stories'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Reading articles with the director, she said the family has been over-spending when they were in financial crisis. While there was one scene that dealt with this issue, that wasn't at all clear to me. I thought their financial problems were due to the construction of 2 key buildings - not household expenses!
Over-spending by building the new house, maybe. But also WTF Christmas???
Holy shit, ParaNorman made me cry. So good.
Holy shit, ParaNorman made me cry. So good.
I was afraid it wouldn't look as good on TV as it did on the screen, but it did. It looked great.
I loved ParaNorman.
The stop-motion looked as fluid as CGI! Like, I was pretty sure I'd heard it was stop-motion, but it was so hard to tell that I thought I was wrong. There were only a few jerky moments here and there where it looked stop-motion-y.
There were some moments that I did think would have played better on the big screen, but it still looked great.
I didn't expect it to make me tear up (at the scene where his sister stood up for him ). And then when the climax rolled around, I was basically crying for the rest of the movie. What the hell.
The reveal of the witch was wrenching, it was so "but she's just a little girl!"
There were some moments that I did think would have played better on the big screen
I saw it in 3D on the big screen because it was Laika and they did Coraline.
And the one scene that was mind-blowing in 3D on the big screen was the final confrontation between Norman and the Witch Girl when she's shooting out electric bolts of angst.
Oh, yeah, that would have been cool.
From the trailers, I thought the movie was a silly, fun romp about a kid fighting zombies, but it's a powerful story about outsiders and how people treat them, about the dangers of judging—and condemning—people for being different. It's the best Tim Burton animated movie not made by Tim Burton.
Laika's next feature film project:
“The Boxtrolls is a visually dazzling mash-up of gripping detective story, absurdist comedy, and steampunk adventure with a surprisingly wholesome heart. It’s Dickens by way of Monty Python. Tony and Graham have crafted a strange and beautiful world replete with fantastical creatures, good-for-nothing reprobates, madcap antics, and rip-roaring feats of derring-do. But at its core, like all LAIKA films, The Boxtrolls is a moving and human story with timelessness and powerful emotional resonance. We’re thrilled to partner with Focus Features and Universal to bring this remarkable story to family audiences around the world.”
Ooh, this was Chris Butler's first movie. I'll be interested to see what he does next.