Animation too often becomes a placeholder, an electronic babysitter for a few hours. Most importantly, they don’t play down to their audience, realizing that quality children’s entertainment doesn’t placate young ones but sparks their imaginations. Writer/directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell understand so many important elements of their art that other, more consumer-oriented filmmakers miss. Sadly, Roger Ebert never published a review of “Paranorman,” so I’ll quote my review from a previous outlet, : “Conceived as ' John Hughes meets John Carpenter,' "ParaNorman" has definite echoes of ‘80s action/horror films like "The Goonies" and "Gremlins." It has a spirit of adventure that has simply been too-often supplanted by pop culture references and bodily humor in modern animation. NEW Foreword by Peter Debruge, Chief Film Critic for VarietyĪudio Commentary with Director Henry Selick and Composer Bruno Coulais NEW Never-Before-Seen Coraline Animation Test Footage ![]() In short, you might care little about a fantasy, little indeed about this story, and still admire the artistry of it all, including an insidious score by Bruno Coulais, which doesn't pound at us like many horror scores, but gets under our psychic fingernails.”- Roger Ebert Selick is as unconventional in his imagery as Gaiman is in his writing, and this is a movie for people who know and care about drawing, caricature, grotesquerie and the far shores of storytelling. “I admire the film mostly because it is good to look at. ![]() (And then go pick up “ Missing Link” and count the days till “Wildwood.” I know I am.) Each release also includes new and old special features, listed below, along with a quote from our review of each film, and a link to buy the release. Sampling bits and pieces of the films I know by heart reveals stronger HD transfers-I even compared “ Coraline” on this edition to the last Blu-ray and the colors appear richer with the shadows more subtle. So why talk about Laika again? Shout Factory has released their first four films in gorgeous new Blu-ray special editions. They remind me of the creative voices who fueled my youth, and children are lucky to have them active (although they’ve been less-so lately, including working on their first live-action film the upcoming “Seventeen.” Don’t worry, a sixth stop-motion work called “Wildwood” is also in production.) Their films are captivating works of art, but they never forget to wed their striking imagery to creative, vibrant characters and plots. What elevates Laika? It’s a marriage of visuals and storytelling. They don’t have the history of Pixar, Studio Ghibli, or even Aardman, and so they don’t seem to get the same degree of critical or commercial attention, but history will be incredibly kind to the output of these stop-motion geniuses, a group that has yet to falter and has delivered at least three of the best animated films of the new millennium (and I would accept arguments that insist that total is four and maybe even five). Kubo came close, but I keep watching in hopes that someday I'll see a Laika movie on par with Coraline.I’ll take any chance to sing the praises of Laika, one of the most creatively vibrant studios of the modern era. I also live in Portland, so finding out that Laika is based in Portland after being blown away at how good Coraline was really sold me on Laika as a whole and is really the reason why I follow these movies at all. ![]() I have always been a fan of both stop-motion and CG animation, and my Dad and I randomly decided to pick up Coraline and watch it one night. I'm not speaking objectively at all, but for me rather it's just that Coraline hits all the buttons of being creepy, funny, cute, visually/technologically incredible, having excellent characters and a gripping, terrifying plot. Kubo is absolutely brilliant, but Coraline is a masterpiece. Kubo is, in my opinion, leaps and bounds better than both of those movies and is truly a visual spectacle (especially when taking into consideration how the film was actually created).īut for originality, technology of the time, nostalgia and general replayability, very few movies ever even come close to Coraline for me. The best way I can put it is, to say, if I had 100 points to give out and had to choose between those 4 movies (based on preference) I would give:īoth ParaNorman and Boxtrolls are great, and depending on my mood I'll like either one more so I'd say they're interchangeable on my list. I haven't seen Missing Link (I know I'm slacking) but honestly I feel like there's a huge gap for me between those two sets of movies. So I absolutely love Coraline and Kubo, but I only really like Boxtrolls and ParaNorman.
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