Back in 2006 artist-writer Chris Grine published his first of a two-volume Eisner-nominated comic called Chickenhare, featuring a unique hero in a strange new anthropomorphic world, mixing adventure and dark comedy. This weekend his hero makes it to Netflix in his own animated movie, Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness. The creator himself has acknowledged in the past the scripts in development for the movie were different than his source material. The artwork looks nothing like Grine’s characters. Fans of Grine will find little in common with the new movie, but it’s relatively harmless for really little kids, or older kids who have already seen far better treatments in the talking animal genre, notably Zootopia and Chicken Run–actually all the Aardman Animation shows–and major studio efforts like Ferdinand.
Four-time Oscar winner Nick Park and his Aardman Productions have netted stop-motion animation’s finest, most clever, laugh-out-loud creations. His third Oscar-winning animated short film starring Wallace & Gromit, A Close Shave, introduced the Aardman’s international audience to Shaun, a “teenage” sheep whose adventuresome spirit gets him into trouble and who went on to star in several series and films of his own. The latest comes directly to Netflix in time for Christmas, Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas, a story that mixes the best aspects of the finest holiday classics with a reflection of the trappings of our modern world.
Aardman Studios is that British animation company known for director Nick Park and his stop-motion clay animation films, most notably the Academy Award winning Wallace & Gromit, and the groundbreaking series Creature Comforts. Its full length feature Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit also won an Academy Award for best animated feature. And the studio produced the popular Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Pirates! Band of Misfits. Director Hayao Miyazaki, widely considered one of the best animators of all time, counts himself as a fan of the Aardman movies.
Haven’t seen this kind of animation before? It’s the style every kid in the 1960s grew up with. Start with the three Wallace & Gromit shorts A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave featuring a cheese loving British inventive chap named Wallace and his smart, loyal, and cynical dog Gromit. The animation, and the quick speeds of certain segments, are simply stunning. Then try Creature Comforts, a half-hour television series that aired in both the UK and USA, where every day folks were interviewed on the street, then their voices were dubbed into farm and zoo animal characters. The result is laugh-out-loud funny.
Just released is the preview to the next stop-motion, full-length film, Early Man. It features the voices of Eddie Redmayne (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Tom Hiddleston (Thor), Maisie Williams (Doctor Who, Game of Thrones), and Timothy Spall (Harry Potter series). Check out this trailer for the film:
Aardman Studios is a British animation company known for its stop-motion clay animation films, in particular, the Academy Award winning Wallace & Gromit, and the groundbreaking series Creature Comforts. Its full length feature Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit also won an Academy Award for best animated feature. The studio also produced the popular Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep. The studio’s first computer animated film, Arthur Christmas, is in theaters now. Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki, widely considered one of the best animators of all time, counts himself as a fan of the Aardman movies.
If you haven’t seen Aardman movies before, start with the three Wallace & Gromit shorts A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave featuring a cheese loving British inventive chap named Wallace and his smart, loyal, and cynical dog Gromit. The animation, and the quick speeds of certain segments, will have you wishing they’d throw CGI out the window. Then try Creature Comforts, a half-hour television series that aired in both the UK and USA, where folks were interviewed off the street, then their voices were dubbed into farm and zoo animals. The result was laugh-out-loud funny stuff.
Just released is the preview to the newest stop-motion, full-length film, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, and it looks to be as incredibly put together as the rest. Just check out details like the use of stop-motion liquid in this trailer. The boat whipping across water, actually made from Plasticine, looks both realistic and unreal.
And this film features a top-notch set of character actors that should be familiar to everyone. The Pirates! Band of Misfits, stars Hugh Grant (Remains of the Day, Bridget Jones’ Diary) as Pirate Captain, Brendan Gleeson (28 Days Later, Beowulf, Harry Potter series) as Pirate with Gout, Jeremy Piven (PCU, Entourage, Cupid, Judgment Night) as Black Bellamy, Brian Blessed (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Flash Gordon, Henry V, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) as Pirate King, Salma Hayek (Puss in Boots, Wild, Wild West, From Dusk Till Dawn) as Cutlass Liz, Martin Freeman (Sherlock, The Hobbit, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead) as Pirate with Scarf, David Tennant (Doctor Who, Viva Blackpool, Harry Potter series) as Charles Darwin, and Imelda Staunton (Shakespeare in Love, Chicken Run, Peter’s Friends, Much Ado About Nothing, Harry Potter series) as Queen Victoria.
The film is based on the first two books of Gideon Defoe’s Pirates! series. Pirates! has a March 28, 2012, release date.
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