Animation

Arthur Christmas

Jolly enough, but lacking usual Aardman Animation wit and charm

14 Nov 2011

(U) 97mins In over two decades since Wallace and Gromit’s A Grand Day Out, Aardman Animation have become a byword for family entertainment, but Arthur Christmas, their latest attempt at a blockbuster, never reaches the same lovable heights. As he…

Reel Science events programme among highlights of Edinburgh Film Festival

Tomboy, My Brothers and Project Nim among film highlights

17 Jun 2011

After my fearless leader’s less-than-generous appraisal of this aged Festival’s opening night, I’m hoping to bring a little bit of love for EIFF back to these web pages. Admittedly, the pared-down nature of this year’s Festival is most noticeable in the…

Top 5: Artists lending their talents to children's TV voice-overs

Featuring Derek Jacobi, Stephen Fry, Arthur Lowe and more

28 Mar 2011

Ah, the life of the serious actor. All that serious acting they have to do; all the line learning, the getting into character, the understanding and channelling of the character's emotional vulnerabilities and personality traits. Its enough to drive a…

Manipulate festival - Puppetry and animation festival avoids the P word

Traverse season features cult animation and visually arresting films

14 Jan 2011

Simon Hart is trying not to use the P word. When he describes his annual Manipulate festival, he prefers to call it a celebration of visual theatre (with the teasing strap line: ‘innovative theatre arts for consenting adults’) than to say anything about…

Chico & Rita

16 Nov 2010

(15) 93min This Spanish-made, English-language, feature-length animation joins the ever-growing list of highly unconventional, beautifully realised, adult-oriented cartoons made outside of America that also includes The Illusionist, Waltz with Bashir…

Document 8 and Africa in Motion

Two spirited local film festivals

22 Oct 2010

The term ‘human rights cinema’ may sound too much like hard work for the average cinemagoer. But for the last seven years Document, the Glasgow-based International Human Rights Film Festival, has been demonstrating that films about human rights simply…

Alpha and Omega

22 Oct 2010

(U) 88min Improbably dedicated to the late Hollywood wild man Dennis Hopper, who provides the voice of pack leader Tony, Alpha and Omega is a cutesy animation for toddlers only. Sultry alpha wolf Kate (Hayden Panettiere) is expected by her pack’s…

A Town Called Panic (Panique Au Village)

6 Oct 2010

(PG) 77min This insane Belgium animated feature is the big screen spin-off of the popular 2003 television series of the same name created by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar. Its UK release is being championed by Hammer & Tongs, the pop…

The Secret of Kells

17 Sep 2010

(PG) 78min Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey’s luscious animated film takes inspiration from The Book of Kells, a key work in Irish medieval history. But rather than the three-dimensional style currently favoured by Pixar and DreamWorks, Moore and Twomey…

Fantastic Planet (La Planete Sauvage)

7 Jul 2010

(PG) 72min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Previously unavailable on DVD, René Laloux’s 1973 animated sci-fi feature is a startling rediscovery. Based on Stefan Wul’s 1957 novel Oms by the Dozen, Laloux’s extraordinary film is a kind of Swiftian…

The Quay Brothers' Maska plus film without images - HP Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

25 Jun 2010

Wednesday 23rd June. While EIFF’s programme focuses mainly on conventional feature-films, there are several one-off events scattered throughout the Festival’s 10 days, so I decided to investigate a couple of the more adventurous ones. The first was a…

Stanley Pickle, Baby and Rita among winning films at EIFF new talent awards

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

23 Jun 2010

Monday was quite a sedate affair – after a number of days where going to bed late and getting up early was the norm, I treated myself to a lie-in before heading into town to catch a few movies (‘Postales’, at last, and ‘Chase The Slut’ – interview on…

Pixar make Brave move with Reese Witherspoon and Billy Connolly after Toy Story 3

Edinburgh International Film Festival Blog

22 Jun 2010

Sunday 20 June Edinburgh calls itself a festival of discovery, and it’s true, the majority of films playing here are by first- or second-time filmmakers, and you go into each screening hoping to discover the next great moviemaking talent. But, as…

The Illusionist opens EIFF 2010 - Sylvain Chomet interview

9 Jun 2010

The year after French animator Sylvain Chomet knocked out cinema-goers at the 2003 Edinburgh International Film Festival with his wildly eccentric and utterly charming double-Oscar nominated debut feature, Belleville Rendez-vous (aka The Triplets of…

The Illusionist - video clips

4 Jun 2010

One of the most talked about movies at this year's Film Festival is The Illusionist, Sylvain Chomet's first feature since the critically acclaimed Belleville Rendez-vous. Based on a Jacques Tati script and transposed to 1950s Scotland it is the story…

The Illusionist - Sylvain Chomet's animated feature creates an Edinburgh never seen before

2 Jun 2010

Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, the film opening the 2010 Edinburgh International Film Festival, puts a vision of Edinburgh, and rural Scotland, on screen like no other. Set in 1950s Edinburgh and the Western Isles, locations depicted in the animated…

The best of animation in Scotland

28 May 2010

It’s time to get animated, with June promising the UK premiere of the latest venture from Sylvain Belleville Rendez-vous Chomet in the form of The Illusionist, which provides the opening gala at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. As well…

Ponyo (Gake No Ue No Ponyo)

28 Jan 2010

(U) 101min An animated feature about a five-year-old boy who falls for a goldfish princess may not sound like a hot ticket, but the delightful content of Ponyo will be no surprise to anyone already in thrall to the Studio Ghibli brand. After Hayao…

Astro Boy

28 Jan 2010

(PG) 93min A popular manga in Japan since 1952, and a cult TV show in the US since the early 1980s, Astro Boy makes a bid for worldwide domination in this flashy but flatly realised animation from director David Flushed Away Bowers. Freddie…

Oliver Postgate - Seeing Things: A Memoir

4 Dec 2009

(Canongate) When Charlie Brooker delivered a heartfelt five-minute tribute to Oliver Postgate in his Screenwipe show last year, his trademark acid-tongued sarcasm went right out the window. Instead, Mr Cynical looked like he might tear up as he…

Behind the scenes of The Fantastic Mr Fox

20 Oct 2009

Andy Gent, chief animator on Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr Fox, reveals the cinematic inspiration behind the project and the difficulties inherent in making a stop-animation film. ‘As well as being a huge fan of Roald Dahl, Wes loves old films like…

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Two-dimensional dystopian animation

16 Oct 2009

With visionary heavyweights Tim Burton and Nightwatch / Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov amongst the producers, Shane Acker’s feature-length animation, based on his own Oscar-nominated short, promises revolutionary animation, but never delivers the…

Up

More Pixar genius

1 Oct 2009

You almost tire of saying it but Pixar have created another masterpiece with Up. As uplifting as it is heartbreaking, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s film is a magical adventure that takes an odd couple relationship and turns it into one of the most…

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter

30 Apr 2009

ANIMATION/ADVENTURE Tales of the Black Freighter, or ‘the pirate story’ as it’s also known, is the comic-within-the-comic that threads through the narrative of the Watchmen graphic novel. Excised from the film adaptation, it appears here as a…

Coraline

30 Apr 2009

(PG) 100min ANIMATION/FANTASY Although The Nightmare Before Christmas reflected the gothic imagination of Tim Burton, much of the charm was down to the directorial skills of Henry Selick, whose latest film Coraline places him alongside Nick Park as a…