Back in November, the Lineboil audience was nearly perfect in selecting the Oscar nominations, getting 4 or 5 correct. For Best Animated Feature Film, you chose Ponyo, as opposed to Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s stop-motion feature, which ended up snagging the nomination instead. Up stands out from the bunch, taking a total of 5 nominations, including Original Screenplay and a Best Picture nod. It’s only the second time an animated feature has been mentioned amongst the live-action films in this category (Beuaty and the Beast). Not to diminish this achievement, but BATB did it when only 5 films were nominated, while this year its 10. That said, I’d argue that if there were still 5 slots, Up would likely be amongst them. After all, it was the best-reviewed widely-released film of 2009, animated or not.

The other interesting development here is that a pair of 2D features (The Princess and the Frog and The Secret of Kells) were included. Only Persepolis (2007) and Howl’s Moving Castle (2005) had cracked this category in the past 5 years, while the onslaught of CG features basked in the limelight. Kells pulled off perhaps the biggest win by getting a nomination, as the film had such a small release in the US.

Here’s the nominations (5 this year, while previous years there were only 3):

• Coraline (Focus Features), Henry Selick
• Fantastic Mr. Fox (20th Century Fox), Wes Anderson
• The Princess and the Frog (Walt Disney), John Musker and Ron Clements
• The Secret of Kells (GKIDS), Tomm Moore
• Up (Disney/Pixar), Pete Docter

 
Congrats to all of the teams involved!

Today, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released Coraline, Henry Selick’s 101 minute stop-motion feast for the eyes. Our lengthy review of this LAIKA and Focus Features film, which was the first stop-motion feature shot for 3D viewing, was posted back in February, but below is our review of the DVD itself.

The Lineboil offices received the 2-Disc Collector’s Edition with 3D, but know that there are numerous other versions, including the Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy w/3D and the Single-Disc Edition w/ 3D. Ours also included the Digital Copy feature, which allows owners to transfer a copy of the film to iTunes and other players; a nice feature in this day and age of portable media.

The 2-Disc set also comes with (count-em) 4 sets of 3D glasses. I put all of them on at once, and I’m pretty sure I saw the movie in 12D. An interesting slide is included on the 3D version of the film, which states that “it will take your eyes 5 minutes to fully adjust to the 3D viewing experience.”

The extras are solid – in particular I enjoyed the deleted scenes. At the head of these shots, Selick explains that after such painstaking work, one would hope that every frame of animation filmed would end up in the final cut, but that’s what DVDs are for. All told, there’s around 6 or 7 minutes of cut scenes on the second disc, which probably amounts to 3 years worth of a collective animator’s life.
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Stop-motion ruled the day at the 33nd Annecy Animated Film Festival. Coraline and Mary and Max split the Best Feature award, while the traditionally-animated Brendan and the Secret of Kells grabbed the Audience Award. I enjoyed the promotional animations for the festival – in particular this Sponsor Trailer, which features the central character from Studio Hari’s CG TV series La Chouette (The Owl).

Coraline opened in theaters this past weekend to better-than-expected results, netting nearly $17 million from only 2,300 theaters. This surprise is in no small part due to Wieden+Kennedy, who have masterminded a fantastic promotional effort for Focus Features and LAIKA, the studio behind the stop-motion film. Check out the boxes they sent out to 50 select bloggers, and then watch this banner ad starring Bobinsky, Coraline’s colorful Russian neighbor.

Then lay your eyes on some of the W+K photos from the Portland premiere. If you haven’t had enough, go read the Lineboil review of the film.

Director: Henry Selick
Runtime: 100 minutes
Rated: PG
Distribution: Focus Features
Review by Aaron Simpson

Coraline, nearly 4 years in the making, is a new stop-motion animated feature from first-timer LAIKA and Focus Features, and it debuts in theaters (900 of them in 3D) this Friday, February 6th. The story of a young girl who moves to Ashland, Oregon only to discover that her house is full of magical secrets was adapted from Neil Gaiman’s (The Sandman) book of the same name. While the locations have changed (the book was set in the UK), Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) went to great lengths to preserve Gaiman’s original intent. The results are his efforts are uneven, and unlikely to capture the type of box office rapture that a film like WALL·E enjoyed, but this highly imaginative adventure is most certainly worth the price of admission.

PERSISTENCE OF VISIONARIES

Since the 1970s, there have only been 6 widely-released stop-motion feature films: The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach, Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Corpse Bride and now Coraline. These hand-made worlds are a rare treat, crafted by a small, nomadic club of patient animators. The directors behind these films are members of an even smaller club. In fact, all six of these aforementioned films were directed by either Nick Park (a co-director), Tim Burton or Selick.
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I think Henry Selick has spent one too many hours under those hot studio lights. In this promo clip below, the director of Coraline talks about his stop-motion puppets as if they’ve got brains inside their little, plastic heads. Well, I suppose it adds to the overall creepiness of this magical world he’s crafted around Neil Gaiman’s book of the same name. The film, produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features, hits US theaters on February 6th.

February 6 is the release date for Coraline, the animated stop-motion horror fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman’s novella of the same name. Directed by Henry Selick, the film looks like it has a chance to surpass the awesome boundaries of super-coolness set by Nightmare and Corpse Bride, so don’t miss it!