The Return of Animation!

The return of Animation is here. After years of suffering through CGI movies full of fart jokes, quick movements that cause ADHD in kids, and the worst character development I get what I've been waiting for. Two really great animated movies.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox is by far one of the funniest and creative stop motion animated movies I have ever seen. It's something I cannot wait to watch with my children. Wes Andersons color scheme is vibrant and amazing. I have always loved the style of his movies and to see it put into an animated feature brings out every detail of his creativeness. There is something about knowing the puppets and sets are real, tangible and not done in the computer that sucks me into the world that is created. I have done some crude stop motion and I understand how much patience is needed. If a puppet falls over when shooting you have to go back to square one, you can't just redo that one frame. If the lighting from the film comes back too dark, it's back to the beginning again. The saddest thing about this film is that nobody is seeing it. There were about 6 people in our whole theater. I guess vampire films like Twilight and repeat feel good sports movies like The Blind Side are more important than seeing something new and different. Three cheers for the great work on The Fantastic Mr. Fox!


Next is The Princess and the Frog. Mandi had the day off and after staying in the house all day we needed to get out. After eating at In-N-Out Burger we decided to check out show times. We thought it was going to be packed but there was hardly anyone in the theater tonight. The people who were there were super annoying. It came to the point to when the movie started I told about 3 or 4 girls in their teens to "SHUT UP!" and they did. Mandi and I are ruthless when it comes to people ruining our movies.

With that said I had a lot of fun with this movie. It is so great to see the Ink and Paint Club back at Disney. It's been a while since I've had this kind of magic when watching an animated movie in theaters. It reminded me very much of The Little Mermaid. It had that kind of feel to it. All of the characters were well developed and I even found the kid humor to be smart, not dumb. The voice talents were great. I admire John Lasseter, the man who started Pixar, for wanting to bring back hand drawn animation. I don't know if he appreciates the process more but it is ironic that he was the one to propose the idea. Another magical animated hit for Disney!

So go check out both of these films.