Five Favorite Non Disney-Pixar Animated Movies

• Chicken Run

Another stop motion film, directed by the creators of Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run is a movie about a group of chickens living on a battery farm in Yorkshire, led by Ginger, the chickens launch numerous attempts to escapee, all of which fail, until an american rooster named Rocky crash lands on their farm, having escaped from the circus, the chickens launch a plan to fly out of the farm. The film is a hilariously irreverent comedy, featuring quirky and slightly twee animation, and great voice work.

• The Adventures of Tintin

Stephen Spielbergs first animated feature, prodiced by Peter Jackson is a delight, adapted from the series of graphic novels by Hergé, the film uses motion capture to present a mixture of three of Hergés classic stories, woven together to create one exciting rollicking adventure. The film uses a hyperrealistic style of animation, bypassing the uncanny valley which befells so many motion capture films, and propelling it into a graphically stimulating adventure, which is a faithful update of Hergé's adventures.

• Frankenweenie

Tim Burton directed this stop motion flick, which is a light parody and homage to hammer horror films of the sixties and seventies. The film, which is completely shot in black and white, is about a boy who successfully manages to resurrect his pet dog, only for the dog to set in motion a series of cataclysmic events which will lead to the destruction of his entire home town, the film contains some of the most beautiful and fluid stop motion work ever seen on celluloid, and the film is a tremendous achievement, and one of the best stop motion work seen in the past decade.

• The LEGO Movie

One of the newer films on this list, and i can't escape the feeling that i am shooting myself in the foot as in five years this film will already seem dated, however despite it's obvious status as a marketing gimmick, The LEGO Movie is a fantastically fun film, whilst not shot in stop motion, the film attempts to replicate the look of a stop motion film, and does this surprisingly well, the film is colorful, fun and irreverent.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas

Another film by Tim Burton, this time directed by Henry Selick,The Nightmare Before Christmas was one of the first commercially successful stop motion films released, the story of a land where is is always Halloween, and a man who is the master of ceremonies, Jack Skellington uncovers a land called Christmastown, where it is always Christmas, and he attempts to bring this tradition to Halloweenland, an endeavor ending in disaster. The film features exquisite animation, and fantastic music by regular Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.

Five Favorite CGI Visual Worlds

Computers are now more important in cinema than celluloid, and binary code is replacing real sets, some films eschew sets all together and use actors in front of a green screen preferring to create the visuals of the film in a computer, i don't resent this change, and i think it brings a fun visual flair to modern movies that used to be missing. Films made in this way are often visually stunning, eccentric and artistic. I am here listing my five favorite CGI environments, excluding animated films, because that's a post for another time.

• Gravity: This is a film which was created almost entirely in a computer, and yet it is almost impossible to believe that this film wasn't actually shot in space, the film's vision of outer space is so complete and detailed, and the CGI environment matches so perfectly to the lighting and cinematography used on the film, that the film is a seamless blend of live action and a visual environment. Gravity is a film created as much in a computer as on a sound stage, and the film is visually striking and highly detailed.

• 300: Another adaptation of a Frank Miller classic, this film was again shot on a digital backlot, and the film goes so far as to replicate various cells from the comic book frame for frame, the film creates a visual world that is highly defined, the geography of the battle field is strongly located, and the film is stronger because of this. The film uses a highly unique colour processing and the color red is used as a marker in the film, 300 is a film which is visually highly unique and which has inspired many other Hollywood productions.
  

• Mary Poppins: true, this is a film which is significantly older than the others on this list, and it is the only to use the sodium screen technique, Disney was a pioneer in this method, and this was one of the first films to use any kind of superimposition, and the film allows the characters to jump into Bert's street paintings, and for the characters to interact with the environment, the scene is iconic, and differs from the other selections shown here in that it was created without the use of a computer, and in that it's use was pioneering.
  

• Alice in Wonderland: This film differs significantly from the others on this list, as it incorporates the films characters into the environment, the film features some characters who are entirely animated, and others who are live action, but altered or colored with CGI. The film is visually a treat, and the production used sets covered with green screen, allowing the characters to interact with their environments. The environments used in this film are dark yet colorful, and the film uses the CGI to it's full extent, and created a world impossible without the use of a computer.
  

• The Matrix: The Wachowski's invented a CGI technique called bullet time, using cameras mounted 360° round the performer able to capture from any angle, over a green screen, so that a digital environment can be superimposed onto the action, and the performance can be sped up or slowed down as needed, this technique has been much imitated and copied in the years that have followed, however the technique is best seen in it's original form, and here the effect is used to show the nature of time in this stimulated reality.

The Misuse of CGI

Well summer is back, and with summer comes mindless action movies featuring cars, babes, and CGI robot porn, yeas, another Transformers movie is here. I am honestly not a Michael Bay hater, i loved Pain and Gain, and nBad Boys was perhaps one of the most defining film of my childhood. I posted last year about films featuring too much CGI looking hyperreal and fake, but this post is not a critique of the CGI itself, it is more a critique of the way modern action films use CGI, and the fact that nothing in cinema is real annymore.

Films used to be sort of thrilling, watching a 16 wheel semi truck get flipped over in The Dark Knight or watching a man bungee jump off of a bridge in GoldenEye was thrilling, as both of those were done for real, no computer involved, and the thrill of danger adds a slight frisson to the audience's excitement. 3D has managed to regain some of this excitement and sense of danger, by making the audience feel like they're in danger by having giant robot penises two inches from their nose, but audiences watching these moves on their iPad don't have this effect, rendering the films dull and lifeless.

Transformers is typical summer movie popcorn fare, but the lack of reality, coupled with a lack of heart, means that no one really cares. Toy Story 3 wasn't real, there were only computers involved, but the audience cared, because the story contained heart and emotion. Thus the Transformers films are like Toy Story 3, with the pathos removed. Giant imaginary robots flying at each other with the subtlety of a Miley Cyrus concert surrounded by humans that are entirely indistinguishable from each other leave a product that just ends up feeling pointless. If all the alien robots are obviously incredibly fake, and all the robots are indistinguishable from each other, then why should i care?

Filmmakers have this idea that action films don't need emotion, but they are wrong, the reason that Frodo hanging off the parapet in mount doom or the loss of Rachel Dawes are so visceral, is because we learn to care about these characters, and we feel their loss and their suffering, i can't honestly say that i cared any more about Sam Witwicky at the end than i did at the beginning. The main problem with modern action movies, is that they don't give us a reason to care, there is no emotion, no loss, and nothing is real anyway, so watching giant alien robots grapple over a cube, is oddly pointless, because there is nothing real either in my head registering emotion, or on screen, and i can watch with the passive bemusement of a roman citizen watching gladiators fight.

Adapting Wonderland

I will start today's post, like so many, with a story, the other night i decided to watch Tim Burton's 2010 adaptation of Alice In Wonderland, a happy accident lead to me actually watching the Walt Disney 1951 animated classic. I had seen the animated film before, but not for some years, and in re-watching the movie, i discovered it to be an interesting an beautiful picture if not a particularly watchable one, i watched the Tim Burton version the following day, and found it to be again a beautiful picture but nonetheless a flawed one.

Disney adapted Alice in Wonderland first in 1923 as a 21 year old student, however the film, which was part live action was never released to the public, and after the success of Snow White in 1938 he decided to make the film, Disney made several attempts to streamline the story and convert Carroll's nonsense literature into something less episodic and more suitable for film, however with limited success, as the movie still feels highly disjointed. Tim Burton's Alice is far more successful, however i use the word more with caution, as the story still has problems, despite being far more effectively streamlined, the story still lacks an emotional connection, and we never really get to know Alice Kingsley as a person, despite her being given a slightly more fleshed out back story than in the original film. The plot of the film is more successful, Burton creates a trajectory and a story arc for Alice that is lacking in the original version, unfortunately the plot, although successful uses a plot device about a character embracing their destiny which at this point is incredibly overused.

Visually both films are stunning, the 1951 film was designed mainly by Mary Blair, who would subsequently become renowned for her work on the theme park ride Its A Small World, the film is a visually delightful psychedelic adventure, no doubt slightly LSD inspired, however the imagery in this version remains reasonably light, the 2010 adaptation is another story. Tim Burton's film, is, to put is simply, a Tim Burton film. The film is visually quite dark, and the world of wonderland was created entirely on a green screen. This was not entirely de rigeur at the time like it is now, and Alice In Wonderland was really only the second film after Sky Captain to use this technique.

Extensive green-screen usage is seen to be incredibly easy, but it is actually incredibly difficult and can be jarring if not used properly, Oz the Great And Powerful used a similar effect for the Brick Road sequences, and with no reference point between the actors and their environments, and no interaction, everything looks out of perspective, and the actors look oddly small, this effect is absent from Alice, and this is partly due to Burton successfully blending the actors with their environments, some characters are entirely CGI, some are a blend of CGI and live action, some are live action that has been modified using CG, such as the Red Queen's head and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. The film is a seamless blend, and although being visually spectacular, the effect was never jarring.

Both films were hugely influential, the 1951 film which rode on the wave of fairy tale adaptations started by Snow White, and it later convinced Disney to search for the rights to other literary works such as Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh and Mary Poppins. The 2010 film was responsible for the recent wave of fairy tale live action adaptations which include the recently released Malecifent and Oz, The Great and Powerful. The film was also responsible for studios taking fairy tale heroines and making them warriors in armour with a sword, a trend which is rarely well achieved. However both of these films remain visually delighting adventures.

STAR WARS: REBELS

Last week the internet almost imploded with the news of the release of the cast of the upcoming episode 7, and the list pleased me somewhat, the stars of the original trilogy are all returning, which seems like auspicious news. Adam Driver and Oscar Isaac, two of my favorite current actors, have also joined the cast. Also joining the ensemble is Andy Serkis, an actor mostly known for playing CGI characters such as Gollum , King Kong and Captain Haddock. Serkis' presence in the cast suggests that he will perhaps be playing a CGI, motion capture character, which is incredibly de rigueur right now. Also returning are C-3PO and R2D2, in addition to Chewbacca, all of whom are fan favorites.

However, this post is not specifically about Episode VII, but about the recently announced animated television series, airing on Disney XD in the autumn of 2014. Since reaching an licensing agreement with LucasFilm, and especially now since acquiring the company for 4.05 billion in 2011, Disney has developed a number of animated series based around the star wars characters and universe. During the 1990's these were developed by LucasFilm in conjunction with ABC or Cartoon Network, however since 2008's The Clone Wars, they have aired exclusively on Disney owned channels. Early series had limited success, and The Clone Wars, despite running for six seasons could only be described as a partial success. A few early episodes were bundled together as a feature film and released to cinemas, a move which rarely works and concurrently the film was panned by critics. The latest season was aired on Netflix instead of on cable, and will be the end of the series.

Although i try to keep television posts on Popcorn@Movies to a minimum, and i would normally never dream of writing about an animated television series, the trailer, recently released for Star Wars Rebels succeeded in piquing my attention. The trailer, which lasts all of  15 seconds (and which can be found HERE) features some pretty stunning animation. The series looks almost photo-realistic, with the exception of the human characters, who are animated in an asian inspired manga style. It seems that the merger with Disney has been good news for LucasFilm's animation department, as the quality of animation looks to be extremely high, particularly for a television budget.

I am oddly excited for this series, whilst i would previously never really care about a series airing on Disney XD, this looks to be a well produced, exciting and fun animated series, wit unusually high production values. As the first real product of the merger between Disney and LucasFilm, it looks to be an auspicious start, and should give Star Wars fans high hopes for the upcoming Episode VII.