Henry Selick
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Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Directed by Travis Knight
influenced by Coraline (2009), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
“Kubo and the Two Strings” was made by Laika Films, the outfit behind such quirky and visually arresting pictures as “Coraline” (2009) and “ParaN orman ” (2012).
Like “Coraline,” “ParaNorman” and “The Boxtrolls,” which collectively announced Laika as a vital and distinctive creative force in the increasingly competitive field of big-budget animation, “Kubo and the Two Strings” brilliantly updates stop-motion, a venerable yet time-consuming mode of film production cherished for its hand-crafted, herky-jerky aesthetic.
The film from Laika, who also produced the excellent “The Boxtrolls,” “ParaNorman,” and “Coraline,” begins on an ocean, in the middle of a storm, in the dead of night.
The adventure fantasy “Kubo and the Two Strings” is seamless stop-motion storytelling, from Laika, the independent animation studio that gave us the darkly entertaining “Coraline,” “ParaNorman” and “The Boxtrolls.”
Laika , the independent studio behind morbid enchantments like “Coraline” and “ParaNorman,” has already established itself as a formidable bulwark against the ever-accelerating onslaught of computer-generated 3D cartoons, but “ Kubo and the Two Strings ” makes even the most painstaking of their previous movies feel like a trial run.
In that moment of this latest offering from the folks at Laika Entertainment -- that previously created the stop-motion animated films "Coraline," "ParaNorman" and "The Boxtrolls" -- the 12-year-old title character has found himself in a cave, along with those accompanying him on his journey (a talking monkey and a former samurai turned man-sized beetle), confronted by an enormous skeleton that's come to life.
The story might not have the ingenious imaginative streak of Coraline (2009) or Kubo & the Two Strings (2016) but settles down into an entertaining adventure story featuring tangible awareness and depth.
The latest likable effort from Laika, Missing Link may not match the stop-motion animation studio’s previous endeavors like Coraline and ParaNorman but nevertheless displays enough charm and whimsy to satisfy the small fry.
The stop-motion animation studio’s work has always been impressive — its first film, Coraline, is still stunning a decade later — and yet the studio manages to keep pushing the boundaries.
Written and directed by Chris Butler, hugely entertaining animated adventure Missing Link is the fifth film from Laika, the stop-motion studio behind Coraline and The Boxtrolls.
But it lacks the ethereal wonder of the studio’s best work (including Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings), and its slight, episodic story occasionally lags.
And the episodic, road-trip-style nature of their journey falls in line with plenty of Pixar films as well, a fairly sharp difference from moodier films like Coraline or even the loopy 2014 effort The Boxtrolls.
The Willoughbys (2020)
Directed by Kris Pearn
influenced by Coraline (2009)
Characters Themes Plot Visuals
Then again, thanks to Henry Selick (“Coraline”) and the “Despicable Me” franchise, there’s ample precedent for macabre tales for tots, packaged such that they don’t actually seem all that sinister.
If you look at a similarly structured film in Coraline , I get to know her way better than any of the kids here.
From Dickens to Disney to Dahl, and most recently franchises like Despicable Me and Laika films like Coraline, there always has been a sense of foreboding in many tales aimed at the youngest among us.
His sharp but relaxed delivery of his lines as the on-screen narrator of the story feels very reminiscent of Keith David’s portrayal of the mysterious black cat in 2009’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, but rather than feel like a straight rip-off, it feels like Gervais brings his own unique take on the similar role.
I suspect that screenwriters Pearn and Mark Stanleigh gleaned inspiration from classics such as Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach and Coraline by Neil Gaiman.
Why they didn’t just write a check to Laika (“Coraline,” “Paranorman”) or another check to Aardman (“Sean the Sheep”) escapes me.
ParaNorman (2012)
Directed by Sam Fell
influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Coraline (2009)
Themes
This is the second stop-motion animated feature from Laika to be made in 3D, but while one can see parallels to their earlier "Coraline," "ParaNorman," written by that film's storyboard supervisor Chris Butler and codirected by him and Sam Fell ("Flushed Away," "The Tale of Despereaux"), has a weaker story which is stretched out far enough to produce sag, ironic for a film whose every frame must be meticulously constructed.
If it reminds some viewers of 2009's "Coraline" (also a stop-motion animated product), that shouldn't be a surprise, considering the otherworldly plot aspects, its child protagonist and the fact that it comes from the same production house, Laika.
August 19, 2012 -- This animated film from the creators of “Coraline” is another film that fits into the Halloween theme of ghosts and witches.
And despite the supernatural parallels, "ParaNorman" isn't nearly as creepy - or as magnificent - as "Coraline," a gorgeous and unsettling masterwork that plumbed childhood fears with a hypnotizing grace.
This 3D stop-motion animated movie is even scarier but much funnier than the same production team's skilfully crafted Coraline in which a plucky little heroine escaped from her lonely mundane world into its horrific mirror image.
The first effort out of the gate is a stop-motion animated movie from Portland’s LAIKA, the studio behind Henry Selick’s Coraline.
The Boxtrolls (2014)
Directed by Graham Annable
influenced by Coraline (2009), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Yet unlike Coraline and Paranorman, its two predecessors from the Laika animation studio, The Boxtrolls doesn’t have the same level of witty or inventive storytelling to match.
They're kinda cute, sure, and they're clever little pacifists who can make gadgets and hide when trouble comes, but they're not compelling subjects for a feature from Laika, the Oregon studio that created "Coraline" and "ParaNorman" and combines stop-motion and computer animation in amazing new ways.
The 3D stop-motion animated The Boxtrolls from Focus Features opens wide at the box office Friday, and looks set to take over the family market from Dolphin Tale 2. Laika , the Animation outfit based in Oregon and responsible for both Paranorman and Coraline which both won Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature have done it again and I think it’s going to be a third Oscar nod for The Boxtrolls, an absolutely delightful cinematic rendering of Alan Snow’s fantastical book, “Here Lies Monsters”.
The Boxtrolls isn't quite as memorable as Laika's Oscar-nominated movies — the 2009 fantasy Coraline and the 2012 kid-horror flick ParaNorman.
The self-stylized descendants of the Brothers Grimm and Neil Gaiman (whose "Coraline" they adapted for their first of three features), Laika seems to yearn for a little more darkness, a touch of Gothic in our children's films — a laudable and very welcome impulse that makes one inclined to celebrate their fanciful grotesqueries on intentions alone.
The filmmakers and stop-motion animators at studio Laika (previously of 2009's " Coraline " and 2012's " ParaNorman ") are shaping up to be the offbeat, less mainstream cousins of Pixar, creating worlds of dark aesthetic whimsy at the service of thematically heady, provocatively relevant ideas.
Beetlejuice (1988)
Directed by Tim Burton
influenced Coraline (2009), Monkeybone (2001)
Visuals Themes
The movie also owes a debt to Tim Burton, the visual whiz who produced The Nightmare Before Christmas, and whose earlier Beetlejuice is fondly recalled in the design of Coraline's funky home, where most of the action takes place.
But he also taps into a playfully Burton-esque streak of delicious dread that's as much Beetlejuice as Nightmare.
Working with the Japanese illustrator Tadahiro Uesugi, Selick comes up with a look that’s part Tim Burton (Coraline’s elongated house is right out of Beetlejuice), part Pinocchio.
If Selick has something in common with Tim Burton, it's the Burton of Beetlejuice.
In some ways, the dysfunctional relationship evokes that of the family in “Beetlejuice”, even with a haunted house thrown into the mix.
Burton's spirit looms large over the proceedings; at times, Monkeybone plays a lot like his Beetlejuice.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Directed by Wes Anderson
influenced by James and the Giant Peach (1996), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Visuals
This has been the case with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (although not necessarily the Tim Burton re-telling of the story), James and the Giant Peach , and Matilda.
Opening in theaters Wednesday, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," based on the book by Roald Dahl, is a puckish and charming stop-motion-animated film in the tradition of "Wallace & Gromit," "James and the Giant Peach" and "Chicken Run."
Dahl also wrote “James and the Giant Peach” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, two children’s stories adapted for the screen.
Emerging from the divine mind of author Roald Dahl (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “James and the Giant Peach”), “Fantastic Mr. Fox” offers Anderson a hefty slice of whimsy to work with.
The beautifully colored and designed animation, crammed with brilliant sight gags and supervised by Mark Gustafson, is the most wondrous of its kind since Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas."
A far cry from the smooth lines of The Nightmare Before Christmas and its ilk, this is animation in the style of those early 1980s Christmas programs, in which half the fun is watching characters move in a herky-jerky fashion with their lips not even making an attempt to match the words.
Krampus (2015)
Directed by Michael Dougherty
influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Visuals Themes
This flashback is done in stop-motion animation reminiscent of The Nightmare Before Christmas , and it’s a nice reprieve from the idiotic plot line of a family under siege.
That's a shame because - as movies from "Gremlins" to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" proved - there's something to be found in combining holiday trappings with monster-movie tropes.
From Gremlins to The Nightmare Before Christmas — even Spinal Tap’s “Christmas With the Devil” — there’s a tongue-in-cheek subversive thrill to the idea; a little bit of naughty when everyone’s supposed to be nice.
It’s either Silent Night, Deadly Night viciously impaling old-fashioned Christmas archetypes (literally) or The Nightmare Before Christmas, which may be a teensy bit ghoulish but is nevertheless a film that most parents are comfortable showing to their kids.
It’s why something like The Nightmare Before Christmas works.
The Book of Life (2014)
Directed by Jorge R. Gutierrez
influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Visuals Themes
Gutierrez's style is colourful, even freakish: he draws from Mexican folk art, but also from Cubism, stop-motion animation –The Nightmare Before Christmas is a clear inspiration – and underground cartooning.
Just as Henry Selick’s The Nightmare Before Christmas was often attributed to its producer Tim Burton , this rather lovely animation by Jorge R Gutierrez is being flogged as a Guillermo del Toro project.
Death is ‘in’ at the moment in children’s animation, with The Book of Life belonging to a quirky little group along with Frankenweenie and Paranorman (or going back a bit further, The Corpse Bride and The Nightmare Before Christmas).
Though the film makes nice use of notable pop songs—including hits from Radiohead, Rod Stewart, and Elvis—the originals may be what keeps The Book of Life from becoming a modern animated classic, up there with The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Monsters, Inc. (2001)
Directed by Pete Docter
influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Visuals
Seemingly inspired by the near lunatic imagination of director Tim Burton - the creatures and locales will remind one of bits from "Beetlejuice" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas" - and some of the old Looney Tunes shorts - particularly the nightmare door factory scenes and the monsters just doing their job (which is reminiscent of Ralph the wolf and Sam the sheepdog clocking in, putting in their hours as adversaries, and then going home friends), the film is one of those efforts that deserves and pretty much requires a second viewing.
Monsters, Inc. rivals the Toy Story movies for sheer magic, the Wallace and Gromit shorts for constant astonishing inventiveness, and The Nightmare Before Christmas for whimsical creature design (without Nightmare’s macabre).
The animation, clever though it is, looks like outtakes from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The Bigger Picture: Igor's characters look like they've stumbled in from The Nightmare Before Christmas or Corpse Bride.
Directed by Anthony Leondis (Lilo & Stitch 2), Igor is filled with images that evoke animated predecessors like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monsters, Inc. and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, but its clich?-laden characters and mediocre animation do little to further the artistic evolution of the medium, or even manage to tell a story that anyone other than the makers themselves will care about.
Yes, Tim Burton has covered this milieu before in animated ‘toons like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride , but there’s a certain hip-factor to this amusing flick set in the world of creepy science labs as an homage to the Frankenstein and Dracula films of the ‘30s.
Given this track record, it's tempting to conclude that Burton did much more than simply produce "Nightmare" and "Peach," in the same way Steven Spielberg did much more than produce "Poltergeist," allegedly directed by Tobe Hooper.
Gaiman penned the grossly underrated “Mirrormask” and essentially provides us with the exact pacing and eye catching creatures and machinations paired with some top notch animation that works as a mixture of claymation and computer animation that gives the dark atmosphere a peculiar more original taste.
This is familiar terrain for both Gaiman (whose original screenplay for the 2005 film MirrorMask centered around a teenage girl’s journey through a grim parallel world) and Selick (whose 1996 stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl ’s James and the Giant Peach remains a modern classic of childhood make-believe at odds with grown-up insolence).
Based on a book by Neil Gaiman, whose alternate-reality narrative is analogous to his prior Mirrormask (and, of course, Alice in Wonderland), Selick’s stop-motion-animated story is dark and magical, a saga of adolescent discontent and longing that so dynamically careens between set pieces of elation and dread that one hardly has time to soak in all the twirling, tumbling visual marvels enveloping the screen.
There are also recognisable elements from writer Neil Gaiman's other work: the twisted mirror-world from his novella Coraline; the protagonist's fear of embarrassment by their parents from his new novel Anansi Boys, as well as spying spiders and flocks of evil birds.
Like Coraline , in which he gave us a bored young female protagonist who longs for adventure, here he simply spins that notion on its head.
This hodgepodge of special and not-so-special effects is the brainchild of Neil Gaiman, the wildly successful comic-book writer and graphic novelist ("Sandman," "Violent Cases," "Coraline"), and multimedia artist David McKean, his frequent collaborator making his feature directing debut with this Jim Henson Company production.
Visually, the first act of the film, with its square trees to match its square houses, reminded me of the suburban rigidity of the first act of Brad Bird ’s “ The Incredibles ,” while visions of the world of the title character reminded me of LAIKA gems like “ Coraline ” and “Paranorman.”
These scenes are a joy to behold — a bliss-out of brightly colored paper and hand-molded clay that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the texturally varied and vibrant stop-motion work seen in Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and Henry Selick’s “Coraline.”
So immense is the artistry that went into these sequences, which include a blend of stop-motion and computer graphics in a stylized approach similar to releases from Laika Studios such as “Coraline” and “The Boxtrolls,” that they could have worked as wordless pieces of the narrative.
The opening sequence is a bit too reminiscent of Edward Scissorhands, but is interesting nonetheless, and far better than the similar creation at the beginning of 9.
Coraline (2009) opens on a rag doll efficiently taken apart by hands of skeletal steel (like Edward Scissorhands but with menacing needles for fingers) and then turned inside out and recreated in the image of the blue-haired heroine Coraline.
The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)
Directed by Lotte Reiniger
influenced The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Visuals
The overall appearance of this Tim Burton- and Denise Di Novi-produced animated feature has few visual antecedents - Lotte Reiniger’s stop-motion delicacies (pre-eminently The Adventures of Prince Achmed) come to mind and, perhaps, the expressionistic lines of an artist like Edvard Munch.
Moana (2016)
Directed by John Musker
influenced by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Music Visuals
Voiced by Jemaine Clement , Tamatoa delivers one of the funniest and most exciting sequences, and — aside from Moana’s ballad — provides the film’s best song, a funky track reminiscent of “Oogie Boogie’s Song” in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The number has an off-kilter quality to it, reminiscent of The Boogeyman in The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Young has vision, that’s for sure, and the collection of influences and inspirations that dot “The Blazing World” run from “Alice in Wonderland” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” to “Coraline” and “Hansel and Gretel,” with a touch of the wacky 2019 social satire “Greener Grass.”
Like Henry Selick’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline , The Blazing World sets its own course through an Alice’s Wonderlandesque journey of self-discovery with a bold, colourful aesthetic.
Chicken Run (2000)
Directed by Nick Park
influenced The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Coraline (2009), James and the Giant Peach (1996)
Visuals
“Chicken Run” (2000) — A cocky American rooster leads British chickens in rebellion against the scheming farm couple plotting their demise in this action romp from “Wallace & Gromit” creator Nick Park.
Directed by plasticine geniuses Peter Lord ("Adam," "Wat's Pig") and Nick Park ("Creature Comforts," "The Wrong Trousers") and produced by both men with Aardman co-founder David Sproxton, the movie is as much fun as The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach combined, minus the sociopathic cynicism even Tim Burton seems to be outgrowing of late.
The first-ever full-length claymation feature from Nick Park and Peter Lord — and the first full-length stop-motion feature film from anyone since Tim Burton brought us The Nightmare Before Christmas — Chicken Run is a wonder to behold.
Colorful and smoothly constructed, the picture rivals 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" as the strongest use of basic claymation seen in a feature film.
Directed by plasticine geniuses Peter Lord ("Adam," "Wat's Pig") and Nick Park ("Creature Comforts," "The Wrong Trousers") and produced by both men with Aardman co-founder David Sproxton, the movie is as much fun as The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach combined, minus the sociopathic cynicism even Tim Burton seems to be outgrowing of late.
Together they also came up with the storyline, although the sole final screenplay credit goes to Karey Kirkpatrick, one of the writers on Disney's "James and the Giant Peach."
In 2009’s “Coraline,” stop-motion maven Henry Selick saw no fear in the waking-nightmare elements of Neil Gaiman’s book and created an eerily enjoyable “Being John Malkovich” of sorts for fifth-graders.
Coraline discovers a small door in the living room that opens to a brick wall while waking and a Being John Malkovich corridor while ostensibly asleep that connects her house to a mirror-world in which her Other Mother and Other Father (John Hodgman) live.