I was going to save my comment review for my latest column; honestly, all those pundits who said last year was a weak year for animation just because Pixar coughed up a hairball would be right this year, because right now, I suspect ParaNorman would win Best Animated Feature hands down.
I think I liked it better than Fred, but, yeah, for the studio that did Coraline, well, it just has neither the heart, nor the fangs. That being said, I did enjoy the use of the Halloween theme; once again, I was the only one laughing in the theater. That was a great scene, though. The first half of the final confrontation with the witch was at first really cleverly animated, and came close to the "fangs" of Coraline, but the second half of the confrontation didn't even come close to the "heart."
I was sitting next to a 14 year old who was way too young and media unsavvy to get most of the references (it wasn't really referential, except for the pitch perfect Halloween gag, again, but it did have a purposeful grindhouse feel to it; the opening was a bit Tarantino-and-Rodriguez, actually); the movie came with a trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and I had to explain how I knew the dwarves name and the lyrics to the song, because though he was super excited about "a new Lord of the Rings!" he had no idea that something called The Hobbit ever existed. His verdict of ParaNorman was "This is just like Chicken Little."
I was going to save my comment review for my latest column; honestly, all those pundits who said last year was a weak year for animation just because Pixar coughed up a hairball would be right this year, because right now, I suspect ParaNorman would win Best Animated Feature hands down.
I think I liked it better than Fred, but, yeah, for the studio that did Coraline, well, it just has neither the heart, nor the fangs. That being said, I did enjoy the use of the Halloween theme; once again, I was the only one laughing in the theater. That was a great scene, though. The first half of the final confrontation with the witch was at first really cleverly animated, and came close to the "fangs" of Coraline, but the second half of the confrontation didn't even come close to the "heart."
I was sitting next to a 14 year old who was way too young and media unsavvy to get most of the references (it wasn't really referential, except for the pitch perfect Halloween gag, again, but it did have a purposeful grindhouse feel to it; the opening was a bit Tarantino-and-Rodriguez, actually); the movie came with a trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and I had to explain how I knew the dwarves name and the lyrics to the song, because though he was super excited about "a new Lord of the Rings!" he had no idea that something called The Hobbit ever existed. His verdict of ParaNorman was "This is just like Chicken Little."
Uh, ouch.