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Posts Tagged ‘animated’

 

Trailer Watch: Trailer for Kirikou: Men and Women

I missed this from a few days ago, but I’m all excited: French animator Michel Ocelot has made a third film starring the tiny-but-wise African folk hero Kirikou, Kirikou: Men and Women. The first two Kirikou films — Kirikou and the Sorceress and Kirikou and the Wild Beast are absolutely wonderful children’s movies — beautifully animated, with a wonderful 2D style.

With the new film, it looks like they’re using CG models, for an even cleaner line and smoother movement. (Do you call it cel shading if there’s no shading?) While I haven’t seen Ocelot’s previous effort, Azur et Asmar (a.k.a. The Princes’ Quest), the stiff CG I saw in the trailer was a bit of a turn-off. Here, the simpler colors on the figures makes this look much, much better. The film was made in 3D and should be out in France next February? I have no idea when it will make it here, of course, but a (very) limited release to a few art house theaters is likely.

The trailer is NSFW, I guess. It’s non-sexual nudity, albeit a lot of it — the African villagers, including Kirikou, don’t wear a lot of clothing. If you’ve seen the earlier films, you already know that. If you haven’t, I swear, it’s really a kid’s flick!

(By the way, if you know French, you can watch the entire first film on YouTube, though the video quality isn’t good.)

via Twitch

Trailer Watch: FOUR (sort of) teaser trailers for Monsters University

A teaser trailer for the prequel to Pixar’s Monsters Inc., Monsters University, has found its way to the internet in four very slightly different versions. (The only difference is a one-liner early on — you’ll know which one after you watch the first one. I watched all of them all the way through so you don’t have to. They are all very funny, though!)

The whole film, which was directed by Pixar story artist Dan Scanlon, hits theaters on June 21, 2013.

Trailer Watch: Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph

Disney’s next non-Pixar CG-animated feature centers around an analog for Donkey Kong — the titular Wreck-It Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) attempts to shed his bad-guy image by escaping into Hero’s Duty (Halo), but inadvertently wreaks havoc in the video-game universe by freeing a digital villain (sort of like Tron?) — and it’s all mixed in with Who Framed Roger Rabbit?-style cameos from popular video game characters.

So yeah. I had a grin on my face throughout the trailer. Jane Lynch as the tough-as-nails hottie from Hero’s Duty and Sarah Silverman as an obnoxious little girl (princess?) from some kind of Candyland-lookin’ world are inspired bits of casting, and the film looks great. This one’s a must-see for me.

Wreck-It Ralph was directed by Rich Moore (long-time TV animation veteran and sequence director for The Simpsons Movie) and opens on November 2, 2012.

(h/t /Film)

Trailer Watch: Studio Ghibli’s Arrietty UK trailer

Thanks once again to Twitch, we have the UK trailer for Arrietty, Studio Ghibli’s adaptation of Mary Norton’s children’s novel The Borrowers. The marketing material says “inspired by,” because it’s a loose adaptation, with Ghibli relocating the tale to Japan.

Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the film came out last year in Japan, where it won Animation of the Year in the 2010 Japan Academy Prize (a.k.a. the Japanese Academy Awards). Two English dubs have been prepped for their upcoming US and UK releases. (The US version stars Bridgit Mendler, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler and Carol Burnett, while the UK version has Saoirse Ronan, Mark Strong, Olivia Coleman and Tom Holland providing voices.) Arrietty hits UK theaters on August 26, 2011, and the United States on February 17, 2012.