I’m sorry to interrupt the Halloween week horror programming, but it would be negligent not to write about a unique theatrical experience that may pass you by soon: the extravagant stop motion fantasy WILDWOOD. Director Travis Knight (KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS), writer Chris Butler (director of PARANORMAN) and the studio Laika (CORALINE) live up to their usual high standard of entertainment while aggressively pushing the envelope of what can be done in this medium.
I’m referring more to its scale than its subject matter. It’s a PG-13 movie, it has some stuff that might be too much for most little kids, but it’s basically a young people movie, based on a book by Colin Meloy of the band The Decemberists, illustrated by his wife Carson Ellis. I don’t know anything about any of that, but I can appreciate a LABYRINTH type going-into-a-fantasy-world-to-rescue-the-kidnapped-baby adventure as much as the next dork. This is a good version of that for a couple of reasons, the biggest and most obvious being that it’s maybe the most technically ambitious stop motion movie ever made, just staggering to look at if you appreciate the art form. (read the rest of this shit…)
Hey, I’ve admitted it before. I’m a Modern Man, I can dig on the cartoons sometimes. But I don’t always gotta go public about it. For example I didn’t need it on record that I thought FROZEN continued the evolution of the Disney Princess formula in smart, pro-girl ways. The rest of the world took care of that, I didn’t need to say anything. Stoicism. But I just saw THE BOXTROLLS which was amazing and I don’t trust the rest of the world to make a big deal about this one, so here I am.
