PARANORMAN
"Oh, man, that [old graveyard] is baaad news. It’s like, total slasher movie vibe. Why’d [Norman] go up there?”
Laika, the
studio owned by Nike co-founder and Chairman Phil Knight and run by his son,
Travis, brought us Henry Selick’s excellent adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline in 2009.
Coraline was nominated for Best Animated Feature
Film at the 2010 Oscars* and now, Laika’s second stop-motion feature, Paranorman, is also an Oscar nominee in
the same category.
Not a bad Oscar batting
average, if I may say so myself.
Written by Chris
Butler (who worked on storyboards for Coraline
and Corpse Bride), and
co-directed by Butler with Sam Fell (director of Flushed Away and The Tale of
Despereaux), Paranorman is a
crazy-awesome ride that horror fans should get a massive kick out of.
“It’s not supposed to be [historically
accurate]! It’s supposed to sell postcards and key chains.”
Norman Babcock
(Kodi Smit-McPhee) is the town freak, which is bad enough.
But when you
live in a town like Blithe Hollow (“A Great Place to Hang!”), where a tragic
death that happened centuries ago has become the core of its economy and tourism,
and you’re someone who can actually see and speak with the dead, then it’s so.
Much.
Worse.
Blithe Hollow is
a town with establishments like The Lucky Witch Casino, Trick or Trim, Hung and
Dried, and Witchy Wieners, and whose denizens, sadly, look strangely at the
weird kid.
And it’s a town
that Norman reluctantly finds himself needing to save when the fit hits the
shan.
“Son! Step away from the zombies!”
With a brilliantly
stylized, off-kilter look to its world and characters and a great voice cast
which includes John Goodman, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Casey Affleck, Paranorman is a funny and touching tale
that is a warm, heartfelt love letter to horror fans and misfits everywhere.
Thanx, Laika.
Seriously.
This is putting
all that Nike cash to awesome use.
“Perfect. Now the geeks are in charge.”
* Coraline was up against Wes Anderson’s
brilliant Fantastic Mr. Fox, among
others, but the 2010 Best Animated Feature Film Oscar was ultimately brought
home by Pixar’s Up.
(Paranorman OS’ courtesy of
impawards.com.)
No comments:
Post a Comment