Cinefantastique Online

Animated films using clay or wire-armature puppets, manipulated by hand, one frame at a time.

Smell the Nerdiosity: ROBOT CHICKEN.
So how about a break from the Fab Three ragging on the latest release? How about a few, carefree minutes with Matt Senreich, the twisted mastermind who, along with the equally twisted Seth Green, oversees Adult Swim’s wickedly funny, sharply satirical, and supremely nerdy stop-motion animated puppet show, ROBOT CHICKEN? Before [...]

After casting the devil out of THE LAST EXORCISM, Dan Persons, Lawrence French, and Steve Biodrowski exercise their analytic on other possession movies in the latest episode of Cinefantastique’s weekly Post-Mortem Podcast. What are the best and worst the genre has to offer: THE EXORCIST, THE EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC, THE EXORCIST III, HOUSE OF [...]

Wallace and Gromit are back in an all-new animated adventure. After the entertaining but disappointing WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (which seemed stretched a bit thin at feature length), creator, director, and co-writer Nick Park returns his delightful plasticine pals to their preferred format, the half-hour short. Even if the results do [...]

The cast of the classic 1960s television version
Back in March, a representative for Tim Burton denied that he would be directing a 3-D stop-motion version of THE ADDAMS FAMILY, saying “There is no truth to the story. Tim has not lined up any of his upcoming projects.” However, that second sentence seemed to leave the [...]

[ March 9, 2012; ] Walt Disney Pictures has announced that FRANKENWEENIE, previously scheduled for a 2011 debut, will instead make its bow on March 9, 2012.

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New Blu-ray release offers improved picture and sound quality but little in the way of additional bonus features.
Riding on the delightfully cobwebbed coat-tails of Tim Burton’s THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, poor JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH was probably predestined to be a disappointment, for what film could possibly live up to that level [...]

True to its title, FANTASTIC MR. FOX is an absolute astonishment of a picture, seamlessly merging the literary sensibilities of author Roald Dahl with the droll, urbanite wit of Wes Anderson.  Ironically, it was the participation of Anderson that initially worried us; the director’s recent films have been polarizing, to say the least, and we [...]

Henry Selick with a stop-motion puppet from CORALINE
Variety reports that Henry Selick (who wrote and directed last year’s Oscar-nominated stop-motion hit CORALINE) has signed a deal to make films for Disney-Pixar. Selick worked for Disney back in the 1990s on TIM BURTON’S A NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. The later film [...]

Tuesday July 21st’s DVD and Blu-ray releases offer something for cinefantastique fans of every stribe, whether your personal tastes run toward science fiction, fantasy, or horror. The top title of the week, at least in terms of sales figures, is WATCHMEN. The sprawling plotlines of Alan Moore’s well-regarded graphic novel did not translate well to [...]

This DVD collects the first two season’s worth of episodes from Aardman Animations’s British stop-motion television series, along with the 1990 Oscar-winning theatrical short subject on which the show is based. Each episode recreates the formula of the original film, mimicking a documentary format, with actual recorded interviews serving as dialogue spoken by a series of colorful [...]

CREATURE COMFORTS is the first Oscar-winning film from the unbeatable team of Aardman Animations and director Nick Park. Presented as a documentary, the 1990 stop-motion production features a series of interviews with zoo animals, who express an amusing variety of views regarding their stay in captivity – sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant.
Much of the humor derives [...]

[ June 19, 2009; ] This stop-motion film featuring offers “slightly less than $10 worth about the meaning of life.” Directed by Tatia Rosenthal, who co-wrote with Elgar Keret, based on his stories, $9.99 features the voice of Geoffrey Rush as a surly guardian angel looking out for the interests of an unemployed 23-year-old who purchases a book that promises to [...]

A retiree (voice of Barry Otto) learns that guardian angels (Geoffrey Rush) aren't always all that's advertised in $9.99
What with all the “family-oriented” animation that we’re going to be saddled with over the next few months, Tatia Rosenthal’s debut stop-motion animated feature, $9.99, comes as a welcome change. Based on the stories of Etgar Keret [...]