Word: gromit
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...there is also much humor in the purer, simpler Wallace and Gromit vein as well, enough to bewitch the youthful members of the audience. The foxes are entirely civilized until it comes to meals; then they gobble feverishly and without restraint. Kylie is a loyal sidekick but not the brightest opossum in all the land; when confused, his eyes transform into dazed little bull's eyes. A beagle with a case of "chronic rabies" is used to great effect, and Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon) are brilliantly realized. Stop-motion is clearly a laborious business...
Director and co-writer Bowers worked at Aardman Films under Nick Park (of Wallace and Gromit glory) and directed Flushed Away, that uneasy alliance of the gnome-artisans at Aardman and the brasher gang at DreamWorks. What both outfits stress is telling stories through characters, and Bowers (along with co-writer Timothy Hyde Harris) breathe a solid emotional life into Toby and Tenma, while adhering to the confines of a kid-oriented feature. The animation style is supple and assured. And if the audience includes any precocious kids like Toby, they'll be diverted by references to Isaac Asimov...
...Neighbor Totoro, in which two girls meet some agreeable forest spirits; and Kiki's Delivery Service, about a 13-year-old witch who starts her own business. All are artistic triumphs and certified delights - close kin to Lasseter's CGI wizardry and Nick Park's stop-motion Wallace and Gromit films. These are Miyazaki's animation amigos: "My comrades in arms," he says, "in trying to keep good quality and commercially viable animation going...
...seem to think so. Eight years ago, when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences established an award for Best Animated Feature, DreamWorks got the first one, for Shrek. Since then, Katzenberg's homegrown product has been shut out (the studio distributed Nick Park's veddy English Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), while Pixar has won four: Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and WALL-E. "Each year I do one DreamWorks project," actor Jack Black told the crowd at this year's ceremony, "then I take all the money to the Oscars...
...stop-motion marvels are Willis O'Brien's King Kong; the mythical creatures molded and manipulated by Ray Harryhausen in pictures like Jason and the Argonauts and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger; those endearing English eccentrics in Nick Park's Chicken Run and the Wallace and Gromit shorts; the sprightly ghouls of Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas...