Tag: stop-frame

Wildwood

Wildwood

Director – Travis Knight – 2026 – US – Cert. 12a – 132m

*****

Portland, Oregon teenager Prue must rescue her little brother from Wildwood, a forest she’s forbidden to enter, following his abduction by a murder of crows – out in UK cinemas from Friday, October 23rd

Somewhere in a town within Wildwood, a teenage boy kills himself by throwing himself off the balcony of the family mansion immediately after revealing that his body, when he tears the flesh of his chest apart, is not flesh and blood but a mechanical construct of cog wheels and other metal parts.

His ‘mother’, the Dowager Governess Alexandra (voice: Carey Mulligan) built this robot boy as a substitute for her son, from whose tragic loss she has never recovered.

Outside Wildwood, in neighbouring Portland, Oregon, for years the parents of teenager Prue (voice: Peyton Elizabeth Lee) have regaled their daughter with stories about why she must never enter the Wildwood on the edge of Portland Oregon where the family live: father (voice: Jake Johnson), mother (voice: Maya Erskin), and her little toddler brother Mac (voice: Arthur Knight, the director’s son).

Rebellious as are all teenagers, on an afternoon where her parents are out and have left her babysitting Mac, on strict instructions that she not go out of the house with him, Prue bicycles out taking Mac with her in her trailer cart on a journey through Portland.… Read the rest

Tags abduction, Angela Bassett, army, Arthur Knight, babysitting, bandit, battle, battle scene, bereavement, bicycle, bird, bureaucracy, Carey Mulligan, cast of thousands, chase, childless couple, climbing frame, cog wheels, coyote, deal, dire warnings, eagle, epic, family mansion, farmer, forbidden, forest, imprisoned, ivy, Jacob Tremblay, Jake Johnson, Laika, LFF, LFF 2026, little brother, London Film Festival, London Film Festival 2026, loss, Mahershala Ali, Maya Erskin, mechanical body, murder of crows, Oregon, owl, paperwork, parents and children, particle systems, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, playground, Portland, rebel, rebellious, rescue, Richard E. Grant, robot boy, role-playing games, RPG, sacrifice, siblings, slide, soldier, sorcery, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, studios, substitute child, suicide, teenager, trailer cart, Travis Knight, violence, Wildwood

Art Exhibitions Movies Animation Features

LAIKA presents
Wildwood
The Exhibition

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date October 22 2026
No Comments on LAIKA presents
Wildwood
The Exhibition

LAIKA presents Wildwood The Exhibition

at the Design Museum, Kensington, London, to tie in with the release of their new film Wildwood

Like previous Laika offerings, latest production Wildwood (Travis Knight, 2026) is highly innovative, inventive and imaginative, pushing the boundaries of the cinematic and stop-frame mediums into places audiences haven’t seen them go before. It sounds an unlikely proposition, but if you were to remove the magical spectacle of stop-frame animation from Wildwood – or for that matter from any of Laika’s films – you would potentially have an incredible exhibition of small scale sets, puppets and models.

You could augment this using a series of explanatory videos talking about the various processes involved In the filmmaking. In terms of stop-frame, you could show animators at work, bringing puppets into life.

The legendary stop-frame animation company have done exactly that. have done exactly that. Following in the footsteps of the LAIKA Frame x Frame exhibition covering Laika’s first five films at BFI Southbank in 2024, the company have now partnered with Kensington’s Design Museum to put together a fascinating exhibition about the film.

I should declare at this point that I was lucky enough to see the exhibition having viewed the film a few days previously.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features

Early Man

Early Man

Producer-Director: Nick Park – 2018 – UK – Cert. PG – 89m

*****

Ancient caveman Brits, rabbits, mammoths, dinosaurs, dastardly Frenchmen, and football – Aardman’s prehistoric, stop-frame marvel is back out in UK cinemas on Friday, 21st August

Nick Park and Aardman Animations’ epic is set in a prehistoric world of cavemen, rabbits and mammoths. For good measure it also throws in dastardly Frenchmen and football. Park coaxes great voice performances out of his all-star cast, while physical animation is in the capable hands of Will Becher (who directed the Creature Comforts TV series) and Merlin Crossingham (Creative Director for Wallace & Gromit since 2009 and subsequently co-director with Park of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, 2024).

At one point a mallard appears in the distance. A caveman hurls a small rock at it. The rock travels an awful long way. Much farther than we expected. Eventually it reaches the mallard, revealed as a gargantuan beast on the scale of a dinosaur. The giant mallard charges towards us and the hapless tribe of cavemen.

This is very much in the spirit of Early Man’s opening sequence wherein volcanoes belch fire and a carnivorous ceratosaurus does battle with a herbivorous triceratops clearly modelled on their counterparts in Ray Harryhausen’s One Million Years B.C.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features Live Action

Holy Days

Holy Days

Director – Nat Boltt – 2026 – New Zealand, Canada – Cert. 12a – 101m

***1/2

Three ageing nuns must save their ramshackle convent from property developers and help a local Maori boy come to terms with his mum’s death and his dad’s new partner – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, Aug 14th

In a wondrously tacky stop-frame parody, giant-sized Brian rides his giant-sized bicycle through the village (cut to live action Brian played by Elijah Tomati) to explain to Sister Agnes (Judy Davis) at the door of his destination building that he’s committed blasphemery. It turns out his exact words were, “Jesus Jumping Christ”. Taking it good humouredly in her stride, she tells him to come in. And, as a penance, assigns him to clean all the upstairs floors.

As a title informs us, it’s New Zealand. 1974.

Upstairs, Sister Mary Clare (Jacki Weaver) explains that the reason for all the baby photos is that the nuns used to take them in. And shows him, thorough the window, Sister Luke’s garden. Which has seen better days. Brian says his mum loved it here. The feeling was reciprocal, apparently. Nun and boy turn floor polishing chores into improvised sports exercise gliding along the floor.… Read the rest

Tags 1974, 30 mph, afterlife, animation, apology, baby photos, beach, Bible, bicycle, bike, bishop, blasphemery. penance, blasphemy, bribe, bribery, broth, Canada, care home, ceiling plaster, chores, Chris Reddington, Christian, church, cigarette, clean the floor, convent, dancing, dashboard, dementia, dentures, developer, do a runner, done up, driving, Elijah Tomati, false teeth, ferry, flashback, fruit cake, garden, grand opening, grave, Heaven, Holy Days, Jesus, John Bach, Jonny Brugh, Joy Cowley, landscape, luggage, Maori, mean driver, memory, Miriam Margolyes, mothers and sons, mountain, Nat Boltt, New Zealand, partner, peace, Plum Duff Pudding, property, reconciliation, revelation, role model, security of tenure, smoking, snow, snow globe, South Island, spirit, stepmother, stepmothers and sons, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, surrogate mother, Tanea Heke, title deeds, traffic cop, Ty Jepsen, udy Davis, village, Winter

Movies Animation Features

The PIRATES!
In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 10 2026
No Comments on The PIRATES!
In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

The PIRATES! In an Adventure with SCIENTISTS!

Director: Peter Lord – 2012 – UK – Cert. PG – 87m

*****

Victorian era, stop-frame marvel about… yes… pirates, scientists and adventure – back out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 10th

This latest offering from Bristol-based Aardman Animations is a remarkable feature that pushes the art of stop-frame plasticine animation to new heights. Director Lord, creator of Morph, has been working with the medium for several decades via shorts, music videos and commercials and although the independent studio he co-founded with the David Sproxton (like Lord himself, one of the film’s producers) has made four prior features, this one is Lord’s first feature as director.

Much care has gone into the script by Gideon Defoe, an adaptation of his own book, upon which sure foundation Lord, co-director Jeff Newitt and their team’s artistry and impeccable sense of comic timing has built an impressive edifice. Like other stop frame outings, it looks more impressive still in 3D, a medium which favours shooting on miniature model animation sets.

The Pirate Captain (voice: Hugh Grant) has scant chance of wining the coveted Pirate Of The Year Award because ruthless rivals Black Bellamy (voice: Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (voice: Salma Hayek) are much more ruthless and have plundered far more booty than he.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features Music

The Czech Year
(Špalíček)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date August 14 2026
No Comments on The Czech Year
(Špalíček)

The Czech Year (Špalíček)

Director – Jiří Trnka – 1947 – Czechoslovakia – Cert. PG – 80m

*****

A celebration of Czech peasant life, with a striking Christian element – on the Blu-ray Jiří Trnka: Puppet Master, released in the UK on Monday, August 10th

Originally made as a series of short films which were subsequently edited into a feature, a similar strategy later adopted by fellow countryman Jan Švankmajer making Alice (1988), this opens (after a static title sequence) with a song about musicians wondering how they can afford a dulcimer. There’s a feeling of community among a villagers’ marching band comprising double bass, clarinet, serpent and horn, who are joined for processions and dances by assorted villagers. As the song ends, they are scattered but not dispersed by a death-like scarecrow figure on a cart.

A bear who has joined in their revelry is revealed as an actor whose bear mask has come off and been lost when he has fallen in a freezing stream (it has ice on top), and the season of winter is introduced by a pan along a model backdrop which appears to be painted on layers of glass. There are precedents for this technique, whether you look at Disney’s 2D animation experiments with the many glass levels of the multiplane camera used to achieve the illusion of depth on, for example, Fantasia (1940) or those of special effects animator Willis O’Brien who for such works as The Lost World (Harry O.… Read the rest

Tags acrobats, Adam, angels, battlefield, Bethlehem, bird singing, black serpent, blocking, bow and arrow, bride and groom, brushstrokes, carving, cave, choirboys, Christian, Christian church procession, clarinet, clown, cobra, community, community meal, craftspeople, Czech, Czech animation, Czech culture, Czech folk tales, Czech peasant life, Czechoslovakia, dance, death figure, deer, double bass, duck, ducklings, dulcimer, ethereal woman, facial design, flute, foliage, fortune tellers, Garden Of Eden, glass painting, Heavens, horn, huntsman, illustration, Jesus in the wilderness, Jiří Trnka, Jiří Trnka: Puppet Master, landscape, lighting, liturgical language, marching band, marionette show, message of Salvation, monkey, monument on a hill, musician, Old Czech Legends, painted faces, painter, procession, prophecy, puppet animation, puppets, ritualised church worship, rock formations, rural, serpent, sets, skeletons, skittles, snake, song, staging, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-frame puppet, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, stop-motion puppet, storm, temptation, tempted by the Devil, The Czech Year, The Hand, till the soil, torrential rain, travelling show, villagers, war, war dead, Winter, wood

Movies Animation Shorts

The Hand
(Ruka)

The Hand (Ruka)

Director – Jiří Trnka – 1965 – Czechoslovakia – Cert. PG – 18m

*****

A potter’s quiet life is interrupted by a giant hand which wants him to remake his pots in its image – on the Blu-ray Jiří Trnka: Puppet Master, released in the UK on Monday, August 10th

He sleeps peacefully on his simple bed in his room. We hear footsteps as we move around the room – is someone watching him? If so, he’s blissfully unaware of the fact. In the centre of the room is a potter’s wheel. On either side of the door are numerous pots. In the corner, a mirror; below it, a watering can on a little table. Moving towards his bed, we pass a window with a flower in a pot on the window’s interior sill.

He gets up, does some basic exercises, checks his tongue in the mirror, waters the plant on the window sill. Birds can be heard singing. The he gets down to the business of the day: making pots on his wheel. He is absorbed. But, an interruption. A knock at the door. Nothing there.

Eventually, a giant hand pushes its way through the shuttered window, the impact knocking the plant to the floor and shattering its pot.… Read the rest

Tags absorbed, arm, authority, bed, birdsong, blissfully unaware, break, captivity, captured, carefree, caress, ceiling, Communism, Communist, controlled, craftsman, Czech, Czech animation, Czech culture, Czech folk tales, Czechoslovakia, damp, dance, dancer, escape, exercises, fake gesture, fall, final film, finger / leg, flee, flower, flowerpot, freedom, giant hand, hand-controlled, hard working, honest, individual, interruption, Jiří Trnka, Jiří Trnka: Puppet Master, killed, knock at the door, long nose, marionette, mirror, move around the room, Napoleonic hat struggle, neck ruff, net lace glove, numerous pots watering can, Old Czech Legends, ourtier, potter’s wheel, puppet, puppet animation, puppet design, respect a visitor, seduce, shutter, sleep peacefully, status quo, stop-frame, stop-frame animation, stop-frame puppet, stop-motion, stop-motion animation, stop-motion puppet, strings attached, swansong, The Czech Year, The Hand, the state, through the window, totalitarianism, wallpaper, water the plant, window sill

Movies Animation Features

Chicken Run

Chicken Run

Producer-Directors: Nick Park, Peter Lord – Producer – David Sproxton – 2000 – UK – Cert. PG – 84m

*****

Which came first – the chicken or the egg? Plasticene stop-frame animation house Aardman Animations’ debut feature film reconceives The Great Escape with chickens – back out in UK cinemas from Friday, 24th July

Aardman Animations’ A Close Shave (1995), the third half-hour outing for Nick Park’s popular Wallace & Gromit duo, exhibited several danger signs – specifically its close resemblance to brilliant, immediate precursor The Wrong Trousers (1993). Clearly aware of such pitfalls, Park and founding Aards Sproxton and Lord shrewdly signed a five-picture deal with Dreamworks but refused to rush into a first feature. Their caution has paid dividends: this first full length Aardmovie proves an unexpectedly wondrous odyssey.

It’s The Great Escape reconceived with chickens: familiar WW2 prison camp is reconfigured as North of England chicken coop with impenetrable fencing, rows of huts and a motley assortment of portly hen inmates. Ginger (voice: Julia Sawalha) wants to escape, but several disastrous attempts lead to solitary confinement (where she bounces a ball off the wall Steve McQueen style). Other chickens can’t see a problem – Bunty (voice: Imelda Staunton) simply keeps on laying eggs, while Babs (Horrocks) busies herself with constant knitting.… Read the rest

Movies Animation Features

Savages
(Sauvages)

Savages (Sauvages)

Director – Claude Barras – 2024 – Switzerland – Cert. PG – 87m

French with English subtitles.

*****

An indigenous pre-teenage girl stands up to loggers destroyingthe local rainforest – stop-frame animated feature from the director of My Life as a Courgette is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 1st

From its opening moments in darkness following unsettling creature noises suggesting a jungle forest, followed by jungle forest establishing shots – a frog jumping across a river via a series of stones, a snake slithering around a tree, a baby orangutan (non-verbal voice: soundtrack composer and co-sound editor Charles de Ville) swinging on a branch – it’s clear that this has high ambitions indeed. All the above would be one thing to execute in live action – a few location natural history shots… possibly library footage. In model – or stop-motion – animation, you need to physically build everything in terms of miniature model sets, so to achieve such images is a major undertaking.

Having already set the production bar high, this then pushes it up further with the rasping sound of a chainsaw, as the tree heights on which the baby orangutan and its mother (voice: de Ville again), who has just rescued the infant from the attentions of the deadly snake, are resting suddenly topples into a camp of workers who are going about their allotted task of destroying the creature’s natural habitat.… Read the rest

Tags 11-year-old, 3D animation, ancestors, animation, animator, Babette De Coster, baby, backing of the authorities, Benoît Poelvoorde, Borneo, bulldozer, capitalism, chainsaw, Charles de Ville, child-eating monster, children struggling to cope, Claude Barras, compromise, contemporary life, cousin, darkness, digitally immersive environment, economics of deforestation, embarrassment, environment, environmental theme, fathers and children, film activities, financial gain, followed by jungle, forest, frog, grandfather, grandfathers and children, habitat destruction, hands-on physicality, harvest fruit, heritage, incoming call, indigenous, infant, jungle forest, learned survival skills, loggers, loss of a parent, loss of the mother, Martin Verset, maternal instincts, miniature, model, model animation, model sets, modern technology, monster in the forest, mother’s death, mothers and children, myth making, native, natural habitat, natural outdoors world, nuclear family, orangutan, orphan, ostracise, Oxbridge graduate, palm oil extraction, peer group, Penan, perceived societal norm, Pierre-Isaïe Duc, police, pre-teenage, puppets blink, rainforest, rampage, rasping, resistance, ringtone, rucksack, Sauvages, savage, Savages, school, single-parent families, smartphone battery died, smartphone obsession, smelly boy, snake, spoken language, stop-frame, stop-motion, struggling to cope, swinging on a branch, Switzerland, trauma, tree, tropic, true to his roots, venomous snake, viral video

Movies Animation Features

Memoir of a Snail

Memoir of a Snail

Director – Adam Elliot – 2024 – Australia – Cert. 15 – 94m

*****

A young woman recounts her life story to her newly freed pet snail after her best friend dies – stop-frame animation marvel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 14th

Following a bravura title sequence which consists of a camera moving around (a scale model set of) detritus from a life, everything from soap on a rope to snail poison, with various objects bearing upon themselves various credits for the film, a young woman has tears in her eyes as her bedridden friend Pinky (voice: Jacki Weaver from Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell, 2012; Animal Kingdom, David Michod, 2010; Picnic at Hanging Rock, Peter Weir, 1975) breathes her last, briefly coming back to life to utter the legend, “potatoes”. But what can this word mean?

Taking her pet snail Sylvia (the name is painted on the back of the creature’s shell) out of a glass jar and setting her free to cross Pinky’s garden in the course of her subsequent narrative, the woman remembers her childhood down to the smallest detail, and starts to recount it to the liberated gastropod.… Read the rest

Tags 3D animation, Academy Award, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2024-25, Academy Awards 2025, accountant, Adam Elliot, alcoholic, Alexander Esenarro Santafe, animation, apple farm, Australia, bedridden, Bernie Clifford, Big Dipper, birthing, blood transfusion, book deposit, Canberra, cheap labour, child abuse, Child Services, childhood, Christian, church collection, cleft palette, cleft upper lip, correspondence, creating her story as a vehicle for his stop-frame puppetry, Dominique Pinon, drunk driver, eccentric, Eric Bana, exploitation, fairground, farmers, fathers and children, foster homes, foster parents, freedom, friend, fundamentalist, Garden Of Eden, gibberish, head sculptor, heroism, hoarding, hospital, Jacki Weaver, key parties, Kodi Smit-Mcphee, letters, library, love of fire, Magda Szubanski, marriage, Memoir of a Snail, memorabilia, molluscologist, music box, netball, Nick Cave, nutcase, orchard, ornament, orphan, orphanage, Oscar, Oscar nominations, Oscars, Oscars 2024-25, Oscars 2025, paraplegic, Paris, Paul Capsis, pet snail, potatoes, pray, premature birth, production line, religious, Sarah Snook, school bully, self-help books, separated, shoplifting, snail, snail poison, soap on a rope, stop-frame, stop-frame puppet, street artist, swingers, Tony Armstrong, toxic relationship, twins, volunteering, woodshed