Laika

[James]

No Kubo thread? How about we just start one for Laika then?

Kubo and the Two Strings review is up!

http://animatedviews.com/2016/kubo-and- ... ings-film/

Not in the review, but for those like me originally confused by it when they heard it...(very, very mild spoiler ahead)

I love the title now!

[EricJ]

I think they've officially used up their free three-film Ticket To Ride after "Coraline".
They still have a cult with the animation fans for "Come see our latest because we made it by hand!", but what they make is starting to have less and less breakout appeal.

My feelings on Paranorman are well known by this point, there is no love for The Boxtrolls, and Kubo looks even more like the legacy of the Samurai Jack Fanboy Generation twenty years later than "Secret of the Kells" did.

[James]

Not sure about all that, but as for me I am not a fan of any of their other films. This is the first one I've liked and it is partly because it is different from the others. But after three similar films viewers may have thought this would be more of the same.

[Ben]

I'm loving what I've seen of Kubo (no confusion in the title for me...?) and can't wait to see it, though I only really liked Coraline before. ParaNorman was a drag and Boxtrolls had good elements but a weak story. Kubo just looks epic!

[James]

...(no confusion in the title for me...?)...

"Why's it called Kubo and the TWO Strings when his guitar-thingy is obviously a three-string?"

[Ben]

Still not knowing too much about the story, I wasn't really thinking that his guitar-thingy was part of the title, or was just assuming that at some point it would lose a string or he'd have to replace the strings and only have two but find he could play just as well with two as with three, etc. If that's not the case then, yeah, it would be odd to call it Two Strings.

[James]

I assumed something like that and that it would be explained too, but that doesn't meant there wasn't some confusion about the title when you first hear it.

I will say that this one is better than "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"! Always hated that title after reading the book!

[Ben]

Careful, you're heading into Seven Little Men Help A Girl territory!

As for Potter: ...And The Half-Blood Prince - always hated that title after I saw the film!

[James]

Nice review from Ben: http://animatedviews.com/2016/kubo-and- ... s-blu-ray/

As you should expect, spoilers galore. Wait to read it if you haven't seen it. Both Ben and I gave it good reviews so definitely worth a watch.

[Dacey]

So a few thoughts on Kubo (which I finally saw)...

Loved it for the most part. Not sure if I adored it as much as others, but I was definitely a fan.

I'm not quite sure if Theron's voice works for animation, though. She was good at the more "sincere" stuff, but when she was on "abrasive" mode, she sounded bored or like she didn't know what to do with her voice to me. Compare that to Matthew McConaughey, who's excellent, his voice warm and filled with humor as well as a touch of loneliness and confusion. And Rooney Mara (always the true Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to me) was also great as the wonderfully scary twins.

Unlike some others here...I loved Coraline! So that remains that favorite Laika feature. However, this remains a solid second best for me (I didn't love The Boxtrolls, for whatever reason). And that final shot? A very powerful and bittersweet way to end a "mainstream" animated film on, and I suspect Coco owes a small debt to this film for having some similar themes.

But anyway, I finally saw Kubo. It only took me, what, two years? (I'm excited to see what Knight does with Bumblebee)

[Ben]

Agreed! Kind of...

...(the) designs are quite striking visually, making some of the vocal casting tougher to relate to; occasionally there seems to be something of a slight disconnect between the voices and the characters, particularly Charlize Theron’s Mother in human form.

(As) a monkey-like creature who turns out to be his Mother reincarnated, Theron has much more fun and invests herself more, although her highpoints are more the humorously abrasive attitude she has rather than any great animation vocalist skill.

[Dacey]

Speaking of your review, going from the audio commentary I recently gave a listen to, apparently The Moon King was meant to look like Peter Cushing (and Bela Lugoisi).

[Ben]

That’s a track I keep meaning to come back to! That’s not a surprise, given some of the films that Cushng was in over the years, so is nice to know they paid homage to him...and that it was intentional! Thanks!

[Dacey]

Interesting hearing the news about Will Vinton. On the commentary track, Knight talks as though he "created" Laika, when in fact it was Vinton's company, albeit heavily rebranded.

As an aside, Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas is a truly underrated piece of animation, with some beautiful work going on in several of its musical sequences:

[droosan]

I got to meet Mr. Vinton briefly, at an animation festival in Hollywood in the early-2000s.

Even at that time -- pretty much immediately after being pushed out of the studio he'd founded -- he came across as an affable and cheerful person, with a passion for animated films (of all types) and a positive outlook on life.

RIP, good sir.