Stop Motion

What's your favorite animated movie? Chances are, the team behind it was influenced by stop-motion and visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, with maybe a dash of Looney Tunes titan Chuck Jones thrown in. And now you can see why. Two exhibitions curated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — "The Fantastical Worlds of Ray Harryhausen" and "Chuck Jones: An Animator's Life From A to Z-Z-Z-Z" — will display sketches, animation...

It's not often noted in the history books, but Queen Victoria simply couldn't stand pirates. In fact, the words "I Hate Pirates" are prominently carved on the royal crest. You could look it up. Well, actually, you can't, because the wacky folks at Aardman Animations made it up as a key plot point of their delightful"The Pirates! Band of Misfits,"a clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience. Based on a novel by Gideon Defoe, who also wrote the screenplay, "Pirates" follows the exploits, such as they are, of Pirate Captain (wonderfully voiced by Hugh Grant)

Growing up in Belgium, the animating duo of Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar loved to play with plastic toy figurines. "I had a neighbor who I was kind of jealous of because he had more," said Aubier on the phone from New York, speaking through a translator."

The Pirate Captain, the lead swashbuckler voiced by Hugh Grant in the new stop-motion animated film"The Pirates! Band of Misfits," possesses an overweening sense of optimism and some spectacular facial hair. It was the latter - a dense nest of curlicues that the character repeatedly refers to as his "luxuriant beard" - that kept the filmmakers up at night. Model makers labored for months to find a natural way to animate the rubber whiskers, eventually fashioning a mechanism out of the tuning head of a guitar to make the beard spring to life.

To be clear, Wes Anderson did not set out to direct his new movie via e-mail. Even if that's precisely how the writer-director's stop-motion animation version of Roald Dahl's beloved children's book "Fantastic Mr. Fox" -- a jaunty visual joy ride that features voice characterizations by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman -- ultimately came to be, Anderson never intended to become an in-box auteur. That choice was made all but inevitable, however, by the Oscar nominee's unorthodox decision to hole up in Paris for most of the shoot's one-year duration while principal photography commenced across the English Channel at London's venerable Three Mills Studios.

Although the stop-motion technique Wes Anderson employs for "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is considered animation, producer Allison Abbate says the painstaking process has a lot more in common with live action than some might think. "Because it's real space, real light, real textures, it brings you into the world more," Abbate explains. "It looks familiar and like something that you've seen in your life, yet it's much smaller." Abbate, who has also worked on projects with Tim Burton and Brad Bird, says that longtime stop-motion fan Anderson was drawn to the artistry of the process.

In what will be only the second time since the animated feature film category was created in 2001, there will be five nominees to root for at this Academy Awards, thanks to the 20 films submitted (a minimum of 16 is required to field a full slate of contenders). Among the submissions are "Ponyo," from Hayao Miyazaki, whose "Spirited Away" won the award in 2002, the last time there were five nominees. Other contenders include "Monsters vs. Aliens," "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" and the French film "A Town Called Panic."

To be a film critic at the end of August is to be a high diver poised at the end of the board. Behind you is the overheated cacophony of the hectic summer months, ahead is the cool comfort of theaters filled with the fall's smart and sophisticated offerings. Or so it's tempting to think. But what if the fall films, for all their promise, let us down? (It's happened before.) And what if movies from those earlier months turn out to be some of the best we'll see all year? It's in that spirit that some of the best of 2009 so far have been selected for your consideration.

For decades, it was easy to tell the two media apart: There were real people in live-action movies; animated films had drawn characters or stop-motion figures. But as filmmaking technology has grown more complex, it's not clear if a single term can encompass movies as different as the five Oscar nominees for best animated feature, the additional 15 films that qualified for the category and the visual effects in movies such as "Avatar." An often heated debate over what is -- and isn't -- animation rages among animators, filmmakers, critics and fans.

It's not often noted in the history books, but Queen Victoria simply couldn't stand pirates. In fact, the words "I Hate Pirates" are prominently carved on the royal crest. You could look it up. Well, actually, you can't, because the wacky folks at Aardman Animations made it up as a key plot point of their delightful"The Pirates! Band of Misfits,"a clever piece of business that is a complete pleasure to experience. Based on a novel by Gideon Defoe, who also wrote the screenplay, "Pirates" follows the exploits, such as they are, of Pirate Captain (wonderfully voiced by Hugh Grant)

What's your favorite animated movie? Chances are, the team behind it was influenced by stop-motion and visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen, with maybe a dash of Looney Tunes titan Chuck Jones thrown in. And now you can see why. Two exhibitions curated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — "The Fantastical Worlds of Ray Harryhausen" and "Chuck Jones: An Animator's Life From A to Z-Z-Z-Z" — will display sketches, animation...

For decades, it was easy to tell the two media apart: There were real people in live-action movies; animated films had drawn characters or stop-motion figures. But as filmmaking technology has grown more complex, it's not clear if a single term can encompass movies as different as the five Oscar nominees for best animated feature, the additional 15 films that qualified for the category and the visual effects in movies such as "Avatar." An often heated debate over what is -- and isn't -- animation rages among animators, filmmakers, critics and fans.

I could tell you about the parachuting cows, the giant automated penguin, the mad scientists doing serious snowball research. I could even tell you about Cowboy, Indian and Horse, three amigos who share a two-story house way out in the sticks. But to really understand the zany and surreal comic madness of "A Town Called Panic," you're going to have to see it for yourself. The first stop-motion animated feature to be an official Cannes selection, "Panic" is the offshoot of a French-language Belgian TV series whose creators, Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, have quite the following all across Europe.

Growing up in Belgium, the animating duo of Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar loved to play with plastic toy figurines. "I had a neighbor who I was kind of jealous of because he had more," said Aubier on the phone from New York, speaking through a translator."

Although the stop-motion technique Wes Anderson employs for "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is considered animation, producer Allison Abbate says the painstaking process has a lot more in common with live action than some might think. "Because it's real space, real light, real textures, it brings you into the world more," Abbate explains. "It looks familiar and like something that you've seen in your life, yet it's much smaller." Abbate, who has also worked on projects with Tim Burton and Brad Bird, says that longtime stop-motion fan Anderson was drawn to the artistry of the process.

In what will be only the second time since the animated feature film category was created in 2001, there will be five nominees to root for at this Academy Awards, thanks to the 20 films submitted (a minimum of 16 is required to field a full slate of contenders). Among the submissions are "Ponyo," from Hayao Miyazaki, whose "Spirited Away" won the award in 2002, the last time there were five nominees. Other contenders include "Monsters vs. Aliens," "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" and the French film "A Town Called Panic."

The Pirate Captain, the lead swashbuckler voiced by Hugh Grant in the new stop-motion animated film"The Pirates! Band of Misfits," possesses an overweening sense of optimism and some spectacular facial hair. It was the latter - a dense nest of curlicues that the character repeatedly refers to as his "luxuriant beard" - that kept the filmmakers up at night. Model makers labored for months to find a natural way to animate the rubber whiskers, eventually fashioning a mechanism out of the tuning head of a guitar to make the beard spring to life.

MOLLUSK-FACED Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and the sea phantoms that crew the ghostly Flying Dutchman in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" are part human, part sea bottom creatures brought to life by a new generation of motion capture and computer-generated special effects.

SERIES How I Met Your Mother: Lily's (Alyson Hannigan) estranged father (Chris Elliott) visits for Thanksgiving in the new episode (8 p.m. CBS). House: On the eve of Thanksgiving, the team treats a brilliant physicist (Esteban Powell), who traded his career for a job as a courier because he found intelligence to be a burden that led to depression and addiction. With Hugh Laurie, Robert Sean Leonard and Lisa Edelstein (8 p.m. Fox). Accidentally on Purpose: Billie (Jenna Elfman)

To be clear, Wes Anderson did not set out to direct his new movie via e-mail. Even if that's precisely how the writer-director's stop-motion animation version of Roald Dahl's beloved children's book "Fantastic Mr. Fox" -- a jaunty visual joy ride that features voice characterizations by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman -- ultimately came to be, Anderson never intended to become an in-box auteur. That choice was made all but inevitable, however, by the Oscar nominee's unorthodox decision to hole up in Paris for most of the shoot's one-year duration while principal photography commenced across the English Channel at London's venerable Three Mills Studios.