Movies I'm going Gaga with Anticipation for this year

2009 looks to be quite an interesting year for animated features, here's a few I'm looking forward to seeing this year (if they all indeed get released over here in some form):



UP
Official website

May as well get the obvious choice out of the way first. It's by Pixar so that's pretty much all I need to go see it but even still much like Wall-E it sounds quite daring for a major CGI release from what little I've heard about it so far. The movie stars a cranky old bloke which on it's own is something no other huge studios would even think of doing (how can you sell toys of an old man to kids?). Anyway this old codger goes off to seek adventure by tying thousands of balloons to his house, making it fly.

There was a (rather spoiler-rific) article about this film over at Aint it cool news that described an early screening of the film's first 20 minutes, and alreday it's sounding like a bit of a tear jerker, and I must admit Wall-E had me tearing up right near the start, when he was rocking himself to sleep. Lol. Either way this kind of reminds me of that flying house animation Winsor McCay did, and also sounds almost like something Miyazaki would do. Speaking of which..



Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
Official website

..here's Hayao's latest upcoming movie, already out in Japan but on it's way to the UK sometime in April (according to Wiki, so take that with a grain of salt). Much like Pixar films anything with the word 'Ghibli' slapped on it is going to have me rushing towards whatever cinema can be bothered to screen it. This time around Miyazaki is taking a break from epic fantasy stories like Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle and going for a more light heated, family friendly movie possibly like My Neighbor Totoro, starring a little fish girl of some sort. I've shoved the trailer in your face above that should do all the talking for me (no English trailer yet, though). Looks beautiful as always with Ghibli films, though that theme tune gets kind of grating after a while. Apparently this one is 100% traditional animation though, with no CGI shortcuts! Oooh!




Coraline
Official website

I'm so glad to see that stop motion is well and truly alive in the dog-eat-dog world of animated feature films (something that 2D animation is still struggling to break back into) and this latest from director Henry Selick (Nightmare before Christmas) and a feature film first from studio Laika, looks to be a real tour-de-force of eye candy (or eye buttons, as it were). Stunning animation a great dark story based on the book of the same name, I'm certainly looking forward to seeing this when it comes out very soon.

Now we've got the no-brainers out of the way, here's a bunch of films you may not have heard of, but are well worth a look!



The Secret of Kells
Official website

I recall talking to a guy at the Comix UK thing convention last year who told me he was working on this movie, though I hadn't seen anything of it until just this week. All I can say is WOW. Just look at it, holy mother of god! Stunning stylized 2D animation and a celtic setting, what's not to love about this? It's being published in Ireland by Bunea Vista in March. So far I'm not sure if this is getting a release over here in Britain, but I sure hope so! Can I say wow again? WOW.


Mary and Max
Official website

I was wondering what Adam Elliot has been up to ever since his fantastic short film Harvey Krumpet, turns out all this time he's been putting together a feature film! There's something about Elliot's dark humour that I just love to pieces, and this looks to be no different. As always his stop motion puppets are brilliant, too. Please can someone distribute this in UK cinemas, pleeeease?


Sita Sings the Blues
Official website

This one is technically already out, touring around festivals and such, and I'm not sure if we'll ever get it over here even on DVD, as even in America it's creator Nina Paley is funding all the publishing of this movie herself (with some help from donations). Yep, this is about as independent as you can get, but proof positive that even with a tool like Flash you can make a award winning film if the storytelling is top-notch. Cartoon Brew has a rather juicy preview of the movie to watch here.


'9'

Yes, that really is the title. Based on a short film that came out a few years back, this is not your typical CGI release. No witty farting talking animals here, but rather a group of rag dolls fighting for the future, or something like that.Either way it looks brilliant as the trailer above clearly shows. We don't tend to get enough action orientated animation from America that doesn't involve either kung fu or Star Wars, but this is looking very tasty indeed! Tasty enough for Tim Burton to wanna slap his name on the producer credits, anyway.

These are just a few of the many animated films coming out this year, there's tons of other stuff that I haven't seen any trailers for yet like a stop motion Fantastic Mr.Fox, an Astro Boy movie from the TMNT guys (though apparently that's been put on hold due to financial troubles, hope they can survive these tough times), The Illusionist from Belleville Rendez-Vous creator Sylvain Chomet, and a third Ice Age movie (which would be awesome if it was 60 minutes of just the squirrel, but I know it won't be) and maybe some more surprises too.

..and before anyone asks "where's the live action stuff you berk?": I don't know really whats coming out live action wise this year, but I can predict most of it will be more sequels, more horrid attempts to turn old cartoons into live action, and at least one film that will get hyped to the heavens and win 700 awards (oh wait, we;ve had one of those this year already).