ParaNorman and Arriety Trailers

I got two trailers for you lovely readers today, both of which are animated, and both of which are 2012.  Time simply does not move fast enough, clearly, because they're movies being made by some of the biggest geniuses in the business currently.  Along with Pixar's Gaelic apology for "Cars 2", "Brave", 2012 is shaping up to be a really good year.

First of all, we have a film about me circa third grade, "ParaNorman":

"ParaNorman" is proudly advertised as being made by the same people who made "Coraline", the greatest movie ever made*.  And really, that's all I need to hear.  "Coraline" is friggin' incredible, its a movie I love more every single time I see it.  Well, "ParaNorman" isn't actually being directed by Henry Selick, the man who gave us "Coraline" and the misleadingly-titled "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas", since he's been stolen by Disney-Pixar.  But it is being made by the same animation studio and the... storyboarder.  So well, the connection is there, "ParaNorman" really seems to want to be some kind of spiritual successor to "Caroline", like "Corpse Bride" was to "Nightmare".  So I'm looking forward to this.

The main character (presumably named "Norman") is a horror film geek, like I was before I grew up to be an adult horror film geek.  Of course, since he has the misfortune of growing up in the 21st century, he doesn't get the experience of running to your local video store and renting out the entire selection of "Friday the 13th" movies.  He has to live in the sad world of getting "The Omen" from Netflix and discovering he accidentally rented the shitty remake.  Can horror even generate a new generation of fans anymore?  It bastardized its own history in the last decade, leaving every classic defiled.  Poor kids.  At least Norman is well-adjusted enough to pretend to be a toothpaste zombie.

Second we have the next Studio Ghibli number, "The Secret World of Arriety".  Oh, don't actually watch this trailer, because it spoils everything:

So Studio Ghibli has remade "Mousehunt" and put a couple of attractive human Ghibli faces on the mice.  This trailer is for the US English dub.  There was also an English English dub that came out this summer, but I can't quite seem to find it online for rental anywhere.  The English English dub has Mark Strong, so its obviously superior.  Has Mark Strong ever been bad in any movie?  No, discussion over.  I want the British version!  There's also a Japanese dub, but if you've been reading this blog for any length of time you'd know I don't care for subs if there's a choice.

So far I see that the Tiny Girl and Big Boy seem to have some kind of thing going on, and I'm looking forward to the hentai of this movie once Japan gets on that.  Hayao Miyazaki wrote the screenplay, but didn't direct it, so that means we'll get a nice dose of hippie environmentalism just without the stunning visuals.  But any Studio Ghibli movie is better than no Studio Ghibli movie.  Really, its too early to judge this one, and I'll have to go see it in February.

And it can't be worse than Goro Miyazaki's latest movie, which was a snore fest about... a high school girl in 1963 falling in love with some boy... without a single drop of magic anywhere.  Now really, Goro?  Even the name is boring, "From up on Poppy (yawn) Hill".  Wake me up if you ever make a prequel to "Tales From Earthsea".  Now, I know I deserve to be punched in the face for saying without seeing it, but this is definitely their worst movie ever.  This is really the last movie I'd ever want to see.

But luckily the two movies here are not "Poppy Hill".  We'll hear more about these in 2012.

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