Dakota Fanning, Ian McShane, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders en Dawn French are just some of the much promising voices of the new animation movie Coraline. This will not be a Disney-like fairytale about princesses and dwarves… it will become pure stop-motion horror! Maybe that’s a bit exaggerated, because Coraline is based on the youth novel by Neil Gaiman. He is the author of the soon to be filmed fantasy movie Stardust and the by Jim Henson Company filmed Mirrormask. So you can say he is a rising star in the fantasy genre. The movie will be directed by Henry Selick for Laika Entertainment. This dark fairytale will be released in 2008.

Coraline is a bored eleven year old girl who has just discovered a secret door in her new house. This door leads to a parallel magical world. She gets a very warm welcome by her ‘new’ mother in a world where dogs only eat chocolate and cats can talk. The new mother looks a bit like her old one; except for her long, pointy fingers and twinkling buttoneyes. However she does give Coraline much more attention and treats than her real mother.

Despite all this, Coraline starts to miss her family after a while and she decides to go back.  Once home, she finds her parents trapped in a mirror in the hallway, caused by a mean curse of the buttoneyed mother. Now Coraline has to find a way to get her parents out of the mirror and this will only be possible by going back through the hidden door…

Today word’s got around that Pixar is working on a new movie due for release on June 12th 2009. The title of the movie will be ‘Up’. Not much else is known about this project, besides that probably Pete Docter will be involved. He is one of the writers of Toy Story and Monsters inc. 

Comedy Central is working on two new animation projects. The first one features the stand-up talents of comedian Jo Koy. The project will become a mix of animation with sketches and stand-up comedy acts. The second project will be an animation series about Larry, The Cable Guy aka Mater from the Disney-Pixar movie Cars. You know, the rusty old tow truck with his Southern dialect. This actor will do the voice of Larry the Cable Guy in a new untitled animation series. The 30 minute episodes will follow the life of Larry the Cable Guy as naive co-owner of a television station, with nothing else than good intentions. The other owner is a woman from the upper class whose thoughts about the television station are completely opposite of Larry’s.

The last animation project Comedy Central worked on was the program ‘Shorties watching shorties’ in 2004. Unfortunately this is already cancelled. The contents of the program in short: “It’s Stand up! It’s Animation! It’s … Standimation!” Here are some clips:

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The Disney Blog brings us a satellite picture of an enormous ‘hidden Mickey’ somewhere on the countryside of Florida. With a diameter of half a kilometre, this is an impressive work of gardening. Considering the location it’s probably a construction of orange trees. The hidden Mickey consists of the three famous circles in the shape of the head of Mickey Mouse. These are often hidden as easter eggs in various Disney movies. I think this is the first time a hidden Mickey is transmitted into enormous landscape architecture.

Earlier we posted a clip of Purple and Brown, two funny clay creatures from the Aardman studios. Today a collection of 32 clips of these funny, laughing idiots.

After the successful showing of the exhibition “Pixar: 20 Years of Animation” in Scotland, it now moves to Australia.

From June 28th until October 14th 2007 the exhibition will take place in the Australian Center For The Moving Image(ACMI) in Melbourne. During this exhibition you can have a look behind the scenes of the development of animation movies from Pixar, like Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Cars and The Incredibles.

More than 500 sketches, paintings and sculptures that were produced during the creation of the movies will be available for viewing. There will also be an interactive journey that takes you through the different stages of developing an animated movie.

If you are in Melbourne during that period, I would certainly pay this exhibition a visit. Tickets cost 15 Australian Dollars for adults.

Wall-E is the ninth Pixar animation movie, planned for release in June 2008. The movie will be directed by Andrew Stanton, the man behind Finding Nemo.

The story of Wall-E takes place in the far future, when mankind has left the earth because of the enormous pollution. The planet has been declared uninhabitable and the only creature living there is a small robot called Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifters – Earth Class). He is the last of his kind and programmed to clean up the large pile of junk that is scattered around the world.

But in his long stay on earth, Wall-E has become more than just a robot. He has gotten feelings and he starts to feel lonely. The world he knows is composed out of memories of mankind that are left in the garbage he sorts every day. His favourite hobby is watching the classic VCR of ‘Hello Dolly’. But all will change when he meets Eve. Eve is a probe sent to earth to measure the progress. Wall-E immediately falls in love and with this a great adventure starts.

So Wall-E is not a science fiction, but more a love story. During the first part of the movie there are hardly any dialogues, however the images speak for themselves. The only actor that is already known for this movie is Fred Willard. However, he doesn’t record his voice, but he plays himself (as a real person) in the movie. Because of these innovative aspects and the content of the movie, Wall-E could well be a break-through in the animation scene.

Nothing better to start a lazy Sunday with a very funny clip from Bernard Bear, also known as Backkom. In this episode he tries to catch a balloon, but with his luck, you can be sure this will become another adventure.

On the 4th of June, Creature Comforts will have it’s premiere on CBS. In this clay animation series you’ll finally find out what all animals are thinking. The classic Aardman show already proved to be a huge success in the UK.

Here are some clips:

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Stephane Kardos, an English cartoonist, was asked by Pixar to create some posters for Ratatouille. These will be used for European consumption articles. At the time of making these posters, he didn’t have much information of what Remy would look like.

For larger versions of the successful result, you can visit his site.

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