Freezing Outside: Time for Movies!

Earlier this week, it was 67 degrees out with rain. A couple of days later, it's 12 degrees outside. This is bullshit weather! I think that means it's time to watch more movies! Recently, I watched ParaNorman and Frankenweenie. I was in the mood for some stop-motion animation, obviously. I enjoyed both movies, but Frankenweenie was better, in my opinion, because I liked its storyline more. 

ParaNorman is funny and kind of creepy. It's from the same people who made Coraline, so I was expecting it to be creepy, but it wasn't as scary as Coraline. The storyline was good, but it got boring in some places. Norman is a cute character, misunderstood by his peers because he has the ability to converse with the dead. Naturally, everyone thinks that he's mental because he's talking and interacting with things that are not there. However, one night this all changes when the dead come to life as zombies due to a curse put on the town centuries ago. Since Norman has the ability to speak with the dead, it becomes his responsibility to save the town.

Frankenweenie is fantastic. I've watched Tim Burton's live-action short of Frankenweenie that came on one of my DVDs, I think the Nightmare Before Christmas one has it. I loved the short, so I was really looking forward to watching the animated version. I loved it! I liked that it was filmed in black and white. Both the scenery and the style of the characters reminded of Edward Scissorhands (1990). 

Sparky the dog is my favorite character. I love animals from both the real and animated world. I cried a few times watching it because of little Sparky. If any of you have lost a pet, you know how awful it feels and I bet that if there was a way to bring him or her back to life, you'd do it, even if they ended up looking a bit different... 

I read that Sparky was the most difficult puppet that they had to make for Frankenweenie. Not surprising, since he has a bunch of joints and is very energetic. With stop-motion, that had to be extremely difficult and time consuming to film, but they did a wonderful job with it.