Wallace and Gromit

Director Peter Lord Talks Aardman’s THE PIRATES! BAND OF MISFITS; Plus 10 Things to Know About the Film

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: March 27th, 2012 at 3:04 pm

If you’re a fan of Aardman Animation (Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run, and Flushed Away), I’m pretty sure you have April 27th circled on your calender.  That’s because on that date, we finally get a new movie from one of the best animation companies in the world.  In their latest film directed by Peter Lord, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Hugh Grant stars in his first animated role as the luxuriantly bearded Pirate Captain who is trying to win the much coveted Pirate Of The Year Award with his rag-tag crew (Martin Freeman, Brendan Gleeson, Russell Tovey, and Ashley Jensen).  However, with a diabolical queen (Imelda Staunton) and bitter rivals like Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven) and Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) trying to stop him, it’s not going to be an easy task.  David Tennant is also along for the ride as the voice of Charles Darwin.  For more on the film, here’s a featurette, behind-the-scenes images, and my set visit.

I recently got to speak with Peter Lord in both a group setting and on my own.  During the interviews Lord talked about how the project came to him, the challenges of making the film, how Aardman’s relationship with Sony actually works, why the UK and the US have different titles, Easter eggs, the music, voice casting, and a lot more.  In addition, I’ve picked out a few of the highlights of the interviews and created a ten things to know about the film.  It’s all after the jump.

THE SIMPSONS Parodies Pixar, WALLACE AND GROMIT, and Oscar Nominated Shorts

by Brendan Bettinger    Posted: February 21st, 2011 at 6:54 pm

I understand it’s much cooler to talk about how The Simpsons passed its prime ages ago, but I still unabashedly love the show.  Last night’s episode, in which Bart’s semi-autobigraphical animated short Angry Dad wins a slew of awards, was a good one for the rest of you.  The animation geeks at The Simpsons take the opportunity to experiment: the CG of Pixar, the claymation of Wallace and Gromit, the star black-and-white of Persepolis, the crude Frenchness of The Triplets of Belleville.  Plus, Ricky Gervais, Russell Brand, Halle Berry, and Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park all contribute to a sharp lampoon of awards season.  Watch the relevant clips — or if you’ll allow me, the full episode — after the jump.

WALLACE & GROMIT: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION Blu-ray Review

by Peter Debruge    Posted: October 25th, 2009 at 8:08 am

Considering the worldwide phenomenon Wallace and Gromit have become, it’s something of a mystery that the stop-motion duo’s latest adventure, the Hitchcockian “who-donut” A Matter of Loaf and Death, would go straight to home video in the States (as opposed to overseas, where the BBC debuted the film to through-the-roof ratings on Christmas Day). The upside of the arrangement is that it gives American fans an excuse to snag the entire W&G collection on Blu-ray, complete with commentaries, extras and a host of “Cracking Contraptions” shorts.

As it turns out, Loaf and Death is actually something of a letdown, trading the retro-styled charm of their three previous shorts and feature-length adventure Curse of the Were-Rabbit for faster pacing, a fair amount of CG and a bunch of recent blockbuster references (after operating in a 1940s-style time capsule all these years, does the series really need references to Aliens?). It seems unfair to complain, given the overall quality of any given Aardman effort, but chock it up to the fact that W&G creator Nick Park and his team got it so right with 1993′s The Wrong Trousers. More after the jump:

Another Collider Giveaway – CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE, WALLACE AND GROMIT and SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS

by Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub    Posted: October 10th, 2009 at 2:41 pm

Thanks to the good folks at a few different PR firms, I’ve got a some DVDs to giveaway to some of our readers. Like I’ve been doing for the last few giveaways, entering is easy and requires almost no work. So if you’re interested in getting a free copy of “Crank: High Voltage” on either DVD or Blu-ray, “Wallace and Gromit: The Complete Collection”, or “SpongeBob Squarepants: The First 100 Episodes”, hit the jump to find out how to enter:

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