OK, here we go with the final movie in this year’s Tilda Swinton Project refresh. I got this Criterion bluray only today…
WHAT THE FUCK!? Netflix!? Oh god.
But there’ll be practical puppets then, I guess?
Hm, this looks really odd. Everything has a woodey look (that’s a word), but it seems to stretch and move a bit… Is it CGI?
Yeah, this looks kinda horrifying.
If this is practical puppeteering, I have no idea how they’ve done this. But if it’s CGI, the low frame rate just kinda feels dishonest…
I’m gonna have to google this.
Hm:
Moving Picture Company worked on the visual effects, with Bot VFX and Mist VFX. Digital effects, like rain, snow, fire, explosions and water, were made to look like practical effects instead of real, to make them fit with the rest of the stop motion-world.
So it’s mostly practical. Impressive.
Ah, Swinton does the angel’s voice.
Well, that’s horrifying.
Oh, and it’s a musical? I’ve heard much worse musical songs…
These puppet designs are fantastic. And the animation, too.
If I remember correctly, the Disney Pinocchio took a lot longer to get started, so to speak — the first half is just fun stuff around the house? And that was the best part of the movie.
The plot part of this version seems better executed.
OK, this bit wasn’t in the Disney version, I think?
Heh heh.
Yeah, CGI water still isn’t a solved problem.
I don’t quite know how to roll the dice on this one. It’s a technical achievement, and the voice actors are good, and even the songs are pretty on point. (The CGI elements and the sometimes awkward compositing of elements not so much.) The plot makes a whole lot more sense than in the Disney version.
But I was mostly bored while watching this. (Except the last sequence, which worked very well on all levels.)
Would a twelve-year-old like this movie? Perhaps? The pacing may work well for them? On the other hand, aren’t all children hyper active these days?
Pinocchio. Guillermo del Toro and Mark Gustafsson. 2022.
This TSP catchup has been a lot more movies than most years, so Swinton has gotten a lot more roles the past few years than normal? Many of them have been voice-over parts, though. But as usual with Swinton, she keeps picking “interesting” projects — some are big budget things, some are no budget things, but they’re all somewhat out of the norm. (And some suck, but most are pretty good.)
So I guess it’s been a good catchup this time around? I guess I’ll do another in a couple years time.
This post is part of The Tilda Swinton Project.
Oh, there’s a “making of” on this bluray, of course. And it makes things less impressive, because they show how much they relied on painting out things in CGI afterwards.
Yeah, it’s a lot of greenscreen animation and compositing — which is what it looks like.