Animation Link Roundup: December 18, 2021
Trailers for Netflix's The House and Cuphead's latest DLC, plus Slovenian stop-motion, awards announcements, Makato Shinkai's new feature, and Bugs Bunny vs. The Walrus
• Still haunted by GIRAF late-night selection Night Bus? Dig deeper into this unsettling short in AWN's interview with director Joe (Wen-Ming) Hsieh
• Production has begin on Slovenia's first stop-motion feature, Of Unwanted Things and People, an anthology film that "speaks to the tragedies and resilience of life"
• The Film Independent Spirit Awards nominees include a couple of surprise animation packs: CUFF pick Cryptozoo is up for the John Cassavetes Award for best feature made for under $500k, and CIFF selection Flee has a nod for Best Documentary (QAS was happy to be a community partner on both films)
• In other awards news, the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes have announced their (mostly overlapping) animation nominees
• We weren't expecting The Walrus, of all places, to feature a detailed appreciation of Looney Tunes, but we'll take it. Read their adapted excerpt from Jaime Weinman's Anvils, Mallets and Dynamite: The Unauthorized Biography of Looney Tunes
• Makato Shinkai, director of the box-office smashes Your Name and Weathering With You, has announced his next feature, an imaginative "road trip movie" that will "shed a ray of light on our journey as we live alongside anxiety and difficulty"
However you feel about Netflix becoming a major player in the indie animation world, there's no denying this trailer for horror-ish stop-motion anthology The House looks stunning.
Not content to inspire a new generation of fans of rubber hose animation, Cuphead's latest trailer is a charming mix of stop-motion and puppetry.