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Film Features
The Myth and the Magic | Clash of the Titans 40 Years Later
One of the most influential moments in the history of film took place in March of 1933, when a young Ray Harryhausen first saw the film King Kong. The primitive stop motion effects in the film fascinated the 13-year-old Harryhausen, and it…
Ka-Chow! | Happy Birthday, Cars and Cars 2
Cars turns 15 this year. Cars 2 turns 10. These films, the first two in a trilogy of anthropomorphised, fast-paced, vehicular adventures, have become distinct images in the world of animation. The slick red paint of its protagonist…
A Knight’s Tale At 20 | Perpetually Rocking Us
I guess this is the time where we decide if Brian Hegeland’s A Knight’s Tale still holds up after twenty years. Well surprise, chumps and chumpettes: it never stopped holding up. It is the quiet cousin of the…
Nine Killed Her! Nine Shall Die! | The Abominable Dr Phibes Fifty Years On
The opening of The Abominable Dr Phibes feels like an unnerving dream. A mysterious figure robed and hooded in black plays the pipe organ for a mysterious beautiful woman, accompanied by an eerie orchestra of animatronic robots, before the…
The Importance of Family as Portrayed in Animation
Family is something we cannot ignore. For many of us, it can be a feeling of love and warmth, a connection to someone and an understanding between a group of blood relatives or, in many cases, people who aren’t related at all. Whether…
Film Retrospective | Bait – A Timely Tale of Alienation
Upon its release in 2019, Bait was highly acclaimed by critics as a timely film. Its story of simmering tensions between tourists and locals in a Cornish fishing community was considered opportune in the context of a country divided by…
Bigger, Balder, Better | Fast Five at 10
I’ve staked my semi-professional reputation on Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift being the best of the long, time-bending, death-defying Fast & Furious franchise. And I stand by that statement but Fast Five is perhaps the closest of all…
Stop Motion at its Most Fun | James and the Giant Peach at 25
Stop motion animated films have come a long way in the last couple of decades, and it’s worth a revisit when classics of the sub-genre celebrate noteworthy milestones. Henry Selick’s James and the Giant Peach is one such classic that…
From Aladdin to Moana | Cultural Representation in Disney Animations
I love Disney movies. They have a magical quality to them that spans generations and even the most hard-faced of people can find something to enjoy in at least one of them.
Part of what makes Disney movies iconic and often grabs our…
Voices From the Screen | Mel Blanc
Welcome to 'Voices from the Screen'. In this new section of HeadStuff’s animation coverage, our writer Joseph Learoyd will celebrate the careers of famous voice actors.
Mel Blanc was born Melvin Jerome Blank in 1908 in San Francisco to…