2009 should be called “the year of experimental family films.”
Animation fans got an unexpected taste of quirky this year. With Wes Anderson’s stop-motion Fantastic Mr. Fox, the darker-themed Coraline, and the trippy Secret of Kells, ecclectic and risky fare grabbed the lion’s share of Academy Award nominations.
When Up won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film, it came as no surprise to us. Pixar, the film’s producer, carries a tremendous legacy of beautiful, cutting-edge, 3D animated family fare. Pixar’s world-class animation, direction, and most importantly – storytelling – kicked the snot out of everything else. Just like many of its competitors this year, Up strayed away from the expected and trekked into a new world of offbeat visuals and humor.
Up tells the story of an old man who ties 10,000 balloons to his house and floats into a South American adventure he fantasized about since childhood. Talking dogs, chubby boy scouts, malfunctioning gizmos, and black-rimmed geek glasses add creative flavor to an already weird concept. Only Pixar could turn such a silly spectrum of ideas into a fun, heartwarming, and beautiful experience. And they did so with flying colors, completely blowing away the rest of the Oscar nominees, as we have come to expect them to do year after year.
What’s really exciting to us at Fresh Fruit Pie is the twist of experimentation that captured family entertainment producers this year. Rather than churn out a slosh of dry, predictable family entertainment, filmmakers have taken the risk to make pieces that are uniquely special. It’s worked – huge rewards have emerged, both critically and financially, to filmmakers who take the plunge into new territory. Notice that many of the top 10 best selling family movies on DVD this year are films with non-traditional stories and visuals. We like that…a lot.
We share the same vision at Fresh Fruit Pie – a vision of bringing creativity, fun, and relevancy to family media that has been sorely lacking the past several years. The decade of 2010-2020 is the time for family entertainment to truly shine. The time has come for family entertainment that literally the whole family will enjoy – mom, dad, and even the teenager who is $20 away from a tattoo.
If you’d like some information about what we’re doing at Fresh Fruit Pie to make this happen, check out our vision statement, our about us page, or our behind the scenes articles.
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