Forty years ago this month, Peter Lord - along with his producing partner David Sproxton - didn't realize the legacy they were beginning when they assembled clay figurines on a small kitchen table in Bristol, UK and proceeded to animate them. One. Painstaking. Movement. At. A. Time.
Decades later, not to mention more than a few Academy Awards, the misuse of that piece of dining furniture has given us Aardman Animation - known for their beautiful, award-winning stop motion animated shorts, music videos, and of course feature films (Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run just to name a couple).
Now Lord brings us his latest, Pirates! Band of Misfits starring the voice talents of more notable British actors than you could fit in a double decker. The Monty Python-esque pirate tale (based on the book "The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists" by Gideon Defoe) is a blending of the new and old, in terms of its morphing of 3D CG and stop motion animation. I'll say this, matey...it's the most fun you're going to have at the movies this weekend, whether you're a kid or a kid at heart. It's definitely not rated YAR! but it's still got plenty of laughs and good times, not to mention a pretty rad punk rock soundtrack.
Give a listen to my interview with the wonderful big kid himself, Mr. Lord, below, in which we discuss Aardman's legacy, staying old school in a new school world of animation, pirate revelry and of course luxurious pirate beards. Oh, and who would win in a fight between Dracula and a shark (you have to see the movie).
