Sylvain Chomet ('The Triplets of Belleville', 'The Illusionist') is Back With 'The Thousand Miles'

Concept art

Variety reports that Sylvain Chomet, the man behind The Triplets of Belleville and The Illusionist, is going to release his third animated feature in 2017. After venturing into live-action filmmaking, Chomet is coming back to his roots with The Thousand Miles.

Watch: Stromae's New Music Video is Directed by Sylvain Chomet

Today, Belgian singer and songwriter Stromae released the music video for his latest song, Carmen. You didn't fail to notice you're on a blog primarily dedicated to animation - until it becomes A113LiveAction, of course - and are probably wondering what this piece of news is doing here. It's simple: the music video is animated, directed by Sylvain Chomet and quite good. Watch it below.

French Animation, Chapitre 5 - The Illusionist

Previously: Ernest & Celestine

What is it? 
Helmed by Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville), The Illusionist is based on a script written by French filmmaker/actor Jacques Tati. The famous director allegedly wrote the screenplay in an attempt to reconcile with his estranged daughter, and intended to shoot a live-action film out of it. But he never did, and the script ended up many years later in Sylvain Chomet's hands, who chose to do it as an animated film, because the very idea of someone stepping into Tati's shoes for the role of the main character was absurd to him.
The story, set in Scotland, focuses on the relationship between an illusionist and a girl who thinks he really is a magician.

French Animation, Chapitre 2 - Le Roi et l'Oiseau

Previously: The Triplets of Belleville

Also known as The King and the Bird and all sorts of variations around that (The King and Mister Bird, The King and the Mocking Bird...), Le Roi et L'Oiseau is considered by many the greatest French animated film ever made (although I think The Triplets of Belleville deserves that title) and I can see why a large number of people would think that. Le Roi et L'Oiseau is indeed a near perfect film, a one of a kind masterpiece, and it ranks just behind the Sylvain Chomet-tale in my hierarchy of French animation.

French Animation, Chapitre 1 - The Triplets of Belleville

Foreword
This is the first in a series of French animated film reviews I will be doing in the near future. This won't be an exhaustive list, as I'll only be talking about films that deserve to be reviewed; there are a few that I think are not as renowned as they should be, and I'll using this column to help resolve this. Spoiler alert: all reviews will therefore be favorable to the movie they discuss.
And here it goes...

Oscar Results

Last night was the 83rd Annual Academy Awards and the biggest night of the year in terms of films was on full force. As predicted Toy Story 3 was unable to capture the Best Picture award that instead went to The King's Speech and it also lost the Best Adapted Screenplay award to The Social Network, however it did capture 2 Oscars.

Pixar's latest beat out DreamWorks' fantastic How to Train Your Dragon and Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist to win Best Animated Feature and also Randy Newman with his second win (and 20th nomination) won Best Song for "We Belong Together".

Congrats to all involved.

The Simpsons Parodies Animation

In the latest episode of The Simpsons, Angry Dad: The Movie, in which Bart endeavours to turn his little animations about Homer from series 13 into an animated film. From there the episode turns into a veritable plethora of animated parodies.

The episode parodies Pixar (or as it is called here, Mixar, above) showing John Lasseter and co. turning up to the Golden Globes on the famous Pixar scooters, also parodying Randy Newman (below), who sings "You've got an enemy" to Bart. It also then parodies Luxo, Mr. Potato Head and WALL E (above). We also get a parody of a Pixar film, condiments, a film about what happens when food comes to life when people aren't around, I can't imagine where they got that idea from!

They also parody Aardman and Wallace and Gromit, with Willice and Crumble, there's even a special guest appearance by W&G creator Nick Park (above).

You can also see snippets of parodies of DreamWorks' Kung Fu Panda and Disney's The Lion King (top). As well as a parody of Sylvain Chomet and The Triplets of Belleville.

The episode is hilarious and is definitely one of the best episodes of The Simpsons in recent memory. The episode also contains little digs at celebrities i.e. Ricky Gervais' somewhat questionable hosting of The Golden Globes this year.