| We Are the Strange | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | M dot Strange |
| Written by | M dot Strange |
| Edited by | Chaylon Blancett M dot Strange |
| Music by | Noise Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
We Are the Strange is an independent animated film directed by M dot Strange. It uses stop motion, CG artwork, and greenscreen effects. The film premiered on January 19, 2007, at the Sundance Film Festival. [1] [2] [3]
We Are the Strange focuses on "two diametrically opposed outcasts" as they "fight for survival in a sinister fantasy world." These two outcasts are an abused woman named Blue who has a mysterious degenerative disease and a living doll named eMMM.
The two meet in the Forest of Still Life, where Blue follows eMMM to Stopmo City on a search for his ideal ice cream parlor. Upon arriving in Stopmo City, they are caught in the middle of a fierce battle between bizarre monsters, making their progress difficult. Thankfully, a hero named Rain appears and easily destroys every monster that faces him. Blue meets Rain before he partakes in an "impossible battle against the source of all that is evil in Stopmo City." During the battle, Rain, along with Ori are crushed by Him after Rain states he wants to avenge his son. When the outlook seems grim, a fist made of aluminum foil breaks through the ground and starts the final showdown between good and evil.
M dot Strange has stated that he wishes to release the film on the Internet rather than in theaters as he will be able to retain all rights to his work, and any profits made thereafter (DVD sales, merchandise, etc.). On July 16, 2006, in an interview, he said he was "trying to finish it in time to make the Sundance film festival". [4] In an e-mail sent to subscribers on the film's mailing list October 26, 2006, he stated that "The film will be done in 2 months and will hopefully premiere at a fancy_pants festival in January...".
According to M. dot Strange's blog he received a call from Sundance saying that We Are the Strange would premiere as part of the Midnight Movie Program at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. [5] The film was released August 2007.
Six alternate soundtracks and author's commentary, including soundtrack by Noise Inc. are available on the DVD. The music used in We Are the Strange Trailer has been made by chiptune artist Yerzmyey/AY-Riders (a cover of t.A.T.u.'s "30 Minutes") using ZX Spectrum computer.
An anthology film is a single film consisting of several shorter films, each complete in itself and distinguished from the other, though frequently tied together by a single theme, premise, or author. Sometimes each one is directed by a different director or written by a different author, or may even have been made at different times or in different countries. Anthology films are distinguished from "revue films" such as Paramount on Parade (1930)—which were common in Hollywood in the early decades of sound film, composite films, and compilation films.
Perfect Blue is a 1997 Japanese animated psychological thriller film directed by Satoshi Kon. It is loosely based on the novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis by Yoshikazu Takeuchi, with a screenplay by Sadayuki Murai. Featuring the voices of Junko Iwao, Rica Matsumoto, Shiho Niiyama, Masaaki Okura, Shinpachi Tsuji and Emiko Furukawa, the plot follows a member of a Japanese idol group who retires from music to pursue an acting career. As she becomes a victim of stalking by her obsessive fan, gruesome murders take place, and she begins losing her grip on reality. The film deals with the blurring of the line between fantasy and reality, a commonly found theme in Kon's other works, such as Millennium Actress (2001) and Paprika (2006).
Party Monster is a 2003 American biographical crime drama film written and directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who are also producers along with Jon Marcus and Christine Vachon. It stars Macaulay Culkin as the drug-addled "king of the Club Kids". The film tells the story of the rise and fall of the infamous New York City party promoter Michael Alig. This was Macaulay Culkin's first film in nearly nine years since his starring role in the 1994 film Richie Rich.
Millennium Actress is a 2001 Japanese animated drama film co-written and directed by Satoshi Kon and produced by Madhouse. Loosely based on the lives of actresses Setsuko Hara and Hideko Takamine, it tells the story of two documentary filmmakers investigating the life of a retired acting legend. As she tells them the story of her life, the borderline between cinema and reality gradually becomes blurred.
The Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema (WFAC) was an annual international film festival for animated feature films, held in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It ran for 13 years, from 2001 to 2013.
Gary Roger Rydstrom is an American sound designer and film director. He has been nominated for 20 Academy Awards for his work in sound for movies, and has won 7.
Sherry Lynn is an American voice actress who has played roles in anime, animated television series and video games. She portrayed Sasami Jurai in the Tenchi Muyo! franchise.
The Mysterious Island is a 1929 American sound part-talkie science fiction film directed by Lucien Hubbard, based on Jules Verne's 1874 novel L'Île mystérieuse. The film was photographed largely in two-color Technicolor. In addition to sequences with audible dialogue or talking sequences, the film features a synchronized musical score and sound effects along with English intertitles. The sound was recorded via the Western Electric sound-on-film process. The film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Year of the Fish is a 2007 American animated film based on Ye Xian, a ninth-century Chinese variant of the fairy tale Cinderella, starring Tsai Chin, Randall Duk Kim, Ken Leung and An Nguyen. Written and directed by David Kaplan, the film is set in a massage parlor in modern-day New York's Chinatown.
Cencoroll is a 2009 Japanese animated science fiction action film nearly singlehandedly written, designed, directed, and animated by manga author Atsuya Uki. Produced by Anime Innovation Tokyo and Aniplex, the film had its world premiere at Canada's Fantasia International Film Festival on July 28, 2009. The film made its Japanese debut on August 22, 2009 in Tokyo and Osaka. Cencoroll made its debut in the United States at the New York Anime Festival on September 25, 2009. A sequel, Cencoroll 2, was released on June 29, 2019, in a dual-screening featuring the first film as Cencoroll Connect. Another sequel titled Cencoroll 3 has been green-lit for production.
Brad Miska is an American film producer and founder of Bloody Disgusting, a horror genre website known for covering horror films, video games, comics, and music. His films include the V/H/S franchise, Under the Bed, A Horrible Way to Die and Southbound.
The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB's inception in 1988.
Keirda Bahruth is an American filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA. She began her career working on Music Videos and Commercials before a move to New York teamed her up with legendary Saturday Night Live director James Signorelli, famous for his commercial parody sketches. As Signorelli's assistant, she began shooting behind-the-scenes footage of life at SNL for the show's 25th Anniversary Special, which gave her complete access to the inner workings of the show. After three full seasons at SNL, Bahruth returned to Los Angeles in 2001 and joined the nascent world of reality television. She has worked as a director and producer on shows for the Discovery Channel, E!, Fox, NBC/Universal, The WB and BET.
Don Hertzfeldt is an American animator, writer, and independent filmmaker. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee who is best known for the animated films It's Such a Beautiful Day, the World of Tomorrow series, ME, and Rejected. In 2014, his work appeared on The Simpsons. Eight of his short films have competed at the Sundance Film Festival, a festival record. He is also the only filmmaker to have won the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize for Short Film twice.
The Garden of Words is a 2013 Japanese anime drama film written, directed and edited by Makoto Shinkai, animated by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho. It stars Miyu Irino and Kana Hanazawa, and features music by Daisuke Kashiwa instead of Tenmon, who had composed the music for many of Shinkai's previous films. The theme song, "Rain", was originally written and performed by Senri Oe in 1988, but was remade for the film and was sung by Motohiro Hata. The film was made into a manga, with illustrations by Midori Motohashi, and later novelized by Shinkai, both in the same year as the film.
Ultra Super Pictures is a Japanese joint holding company established in 2011 comprising animation studios Sanzigen, Ordet, Trigger, Liden Films, and Galaxy Graphics. They also co-own a part of ENGI, a studio established by Kadokawa in 2018.
Takeshi Murata is an American contemporary artist who creates digital media artworks using video and computer animation techniques. In 2007 he had a solo exhibition, Black Box: Takeshi Murata, at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. His 2006 work "Pink Dot" is in the Hirshhorn's permanent collection, and his 2005 work "Monster Movie" is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. His 2013 short film "OM Rider" was selected to screen as an animated short film at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
Junk Head is a 2021 Japanese stop motion animated science fiction film written and directed by Takehide Hori, based on his 2013 short film Junk Head 1. The film comprises some 140,000 stop-motion shots, and runs for 101 minutes. The story is set in a distant future world where humans have received longevity but lost their fertility, and are nearly extinct by population decline.