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I love the art of stop-motion animation, and I couldn’t be happier that there’s a studio like Laika keeping the art form alive. They recently released the film Kubo and the Two Strings, which is easily one of the best films I’ve seen this year. As a tribute to the art of stop-motion, Vulgar Efendi created a wonderful video that shows us how stop-motion animation has evolved through the years. It starts with the year 1900 and takes us all the way through 2016. It’s 116 years of stop-motion awesomeness in only three minutes! You'll find a full list of films featured in the video below.

The films included are:

- The Enchanted Drawing (1900)

-Fun at the Bakery Shop (1902)

-El Hotel Electrico (1905)

-Humorous Phases of Funny Faces (1906)

-The Cameraman's Revenge (1912)

-The Night before Christmas (1913)

-Häxan (1922)

-The Lost World (1925)

-The Tale of Fox (1930 version)

-King Kong...

My former colleague Dave Borthwick, who has died of pneumonia after a long illness, aged 65, was one of the world's leading animation directors. He pioneered a unique style mixing stop-frame models and pixilated live actors.

Dave was born in Bristol, and graduated in graphic design from the West of England College of Art (now the University of the West of England) in 1969. He went on to design and operate light shows and multimedia lighting which made extensive use of 2D animation techniques. Six years with the Crystal Theatre, a Bristol-based experimental theatre company, were followed by a postgraduate radio film and television course in 1977 at Bristol University, during which he made Recent Fiction, a live action film.

Dave worked as a cameraman in the film and TV industry in Britain and Denmark. He directed a music video for the Korgis in 1979 and short films for the BBC and Danish TV.

The only thing to kick the Monday morning blues right in the face is here, the latest episode of the Mouth Off podcast hits the internet.

Up for discussion this week is the Harald Zwart’s remake of the classic (?) 80s film The Karate Kid, this time starring Jaden Smith and the Jackie Chan. Bleeding Cool’s Movie Man Brendon Connelly, Craig Skinner and I take off the rose tints and stare deeply into the abyss of the latest remake to hit our screens.

Craig returns triumphant from Montreal to bring us all the news from Fantasia Fest and we also look ahead to FrightFest, so plenty to pleasure you aurally this week, as well as our resident Ripped from the Crypt section which this week takes as a theme films which mix animation with live action.

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This week I watched five Animated films of differing styles and topics that were My Neighbour Totoro, The Incredibles, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Lion King and Grave of the Fireflies.

Now we are around the half way mark at week 26 I’m starting to consider the films which are not on the list and wonder how the voting for certain films was done. For example the Pixar and Miyazaki films are all stunning, brilliant movies and deserve to be in the top 250 movies or there about in terms of animated films but are they really the best animation has to offer? Wall-e was the clear favorite animated movie at the placing of 43 on our list (Now placed at 47 on the current IMDb list) and at the time of writing this post Toy Story 3 has actually got to No. 6 which is incredible.

I’m staggered that films like the stunning...

LONDON -- Pathe Pictures, one of the U.K. lottery-funded moviemaking franchises, has green-lit production of the long-gestating big-screen adaptation of The Magic Roundabout, the company said Monday. The company, a unit of French giant Pathe Entertainment, will co-finance the film with the United Kingdom's Film Council and Sky Movies. A co-production for Pathe Pictures from France's Films Action and U.K. animation studio the Bolexbrothers SPZ, The Magic Roundabout is a feature-length CGI-animated film, based on the cult British children's TV series in the late '60s (HR 6/4/01). The project will be directed by Bolexbrothers' Dave Borthwick (The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb). Production, scheduled to last around 18 months, begins shooting this month in Bristol and Marseilles from a screenplay by Paul Davies and co-writers Raoff and Stephane Sanoussi. The project is not yet budgeted, pending voice-casting considerations. It will be distributed in the United Kingdom and France by Pathe Distribution, with Pathe International selling the film in all other territories.