James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach (1996) is about a boy who loses his parents. James is handed to two aunts who work him like a servant. The dead tree in the garden produces an enormous peach overnight; he climbs inside and finds insects the size of people. The peach rolls loose and out into the ocean. The source is Roald Dahl's novel of 1961, his first children's book. Henry Selick directed, after making The Nightmare Before Christmas, with Tim Burton producing again. The formal idea is in the two techniques. The opening and the ending are live action and everything inside the peach is stop motion. When James enters the peach he becomes a puppet, and when he comes out he returns to live action. The stop motion was made at Selick's studio in San Francisco and the puppet animation took over two years. Susan Sarandon, Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss and Jane Leeves are among the voices. Randy Newman wrote the songs and the score was nominated for an Academy Award. It fell short commercially and found its audience later. It runs 79 minutes. Good for: stop motion, Roald Dahl adaptations, and short family films. Less good for: the aunts and some of the creatures are genuinely frightening for small children. Parts of the book are cut and the ending is changed. The live action sections are not as strong as the animation.