The Harry Potter series takes a darker turn from the first two installments, and with the visionary director Alfonso Cuarón now taking control, he brings the blend of practical and digital effects to the next level. Numerous magical objects are rigged inside the set to move on their own, some of which were even consulted by real magicians. Other visual effects tricks included the hippogriff, which had both CGI and a mechanical figure used for the actors to interact with, as well as Professor Lupin’s horrific transformation into a werewolf. Also, the dementors were originally going to be puppets filmed underwater and then reversed, but this ultimately didn’t work out and was just used as reference footage for the CGI animators instead.
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The Hogwarts castle also looks much different from before with more detail, particularly in how the moving paintings are utilized. Plus, with this being an Alfonso Cuarón film, there are many long takes stitched together to look like an even longer seamless take. Yet the greatest symphony of practical effects in the entire film, or in all of cinema perhaps, is Aunt Marge blowing up, which was done with almost no CGI. This isn’t to say that the quality of the script or acting ever got better compared to the first two movies, but the wild magical tone marks Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban as the most ambitious movie in the series yet.

The legendary Harry Potter series continues its reign with this second adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s bestsellers. Just like in the first movie, this one knows how to intentionally place every design element to give crucial information about Hogwarts’ dense history and the people who walk through its walls, while also being genius showcases of imagination. Yet it’s the special effects that shine, right down to the digital backgrounds that make the miniature models of the school feel much bigger. There’s also plenty of effects choreography in the sequence where the flying car gets caught inside the whomping willow, which imaginably had to take weeks to film.
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Yet that’s still child’s play compared to the creatures that were all made with a mix of digital and practical effects: pixies, mandrakes, ghosts, giant spiders, a phoenix, a basilisk, and of course, the ever-lovable Dobby. There are even mechanical effects used to create these enchanted objects that perform household tasks in the Weasley’s home. However, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is still guilty of all the narrative problems that came with the first movie and does nothing to fix them. Even so, this proved that The Sorcerer’s Stone was not just a one-hit wonder, all of the books J.K. Rowling had plans to write were officially about to see the light of day in cinemas, and in turn, influence the franchise treatment of all modern blockbusters.

Even with a problematic screenplay void of much any logic, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is still a fine textbook example of designing an immersive fantasy world onto the silver screen. When it came time to figure out what Hogwarts would look like, J.K. Rowling herself was brought on board to draw a layout of the whole campus as a reference. Then the production crew visited universities throughout England for design inspirations, meaning many places within Hogwarts were filmed at real historical landmarks across the UK. Among the sets built for the movie included the Dickensian aesthetic for Diagon Alley, which didn’t have a single vertical line in the architecture.
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As for some of the special effects used to bring this Wizarding World to life, it’s populated with a sorting hat, a dragon, a troll, a centaur, a Cerberus, and many ghosts. But one of the most clever effects in the movie is Hagrid, who was realized with a body double wearing a mechanical face; everything he touched and interacted with in specific shots had identical props, sets, or costumes of a different size for other shots to sell the illusion that Hagrid was enormous. The efforts put on by the production crew to bring J.K. Rowling’s creation to the visual medium resulted in a whimsical, magical experience—an excellent start for the cinematic series that went on to influence all other cinematic franchises!

To create The Lion King, the animators poured their whole hearts and souls into each animal they put onto the screen. They even brought real lions into the studio as references for their work, just like what Walt Disney did with his animators for films like Bambi and The Lady and the Tramp. Other digital effects made the beautiful African landscapes feel bigger than life, such as by implementing mist, sunbeams, and changes in camera focus to give a sense of perspective. Together, all these ambitious techniques make possible the unforgettable moment when Simba sees the vision of Mufasa in the sky.
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However, the film’s greatest accomplishment is the stampede—an endeavor in computer animation that accomplished a vision impossible to be met by traditional hand-drawn animation. First, a digital wildebeest model was made off of a hand-drawn piece of animation, and then to get hundreds of these models running together, a new software was developed so the wildebeest wouldn’t collide with one another. Yet the hard work of these animators would’ve been futile without the legendary musical score, with talent including Tim Rice, Elton John, Hans Zimmer, and Lebo M- a South African composer. The result is a definitive motion picture event designed at the same grand scale as Hollywood epics such as Ben-Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. So today, it’s remembered as one of the most influential animated films ever made.

This Yuletide classic originated from the idea of commercialism taking over Christmas, coupled with the question, “What if Santa Claus himself saw all this?” Furthermore, it was conceptualized and released as a real feud went on between the department stores Macy’s and Gimbels, of which the film focuses very heavily on. The problem though is that neither store would agree to have their names featured in the movie until they saw the finished product—if they didn’t like it, 20th Century Fox had to go back and reshoot virtually every scene! Considering the production even went as far as filming at the real Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, this was an enormous risk. Yet thankfully, both department stores were very happy with the finished product.
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And thank goodness they were! Miracle on 34th Street ended up being a delightfully jolly motion picture that perfectly encapsulates what Santa Claus would be like if he were a real person. Yet it also doesn’t shy away from its cynicism about the Christmas season, particularly in how major corporations try to turn Kris Kringle’s selfless intentions of helping customers into a big marketing stunt. So little is left to the imagination about why this classic for the holiday season has been so influential, even generating three remakes based on its timeless story. But the original remains the best—the ultimate testament to what makes the most joyous time of year so magical.

NR
Comedy
1 hr. 36 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY.

Written over the course of a single weekend, Home Alone defied all odds to become an instant holiday classic. It’s known by many for its hilariously violent cartoonish gags, which the production crew had to get creative while staging. For instance, in the shot where the blowtorch incinerates the top of Harry’s head, a two-way mirror was used to cast the reflection of a flame to give the illusion that it was on top of actor Joe Pesci’s head. Also, when the iron falls onto Marv’s face, there’s a shot that takes place from the iron’s point-of-view, which was achieved by a camera on a rope that fell toward actor Daniel Stern’s face.

Aside from the film’s famous climax, there are still many more problems the cast and crew had to solve together on the spot to achieve what most films at their budget level wouldn’t dare to tackle. That includes the set for the McAllister house, which was built inside a school gymnasium, and filming the scenes with John Candy, which took place over a twenty-three-hour shoot day. But of course, what would all these incredible behind-the-scenes stories for this slapstick comedy be without the wondrous musical score by John Williams? With that fine balance between heart and humor, this number-one box office smash hit generated a massive step forward in how filmmakers can stage effective gags while still retaining the heart of the story.

PG (DLV)
Comedy
1 hr. 43 min.

Watch it for FUN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY and AFRAID.

Frozen is the finest example of a modern Disney classic that embraces the newness of computer animation to generate something truly spectacular. Animating the snow and ice proved to be a tremendous endeavor, seeing how the production crew programmed a snowflake generator that created over 2,000 unique snowflake shapes. Animating Elsa’s ice powers was also a tremendous showcase of how deep the animators’ attention to detail dove, seeing how in the scene where Elsa created her ice palace, the ice is animated to branch out the same way an actual snowflake does. Furthermore, whenever Elsa loses control over her ice powers, the ice she generates looks harsh with sharp edges, but once she gains control by using them out of love, the ice looks circular with soft edges.
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It's especially worth knowing that the now iconic song “Let it Go” was the reason why the writers rewrote Elsa’s character so that instead of her being the villain like originally planned, she was a co-lead for the audience to root for. That ended up being the right decision because, without the touching sisterly relationship between Anna and Elsa, this instant Disney classic would never have gone on to define an entire generation. It would never have pushed the Disney brand, or other child-focused industries, toward greater diversity with independent, active female protagonists who can teach kids healthy standards on what true love is all about.

PG (D)
Fantasy/Musical
1 hr. 42 min.

Watch it for FUN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY and SAD.

Groundhog Day is not just the rare type of movie that everybody can love, but it’s also a lovely character study on existentialism. It teaches about self-acceptance, which only comes by helping others rather than by selfish motivation. When this film was first released, it was praised by religious groups, including the Buddhist community, because of the philosophical ideas it addresses. When writing the first few drafts of the script, it originally was going to start in the middle, where Phil is already stuck in the repeating days, with a much more morbid ending that suggests the film overall was originally going to be a very dark comedy.
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But then Harold Ramis was brought in to change the script so it could better appeal to mass audiences, and so it instead started with the audience getting the chance to see Phil’s reaction when the time warp starts. When filming, many of the shooting days were actually days of 80-degree weather, meaning fake snow had to be put in and the cast had to dress for winter weather in the heat. Yet it pays off: the small town of Punxsutawney feels so lived in, with the outdoor settings looking unbearably cold and the indoor settings looking warm and comfy. Anyone watching this beloved motion picture likewise will feel warm and comfy inside as they learn how to become better people from observing the transformation of Phil Connors.

PG (LV)
Comedy
1 hr. 41 min.

Watch it to LEARN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY, SAD, and AFRAID.

Everyone knows Jurassic Park as the pop culture phenomenon that shook up the entire visual effects industry, yet it’s also a spectacular showcase for Steven Spielberg’s expertise in staging suspense. The first scene establishes the danger of the newly revived dinosaurs, the illusion of danger complete with the extra strange flashlight patterns. Then just a few scenes later, Doctor Alan Grant explains how vicious a velociraptor attack can be, using a claw fossil as a visualization, and the next velociraptor seen from there is funnily enough a baby fresh out of the egg. But then a reminder comes up again about the raptors’ destructive power when they gobble up a poor bull to the point where the carrying harness is shredded to ribbons. It expertly pays off in the climax when the velociraptors go after the kids.
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These techniques work as well to make the t-rex attack scene so iconic: the water ripples, the rain, the minimal lighting around the giant lizard, her toe on the wire to indicate the electric fence is out, the one flashlight, it’s a technical marvel in cinematography and editing. So it’s not just the revolutionary digital effects of the dinosaurs that made this so influential to how movies are made—the imagination behind these artists proved how magical a major motion picture can be, and how grand of a spectacle the theatrical experience still has potential for.

PG-13 (DLV)
Action/Sci-fi
2 hr. 7 min.

Watch it for FUN.
Watch it to THINK.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY and AFRAID.

Based on a poem Tim Burton wrote while he was a Disney animator, The Nightmare Before Christmas was originally going to be adapted into a TV special that pays tribute to holiday classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Yet what it became instead was a new approach to the laborious medium of stop-motion animation that no TV special could ever achieve. Taken straight from Tim Burton’s visualizations, this delightful little movie has beautiful set and character designs that found that fine balance between unsettling and charming, with distinct sets of colors and shapes used to differentiate between Halloween Town, Christmas Town, and the human world.
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When animating this feature film, nearly 200 puppets were made for the 230 large sets built across nineteen different soundstages. The Jack Skellington puppets alone had around 400 interchangeable heads built for his different facial expressions, and filming just one minute of screen time took a whole workweek! To make the project all the more ambitious, many digital effects, such as cartoon ghosts, were included, and Danny Elfman had to start working on his now iconic musical score before the script was even complete. Yet it paid off: this crowning achievement produced by Tim Burton is now a cultural staple that came to define the entire identity of the Halloween season, as well as become a cinematic reintroduction to the art of stop-motion.

PG (V)
Fantasy/Musical
1 hr. 16 min.

Watch it for FUN.
​Watch it to feel HAPPY.