Creating Clouds, Cigarettes, Feet & More in Anomalisa

We've already written about Starburns Industries, the mechanics behind the magic of Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson's Anomalisa. It's a film of tiny things. In order to populate every frame of Michael Stone's business trip to Cincinnati with those life-like things, the creators of Anomalisa were tasked with creating thousands of beautiful, identifiable elements in exacting, miniature detail. Thanks to a series of behind-the-scene featurettes released by Paramount Pictures,

The Mechanics Behind the Magic of Anomalisa

Watching Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman’s first theatrical effort since Synecdoche, New York seven years ago, it’s hard to shake the impression that you’re watching something wholly unique. Built around a simple enough concept: the exploration of a man’s midlife crisis and extra-marital affair, Anomalisa’s stop-motion puppet animation and meticulously built approach makes the film far more astonishing than it might look on paper. The world of the film is surprisingly banal: a plush but generally pedestrian hotel serves as the center for the majority of the film’s action,

Around the Web: The Year’s Best Film Posters, Meet the Characters of Anomalisa & More

Film posters, the Oscars Best Picture race, Anomalisa and more; here are a few of the things we're reading today.

Slate's Adrian Curry has rounded up the year's best film posters; our favorite is the gorgeous photography-and-illustrated poster for Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin. 

Vulture's Kyle Buchanan takes a look at the thorny Best Picture category,

Watch the Painstaking Craftsmanship Poured Into Anomalisa

When we saw Anomalisa at the Middleburg Film Festival this past October, we were blown away. Written by Oscar-winner Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and directed by Kaufman and Duke Johnson, the stop-motion animation was as gorgeously detailed as any we'd ever seen before, and the bittersweet story (this being Kaufman, after all) of a successful but troubled customer service expert, coalesced into a film that stuck with you for hours,

The First Official Trailer for Charlie Kaufman’s Mind-blowing Anomalisa

We got a chance to see Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) and Duke Johnson's stop-motion masterpiece Anomalisa at the Middleburg Film Festival, and we were floored. The film centers on Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis), a customer service expert whose giving a speech at a convention in Cincinnati. While there, he meets a shy, insecure woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh),