I have a new favorite movie: Boxtrolls! It has everything – cute characters, awesome scenery, witty dialogue, good music, good lessons that aren’t preachy, and a happy ending. And cheese – lots of cheese! The after-credit scene is awesome. I took our 3 year old to see Boxtrolls four times, and even got my husband to join us for one of them.
It even inspired my 3 year old’s favorite costume:
Yep, she’s a Boxtroll. 🙂
Like all movies, it has triggers for some people. It touches on adoption, open adoption, what makes a family, being chased/caught, and fire. (But everything works out in the end. The only one who gets his comeuppance is the main bad guy.)
Keeping in the spirit of this blog, one of the reasons I love this movie is its theme song. It’s Little Boxes by Loch Lomond and you can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJEemRtEFjo.
“Little boxes on the hillside / Little boxes made of ticky-tacky / Little boxes on the hillside / Little boxes all the same…”
(photo and caption credit to Wikipedia)
The original to that song was written by Malvina Reynolds, at age 62. (Talk about being outside the box! She didn’t even begin composing until her late 40s.) You can listen to her version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4Xs. You can learn more about Malvina Reynolds on her Wikipedia page.
But back to Boxtrolls. It’s great. Hand drawn backgrounds depicting Victorian England. Stop-motion filmed characters. Witty and satirical dialogue. Good triumphs over evil. And cheese.
Interested in buying any of these for Christmas? Here are links to these products on Amazon:
Malvina Reynolds’ CD containing “Little Boxes”
Ranting About Rectangles 
I need to ask if this is literal dairy cheese, or metaphorical “cheesy as in hokey or smarmy.” Husbands who eat entire stacks of monterey jack for dinner want to know.
Literal cheese. Bleu cheese. Roquefort. Brie. A wheel of cheese bigger than the characters! The town itself is called “Cheesebridge”. I got very hungry for cheese while watching it. 🙂
Sounds like a film I need to add to our Netflix queue. Despite having worked in a cheese-packing factory for one miserable summer (ten-hour swing shifts six days a week of grueling physical labor on assembly lines too tall for my body — makes me very, very grateful for my desk job), I still love cheese but I don’t get to eat a lot of just hunks of it because of aforementioned husband who sometimes cannot spare even a slice from his entire package of provolone. 🙂