I love it when movies have a narrative segment that is very highly stylised and sharply distinct from the prevailing style of the rest of the action. Examples of the sort of thing I mean:
The story about the Deathly Hallows in Harry Potter 7.1
The introduction to Watership Down
the introduction to Hellboy 2
the end Titles to Wall.E (albeit that there was no spoken narration here)
What other movies employ this technique?
Kill Bill had an animated sequence about O-Ren’s childhood.
Horton Hears a Who had an anime break in the CGI.
One of the *Simpsons Halloween episodes had a CGI break in the animation.
In Kick-Ass when Big Daddy explains his past.
Annie Hall has a short animated sequence with Annie as a princess and Woody Allen as a jester, done in a Disneyesque style.
The Pink Elephants on Parade sequence from Dumbo. Not a narrative sequence per se, but very different from the rest of the movie.
Not quite. He’s not a jester, and she’s the witch-queen. But you’re right about the Disneyesque style.
You are possibly getting confused with a different film, where Woody Allen did play a jester.
The beginning dream sequence in Kung Fu Panda was pretty cool.
There is no charge for awesomeness…or attractiveness.
“Your friend the Rat” (short on the *Ratatouille *DVD).
My Dream is Yours (Jack Carson/Doris Day) has a tell-me-a-bedtime-story with Bugs Bunny but I’ll be damned if I can recall if it’s totally animated or mixed live-action with Carson and Bugs.
At any rate is follows/advances action, unlike Gene Kelly dancing with Jerry the Mouse.
For out right madness it is hard to beat the animated interludes in Godzilla Vs the Smog Monster.
Run Lola Run switches to cartoon animation for the times she runs out of the apartment and into the street.
Not a movie, but a second season episode of “Breaking Bad” started off with an intro by a Mexican mariachi band.
There was an episode of Duckman that did the reverse. There was an in-story movie based on Duckman’s life. It was a live-action sequence inserted into a cartoon show.
There’s been a few live action scenes in Family Guy too, one with Bobby Ewing, and another where Brian was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher.
Speaking of The Simpsons, I immediately thought of the Dark Stanley bit. I can’t find it straight but here is some of it set to German Techno:
Taika Waititi’s Eagle vs Shark does this. A very uneven movie but worth a look for something different.
Speaking of something different, Monty Python did this in a few movies too didn’t they?
Instead of the usual “falling in love” montage, Xanadu has a sequence where the two main characters turn into animation and make animated googly eyes at each other. Before turning into fish. And then birds. And falling in love as animated fish and birds. And then back to people. It’s pretty awesome/awful.
And god, now I’ve got that song stuck in my head. Don’t walk awaaaaaaaaay…
In the episode Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, Fringe switched to a pseudo-rotoscope animated style for the bits that occurred ‘in the head’ of one of the protagonists.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch