by ·Comments Off on Les Astronautes (1959, Walerian Borowczyk)

A pretty goofy look at space travel. A precursor to Terry Gilliam (the animator) and Asteroids (the video game). Awesome movie, funny. Would show this one off to other people. There’s a snail (escargot de venus) and an owl (movie is “in collaboration with” Chris Marker).

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Our guy, with hat and pipe, examines the designs of different inventions and creatures and builds himself a spaceship. He and his pet owl go for a little ride. Of course the first thing he does is stop at an apartment tower and peep on some woman. He visits space, saves a troubles spacecraft, eventually gets shot down and possibly dies, but it’s all in good fun. All done with cut-out animation. Won a bunch of awards.

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by ·Comments Off on Princess (2006, Anders Morgenthaler)

Completely unhinged Danish animated movie… yes, two Danish movies premiering in one week, something like 15% of all the Danish movies I’ve ever seen. Very calm intro, lead guy walking around the neighborhood, slow and simple, than roooar into the opening credits. Love it. Rest of the movie sticks mostly to the roar side of things, with some truly audacious scenes.

August moves in with sister Christina, but boyfriend Charlie spends a lot of time there too. After an eviction threat, they plot to blackmail the landlord to let them stay, so August, always with his video camera, tapes his underage sister having sex with the landlord, and voila. This might be what leads August to piss off and become a missionary priest for a few years.

Comes back, sister has just died, her little daughter Mia is staying at a whorehouse, and Charlie runs a media empire selling Christina’s body on video and magazines. Only bloody revenge can ensue! August blasts his way to the top with Mia in tow. Weird ending though… go to a huge party at C’s house, but C doesn’t even seem to be home. A has hidden a bomb in M’s doll, M runs inside with it, A runs after her, boom.

by ·Comments Off on Dante’s Inferno (2007, Sean Meredith)

A funny puppet version of dante’s inferno, updated for 2007. But for the most part, “funny” means juvenile jokes at easy targets, “puppet” means stiff 2D drawings with hinged limbs, and “updated” means Virgil has a cellphone and we namecheck each member of G.W. Bush’s cabinet as we go through the circles of hell.

So not too great, but surely not bad either… worth a waste of 75 minutes to hear the not-always-bad jokes, see the occasionally-clever puppetry and watch a little video that someone spent a lotta time on. Not much of a recommendation, but it neatly filled an early afternoon timeslot at the film festival without making me go home or making me wish I had.

Oh and some famous actors did the voices as usual.

by ·Comments Off on The Animation Show 2 (2005)

Bunnies – quick, great, 30 seconds long.
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Guard Dog by Bill Plympton, the beginning of his new period of good stuff (also: Guide Dog, Fan and the Flower) after a long tiring stretch of mediocre junk.
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The FEDS by Jen Drummond. I think she talked about this one at the atlanta film festival a few years ago. Not that there’s anything to say. She’s a roto-animator on the Linklater films and in her spare time she made this little doc about her crappy job at a grocery store. Not exactly Clerks, but good enough for what it is.
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Pan With Us by David Russo, director of POPULI and one of my favorite animators ever. Watched this about ten times. Stop-motion with highly controlled animated foreground and wildly variating backgrounds… so animation without a set, in a live environment. Uses giant rolls of animation paper, cut-outs, translucent slides, metal sculptures, everything. Best short of this bunch, probably of the surrounding few years.
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Ward 13 – awesome claymation action flick about a horror hospital, so impressive. Director’s doing live-action horror next, I guess.
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Hello – Tape deck gets nervous around hot CD player, gets advice from old gramophone. Cute, neat sound effects.
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Rockfish – tiresome indie 3D action sequence about hard dude and pet jarjar in badass moon rover fishing beneath rocky planet for giant dune sandworm.
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Magda – stop motion puppetry where a contortionist and her biggest fan fall in love, then commerce turns romance into ritual and they fall back out. Pretty neat.
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Fallen Art – by the guy who made Cathedral, and a strong improvement. The 3D is less serious and arty and dreamy this time, whole feel is cartoonish. Big soldier pushes little soldiers off a cliff, photographs are taken and sent to mad fat scientist who projects the photos to form a dance, and dances along. Surely some political commentary on the futility of war, but I just liked the dancing.
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When The Day Breaks – one of those serious/sad shorts that’s always gumming up the otherwise fun/ny presentations. Since it’s hand-drawn and not intended to make kids squeal with glee, it’d probably be one of my co-workers’ favorites of this bunch. I thought was alright. Lady pig sees uptight rooster hit by car, goes home and thinks about it.
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Fireworks by PES
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The Meaning of Life by Don Hertzfeldt, big ol’ WTF here. So glad I saw this after his redemptive Everything Will Be OK. He worked 4 years using only handmade effects and 150 voices to form a film with no meaning of its own. Maybe the filming of this dull short was a performance art piece about the futility of life, hence the title?
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by ·Comments Off on Oscar shorts (2006)

Lifted – came in late and missed it, but it’s supposed to screen in front of Ratatouille so I’ll get another chance.

The Danish Poet – saw the end, didn’t look impressive, but cute maybe.

Maestro – cool, the inner workings of a cuckoo clock (that being the twist ending) with the camera moving around the room in increments like a second hand. Landmark liked it so much they played it twice in a row (or that’s because their heads are up their asses as usual).

The Little Matchgirl – too smooth looking, too disney looking, and too many credited animators. Unfairly sad little thing.

No Time For Nuts – an Ice Age short, also unfair. More importantly, not especially good/funny, not half as good as the Madagascar penguin short. Prehistoric squirrel-thing finds a time machine and it teleports him and his sole acorn all over, ending in the future with a fake oak tree. Poor guy.

A Gentleman’s Duel – 3D short with people, never a good idea but this one looked quite good. Uptight brit and uptight frenchie duel in battletech suits over pretty girl who ends up getting nekked with her butler/servant/whatever. Has its moments.

Guide Dog – only crossover with The Animation Show and my favorite of this bunch. Too bad, the Oscars could learn a lot from Judge and Hertzfeldt.

One Rat Short – brown rat follows cheetos bag into rat lab run by red-eyed robot where he falls for white rat. Cheetos bag causes chaos and the gates are all opened, brown rat escapes but white rat is left behind. SAD MOVIE.

The Passenger – kid is scared of dog, sits on bus next to fish in plastic bag that turns into hideous huge creature when he turns on his walkman. Funny, cool little piece.

Wraith of Cobble Hill – ugh, brooklyn kid with drunk mom drinks cough syrup with his friends, gets key to shop while owner is “out of town”, finally “saves” owner’s dog from rat-infested store. Claymation whatever.

by ·Comments Off on Fantasia (1940, Disney)

Fantasia is exactly how I remember it. A drowsy opening, some pretty business, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, some more neat stuff, then the conductor announces the halfway point and I fall asleep, only waking up for the Night On Bald Mountain segment and the closing credits.

I guess the animation purists love it, but I just find it a pleasant excuse for a nap. Sorry!

by ·Comments Off on The Animation Show 3 (2007)

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Rabbit is an animated children’s book (complete with labels on everything) about a couple greedy, murderous kids getting their comeuppance via death by insects.

City Paradise is a cute Japanese girl learning English and wearing flippers – very nice look to it, reminds me of the Dave McKean short Neon.

Everything Will Be OK – good Hertzfeldt short, totally different style from the rest. More “mature” they’ll probably say. Too multilayered, sometimes hard to hear, gotta see again. Makes me a lot less apprehensive to see “The Meaning of Life” cuz even if it sucks I know he’s recovered since.
I watched this again a while later.

Collision – stars and stripes from flags colliding in neat ways. Pretty, short.

9 – awesome looking film of sock puppet guy with nightvision goggles, the ninth and last in a line of goggled puppets, using all his resources to defeat a giant rabbit monster. Soon to be a major motion picture by producer Tim Burton, who used up the only original ideas he’s had in a decade on “Big Fish”.

Eaux Forte – a light sketch sort of thing that I tuned out to recharge my mind’s batteries.

Overtime – funeral of a puppeteer given by the puppets, nice.

Dreams and Desires – funny, early plympton-looking drawn animation about a woman with dreams of being a great filmmaker making a horrible, drunken wedding video.

Game Over – video game scenes recreated with food, hilarious.

Guide Dog – surprisingly great plympton… I guess I like him again.

No Room For Gerold – CG animals sitting around a table having a confrontational roommate argument.

Versus – more CG, warlords on their own island castles fight over the tiny island between them, got big laffs.

TAS website says: “Versus” was directed by François Caffiaux, Romain Noel, and Thomas Salas from the French animation college Supinifocom. This is the same school that the film “Overtime” came out of. “Versus” has been one of the ‘hidden’ films in our current lineup but easily one of the better received audience favorites. More info on it soon!

by ·Comments Off on Tales of the Rat Fink (2006, Ron Mann)

Documentary about Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, pioneer in custom-cars, custom t-shirts, illustration and merchandising. Neat little movie with a fun Sadies score, but no big deal. The “talking cars” bit is just shots of Roth’s actual cars with the headlights pulsing and a celeb voiceover. Very little footage of Roth himself, just narrator and cars giving his story.

Roth’s take on Mickey Mouse in a custom car:
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Roth’s most famous creation (after Rat Fink):
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Roth:
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by ·Comments Off on Cars (2006, John Lasseter)

Jan 2010:
Watched again on DVD with Katy, who enjoyed it but kept commenting how obvious everything was – same thing I said when I first saw it. It’s still a nice movie, but watching a widescreen DVD on our square TV (similar problem as with Standard Operating Procedure) you lose all the detailed CG-animation magic that was added when sitting in front at the movie theater – so, all the story problems without the razzle-dazzle that made me overlook them last time.

all I wrote 7/16/2006 was:
Couldn’t help thinking of the Doc Hollywood comparisons I’d read before seeing this. Fun movie, looked great. More obvious than other Pixar movies. Nice enough preview for Ratatouille, our Next Great Hope. Patton Oswalt is in it!