The House of Illustrious Animation
A gallery show lures the Miscweant away from his laptop and into a refined repository of fantabulous imagery – to watch cartoons.
A gallery show lures the Miscweant away from his laptop and into a refined repository of fantabulous imagery – to watch cartoons.
Blue Sky’s David LaMattina and Chad Walker are the creators of Brownstones to Red Dirt, a documentary centering on a pen pal program linking kids an ocean apart who have the odds stacked against them: at-risk Brooklyn sixth graders and African war orphans. Want to do something nice for kids in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn and Sierra Leone Africa at the same time – and come away with a beautiful piece of art for your troubles? It’ll cost you a few well-worth-it bucks,
It’s a neat trick for a small Irish studio to snag an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature and go head to head with Pixar, Disney, Henry Selick and Wes Anderson, not to mention beat out Hayao Miyazaki for a slot. It’s even more impressive when it’s the first time you’ve directed anything longer than a few commercials or TV segments. But that’s what Tomm Moore has done with Secret of the Kells - and on a budget that’s probably less than what any of the other films spent promoting themselves.
Beyond South Park and Dr. Katz, not much has stuck to Comedy Central’s cartoon wall. Drawn Together came close with three seasons. Lil’ Bush vanished with Bush II’s presidency, TV Funhouse came and went awfully fast back in Y2K – and anybody even remember Shorties Watching Shorties or Kid Notorious? Well, next month Comedy Central tries one more time with Ugly Americans, a higher-than high concept show that just might stick around for a bit.
How did this film manage to snag an Oscar spot alongside films that cost over $100 million dollars with $50 million marketing and promotion budgets? How did it manage to beat out DreamWorks, or even the deity of animation, Miyazaki himself?
Maybe I was in a bad mood when Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs came out. Maybe I just resented the idea of taking one of my kids’ favorite picture books and pumping it up into a full-length feature, so I passed on it in the theaters.
Nick’s The Last Airbender – the movie based on the channel’s long running animated adventure – won’t be out until July, but the toys are already in the pipeline, and the prototypes went on display for a select audience the week before the New York Toy Fair began on Valentine’s Day.
There are ten Best Picture Oscar nominees this year? Big deal, nobody cares about Best Picture... what's really important is the Best Animated Feature, everybody knows that. Who will win?
As you probably know, The Princess and the Frog is Disney’s first 2D effort in five years. It took John Lasseter, a Pixar guy who now runs all of Disney animation to get the studio to return to its 2D roots. Lasseter and company knew they had to hit a home run to make people care about hand-drawn animation again. Hey, it’s a Disney movie – there’s gotta be a happy ending, right? Damn straight – a happy ending to both the movie and the studio’s mission to show the world 2D’s still got the goods.
Pete Docter remembered me – or at least my Route 66 pin. I have a whole collection of them, shiny metal lapel pins I’ve gathered over the years. Pete arrived and our chat began. I started by mentioning I’d last seen him way early in the year at Disney’s New York screening room. “And you were wearing the Route 66 pin,” Pete said without a pause. “A different jacket, but I remember the pin.” When you’re in charge of a $175 million film, you develop an eye for details.
SpongeBob SquarePants’s been around for either a decade or ‘eleventy-seven’ years. Scooby Doo aside, I can’t think of another TV cartoon character who’s broken into the mainstream with the same staying power as the classic Warner and Disney characters. The Flintstones and Scoob may be fondly remembered by many, but when was the last time you completely cracked up watching them? (For me frankly, never.)
If you take the J train over the Williamsburg Bridge, get off at Kosciusko Street and walk a few blocks west, you’ll come to a storefront that looks like it’s home to a going out of business sale. Inside is a bar and club called “Goodbye Blue Monday”: the place is decorated not unlike Pee-wee’s playhouse or the home of some mad collector of antique TV sets, mountains of action figures and bizarro furniture. I’m there because way in the back Tom Stathes is holding his first Cartoon Carnival.
You know the tingles, that feeling running up and down your spine when you experience something awesome. Last month the Disney folks were kind enough to invite me to a preview of Ponyo – and I swear a day and half later the tingles were still with me.
It's Friday, 4:21 in the afternoon here on the east coast - but as I write (okay, keyboard), Hayao Miyazaki is onstage at the Disney animation panel at the San Diego Comic-con. Perhaps someone in the audience dressed as Astroboy is asking about his new film Ponyo; perhaps he's answering the question, or perhaps everyone is watching a Ponyo excerpt at this very moment. If they are, they're probably getting the tingles...
You know the tingles, that feeling running up and down your spine when you experience something awesome. Last month the Disney folks were kind enough to invite me to a preview of Ponyo – and I swear a day and half later the tingles were still with me.
If you take the J train over the Williamsburg Bridge, get off at Kosciusko Street and walk a few blocks west, you’ll come to a storefront that looks like it’s home to a going out of business sale, with benches and various other effluvia out on the sidewalk. Inside is a bar and club called “Goodbye Blue Monday” that’s most definitely in business: the place is decorated not unlike Pee-wee’s playhouse or the home of some mad collector of antique TV sets, mountains of action figures and bizarro furniture. (The rocking chair made out of two motorcycle gas tanks was pretty impressive.)
I’m there because way in the back – as a matter of fact out the back door and through a tiny backyard into a huge, high-ceiling shed – Tom Stathes is holding his first Cartoon Carnival
Hey kids! Play the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Drinking Game!
It’s easy! It’s fun! You’ll get boozed out of your mind! Here’s how to play…
1) Every time someone refers to how old Indy looks, have a drink;
This alone will get you off to a smashing – and smashed – start. Shia LaBeouf delivers the best line here: “what are you, 80 or something?” Interestingly, Ford looks in pretty good shape in the action sequences, but noticeably older – wrinkled and white-haired – when he’s teaching his classes.
2) Every time Spielberg references a movie, have a drink;
Shia as Marlon Brando in The Wild Ones is a total gimme, The Atomic Café a bit harder to pick up on, but the bad guys’ car not quite outracing an A-bomb blast comes from an obscure favorite of mine: 1953’s Split Second, directed by Dick Powell.
3) Every time Spielberg references one of his own movies, have two drinks;
Hey kids! Play the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Drinking Game! It’s easy! It’s fun! You’ll get boozed out of your mind! Here’s how to play…
Just got this press release in the Email:
"Los Angeles (February 14, 2008) – Timothy Harris is writing the screenplay for Imagi Studios’ upcoming CG-animated feature film Astro Boy, it was jointly announced by Cecil Kramer, Executive VP of Production, and Maryann Garger, producer of Astro Boy. Writer of such box office [s]hits as Space Jam, Kindergarten Cop, Twins and Trading Places, Timothy Harris has been authoring screenplays for almost 30 years..."
Damn. And I was looking forward to this one. Well, it's being directed by David Bowers, co-director of Flushed Away, so maybe not all hope is lost.
My first reaction to Kung Fu Panda was, (bored, Droopy voice), whoopee, here we go again: hopeless slob (Jack Black, who else?) makes good in spite of himself, done with that trademark DreamWorks unattractive angular character design.
Mea culpa, friends. I just saw a lengthy promo reel for the film hosted by Ol’ Bullet-head himself, Jeff (nyah-nyah Michael, I’m still a player, what are you doing these days?) Katzenberg – and I am blown away. This is going to turn into an Anton Ego review (end of Ratatouille Anton that is), but here we go.
My first reaction to Kung Fu Panda was, (bored, Droopy voice), whoopee, here we go again: hopeless slob (Jack Black, who else?) makes good in spite of himself, done with that trademark DreamWorks unattractive angular character design.
Mea culpa, friends. I just saw a lengthy promo reel for the film hosted by Ol’ Bullet-head himself, Jeff (nyah-nyah Michael, I’m still a player, what are you doing these days?) Katzenberg – and I am blown away. This is going to turn into an Anton Ego review (end of Ratatouille Anton that is), but here we go.
This is the most gorgeous cgi film I’ve seen to date, in terms of the world it’s created for itself, surpassing Pixar’s best. There are some backgrounds so otherworldly they look as if they came out of a sci-fi film, while at the same time obviously inspired by Chinese landscape art.
Word on the London Street is that “Howard the Duck” and “The Plague Dogs” are due for a UK DVD release:
http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/howard-the-duck.html
http://www.dvdactive.com/news/releases/the-plague-dogs.html
It just so happens I was in London during its original release there in December 86. The movie's posters in the tube stations showed him from the back with only the tip of his bill visible, with the slogan "Howard, A new kind of hero." I guess they didn't want people figuring out they’d paid to see a duck movie until it was too late.
Disney is deservedly getting good notices and making some nice money (it will probably crack the $100mm mark this weekend) off ‘Enchanted.’ Everyone agrees that part of the film’s charm – beyond its winning performances and the half 2D/half CGI chipmunk Pip – is how it tweaks the Disney canon, but in the most affectionate manner.
But I have news, people – it’s not like it’s never been done before. In fact, it’s not even like Disney has never done it before.
House of Mouse ran Saturday mornings on ABC from 2001 through ’04. The show’s premise was not unlike the early 1960’s primetime Bugs Bunny Show. For those of you younger than myself and Jerry Beck, in BBS the Oscar®-winning rabbit hosted a stage show featuring the Warner Brothers characters. New wraparound footage wrapped around shorts from the WB vaults (with an occasional newbie created for the show), often bridging directly into them (in far-from-seamless transitions), while providing a narrative to tie the half-hour together.
At this moment TCM is blessing Saturday morning viewers who don't care for cartoons or warmed-over news, with Byron Haskin's From the Earth to the Moon (1958). Last time I'd seen this I was a kid on The Late Show (back when the Late Show meant local movies & not David Letterman cracking wise).
I'd forgotten what a turkey this sucker was, as Joe Cotten invents 'Power X' just after the Civil War and uses it to power a moon rocket. (Its design looks swiped from Melies). Haskin did far better work for George Pal (War of the Worlds, anyone? The Power?) not to mention a half dozen episodes of the 1960's Outer Limits, but it's stiff city here, with head-on camera set-ups, cheez-o-rama spfx & dialog that sounds like it was cut 'n pasted straight out of Jules Verne's century+ old novel.
Snuck into Ron Diamond's 'Animation Show of Shows' at HBO's NY screening room the other night. (I told security I was Paulie Walnuts, or maybe Paulie's walnuts, I forget which. Oh, and I understand this blogateria I'm part of is part of Ron's entertainment empire - love ya', Mister D!)
A most intriguing assortment of short toons were screened. Some were horribly arty, others artfully heartfelt, but being an old-time Hollywood studio cartoon junkie (if you remember "Meeska, mooska, mouseketeer / mousecartoon time now is here," welcome to my decrepit demographic), I went completely bonkers over a nouveau/retro Goofy 'How To' short from Lassetter's Burbank boys - 'How to Hook Up Your Home Theater.'
Seems like someone outside the animation world finally picked up on Nala's "f*** me' look in "The Lion King:"
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/10/the_lion_king_the_only_walt_dis...
Even a friend of mine who's only a casual animation fan pointed the shot out to me long ago. I've been told that on the DVD (which I don't own myself) commentary track, one of the animators announces 'I can't believe they let us get away with that shot.'
The Guardian's columnist ends his piece with "I've got to check through Bambi for subliminal porn." He won't have to look very hard: the scene where Bambi, Flower and Thumper meet their girlfriends is pretty hot: Thumper starts thumpin' a mile a minute until he keels over in exhaustion (all she has to do is stroke his ear a bit to start him up again), Flower blushes bright red and stiffens like a board while Faline gives Bambi an unmistakable 'come hither' look of her own.
And let's not even go near the various Disney shorts that focus lovingly on punishment administered to various characters' backsides - like for instance the spanking machine put to liberal use in one of the 3 Little Pigs shorts...you're a naughty boy, Walt; naughty, naughty, naughty...