moriarty@tc.fluke.com (Jeff Meyer) (09/19/89)
SECOND ANIMATION CELEBRATION: THE MOVIE
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1989 Jeff Meyer
THE SECOND ANIMATION CELEBRATION is a collection of animated shorts put
together by the people who distribute the TOURNEES OF ANIMATION around the
country. It's advertised as being composed of all premieres, which isn't quite
true, but the majority of the shorts were ones I hadn't seen in any other
festival. As animation collections go, this was pretty good; not the best I've
seen, but fairly even, with only a few films which fell flat.
A brief overview:
THE SIMPSONS: Matt Groening of LIFE IN HELL produced about five short
collections of cartoons featuring The Simpsons throughout the film. They're
good -- dead spots exist, but most hit. They're not quite premieres, though --
I suspect these were originally shown on THE TRACY ULLMAN SHOW. But they're
reliably funny, if a bit drab at points.
LAZAR: Anything that uses some of my favorite classical music as a backdrop,
and then matches the animation with the music, gets points from me. The lines
of the animation, and the perspective, are excellent. Many of the sight gags
fall flat, though, and the ending isn't clever -- very anti-climatic. A bit
long, too, at 11 minutes.
BEAT DEDICATION: Some extremely clever computer animation, merged with
synthesized music, about a mechanical robot drummer bugged (!) by an
electronic insect. Very funny, and uses the computer animation to good effect
with some great p.o.v. shots. Put out by some fellows at M.I.T., one of those
rare computer animation works (outside of the Pixar shorts) that don't leave
the techniques and the look of the animation to floor you -- the writer makes
his presence known, as well.
PROPAGANDANCE: What if Warner Bros. met Oliphant? Nice music, message is a
bit too simplistic for me, but it comes off without being too chunky.
A SALUTE TO THE OLIVE JAR ANIMATION STUDIOS: A collection (most of it
commercial) from the people who do many of the MTV short animated ads. One or
two high spots (especially the bit on rare, ridiculous animals), but it began
to wear about halfway into the series.
SCAREDY CAT: Very smooth, Disney-like animation, basically aimed at the kind
of gag used in BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA. Doesn't come off as well here.
ASIFA CHILDREN'S FILM: Heaven save me from films made by kids younger than 10.
Really, as soon as you seen a half page of credits telling you what government
grants paid for the thing, you know that they're can't be anything remotely
interesting, since it would probably void the conditions of the grant. I'm
sure the parents of the kids who made these films enjoyed them; next time, give
them a video-tape of it, and show an old Looney Tunes instead for the rest of
us, OK?
SALOME: Classical music doesn't always save an animated film. A salami runs
around a room and avoids the cleaver. Ohhhhh-kay...
THE MARATHON: It is supremely ironic that, after tons of hype surrounding
Mickey Mouse's anniversary, the most endearing and touching piece of film to
celebrate this event should come from a group of animators in the Soviet Union,
who certainly had no interest in getting any samoleons out of it. They did it
for the love of the character, and the love of the cartoons they saw growing
up, and both are showed with consummate skill during this extremely clever and
skillful tribute. Mickey and a child as the years go by, and... but that
would be spoiling it. The best film of the Celebration, and a must for any
Disney animation collector. This is one of those films that reminds you of the
magic of animation.
RARG: Twenty-one minutes long, this is more of a story than a short. Good
animation, fairly clever, it tells the story of a utopian society that makes an
amazing discovery one day, and how they deal with it. Excellent for the first
half; bit slow for the third quarter; and then it ends with a conclusion that
leaves me certain that the writer couldn't come up with an ending to
effectively finish the story, so he just threw in what came to mind. Left me
rather frustrated.
KNICKKNACK: Another computer animated short by Pixar, who did TIN TOY (also
shown during the festival). As good, and maybe a touch more entertaining, than
TIN TOY, this film continues the "house style" I've seen in Pixar's previous
work: strong sense of visual humor (especially through p.o.v.), with a lot of
attention on facial expressions, and a visual style in the backgrounds and
figures and colors which identify it as a Pixar short almost immediately.
Classic cartoon humor, redone with computers.
PENCIL DANCE: I can see why this gets a lot of controversy. Black and white
shapes and swirls flow over the screen to music. Some nice stuff; two of our
party (including me) enjoyed it, the other person hated it. It's short enough
not to get wearying.
QUINOSCOPIO #2: More cartoons from Juan Padron of Cuba. Each has a punchline,
and reminds me of some of the cartoons done by the people who did the Pink
Panther cartoons (I forget the name. Not as funny as QUINOSCOPIO #1, and that
wasn't all that good, anyway.
FINGERWAVE: Interesting but not very entertaining. Stop-animated fingers.
UMBABARUMA: Well, I *really* liked the music, but this collection of images,
played to Caribbean music, is a bit too long, and has to be enjoyed strictly
from its visual aspects -- no plot to speak of.
GOODNIGHT NORMA... GOODNIGHT MILTON... : Ack! Too long, too ugly, and with
a point about as subtle as an cruise missile. I hate "message" films that take
their audiences for idiots; angry, without much sense of humor. The worst film
at the show.
TIN TOY: I'm not sure why they call this a premiere -- I've seen it in at
least one other animation collection. Excellent, nonetheless, and even on its
third viewing, it gets its fair share of laughs. Great credits, BTW.
25 WAYS TO QUIT SMOKING: Bill Plympton used to do some fairly bizarre cartoons
for various weekly papers (still does, for all I know); they were good but not
great. About three years ago, he started doing animated films; they started
out at the level of his cartoons, and have done nothing but improve. His
latest work is absolutely his best, and is basically an absurdist instructional
video on getting people to quit smoking. There is some really zany Monty
Python-ish humor here, well done; a few slow points, but Plympton's ability to
twist normal looking characters into all sorts of bizarre figures is amazing.
They saved it for a strong finish, and it works.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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