Animation Station

[liquidnature]

Thought we could use a place to explore the world of animation together.

Most recent watches:
Pocahontas (1995) - First viewing since childhood, didn't remember hardly anything about it, pleasantly surprised despite its historical inaccuracies. How anyone could think this is politically incorrect is beyond me though; its clearly satirical and cautionary in tone.

The New Gulliver (1935, Ptushko)

Starting up on some Chuck Jones and Tex Avery shorts, gonna try to go through them chronologically. Also working back through the great Georges Schwizgebel.

[...]

Nice topic. I usually watch a bunch of animated shorts for the earlyish polls since I can do that at work without much trouble and like to keep sort of up to date for feature animated releases when I get a chance to see them.

The New Gulliver's animation was pretty impressive, both for some of the details around the animated characters and how they staged it all to try and make it seem like the actor and the stop motion characters were occupying the same space and responding to each other, like in the scene where the military parade pass between "the new Gulliver's" legs or when the crowd gathered to watch him eat.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Great idea, liquidnature!

I've watched several animations of note lately, for the Tashlin poll and for the 1935 poll. The ones I've most liked in each case have been rewatches of stuff I underappreciated before.

Tashlin's Woods Are Full of Cuckoos, a parody of popular 1930s radio stars that has re-inspired me to dive into 'old time radio' listening (in part so I can more frequently understand references to radio in old time movies)



And Len Lye's 1935 avant-garde animation mini-masterpiece A Colour Box, made through painting directly on celluloid. Debatable if this counts as animation, I suppose, but it's certainly closer to animation than it is to live-action. And gorgeous images.

[...]

Among the Tashlin cartoons, Wholly Smoke is half of a really solid effort, starting out quite strong before finishing in a more conventional manner. I was quite amused by the opening where church service is announced by the pastor ringing the bell in the manner of a "test your strength" fairground attraction, signalling I guess a very muscular service. It's a Porky Pig cartoon, where Porky is shown as a wee, wee, wee little piggie at home, and his mother calls him to go to mass in the same manner a farmer might call a pig, which I found kinda charming. She gives him a nickel to put in the collection plate and warns him not to waste it on candy, which irritates little Porky, but of course he'll waste the money anyway. Not on candy though, but on a bet with a pugnacious little pug out smoking behind a fence like a tough dog would. He and Porky come to words when Porky's toughness is challenged by the pug by way of his excellence in smoke blowing. The smoke jokes are nice uses of teh plasticity of animation, where the pug shows off a variety of impressive smoke "sculptures" which Porky tries, and fails, to imitate.

Unfortunately the cartoon then has Porky wander into a smoke shop where he needs Nick O'Teen, a smoke vision who introduces him to all the other tobacco products in the shop, which are the usual collection of visual identity puns based around race and the like. I'll give Tashlin some credit for his blackface gag being elegant enough in its simplicity, a group of matches hop out of their box and light and then extinguish themselves to have a burned blackface look before they start singing, but the manner of joking in that way is both tired and obviously racist. The cartoon's anti-smoking message is fine, though it doesn't read as entirely genuine for it being matched to church service as an alternative, which is to purposefully exaggerate things, which gives the cartoon its ending as Porky goes to mass and as the collection plate is passed around, remembers just before it reaches him that he bet his nickel with the pug and zips out of the church fast enough to retrieve it and return before the plate reaches his spot. An adequate end, but not up to the promise of the first part of the cartoon so it felt a little disappointing.

[greennui]

I like this Estonian short based on Estonian mythology. Unique animation and atmosphere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNIhr1O3ZI8

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

I got the Fleischer-Famous Superman cartoons on DVD for Christmas - yay! Some of my favourite animation, finally in reliably good prints.

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

The Wizard of Oz like you've never seen it before - in an independent 1933 nearly wordless majorly bizarre and unique animation scored to classical music. It would be interesting to know if the makers of the MGM classic ever saw this, because this 1933 animation has a sepia-toned Kansas which morphs into colour once we get to land of Oz !!! I enjoyed this so much that I watched it twice, back-to-back. Anyway, recommended to liquidnature and other fans of animation history (I'll put it in a place).

[Umbugbene]

It would be interesting to know if the makers of the MGM classic ever saw this, because this 1933 animation has a sepia-toned Kansas which morphs into colour once we get to land of Oz !!!

Indirectly influencing Stalker!

[wba]

Just watched Astérix chez les Bretons (1986, Pino Van Lamsweerde), and it was forgettable and bland in every possible way.

It can in no way be compared to the masterpiece that is for example Astérix le Gaulois (1967), which has masterful directing by Ray Goossens. Too bad that team was never able to finish their planned follow-up La serpe d'or, which was reportedly stopped because of the idiotic intervention of Goscinny and Uderzo.

Well, what can ya do?

[Holymanm]

Hmm... I haven't seen that 1967 one, but I've seen Asterix and Cleopatra (1967) and The Twelve Tasks of Asterix (1976), both overseen by the creators, and gave them an average rating of 1.25/5. So I can only hope that 'unauthorised' one is much better...

Of note are the obscenely partial wiki entries. For example:

Asterix and Cleopatra (French: Astérix et Cléopâtre) is a 1968 Belgian–French animated comedy film; it is the second Asterix adventure to be made into a feature film. Overseen by Asterix creators Goscinny and Uderzo (who had no involvement in the production of the first film, Asterix the Gaul), the film is noticeably more well-produced than its predecessor, featuring far more detailed animation and a more polished soundtrack.

[wba]

Yeah. That's all those Asterix fanboys. It's similar to trying to talk with Star Wars fans about Star Wars or Trekkies about Star Trek.
If you talk with Star Trek-fans about the numerous Star Trek films, they - of course - have no clue/taste, and can't even differentiate between a masterpiece like Robert Wise's direction of the first movie, and the mediocre trite that was churned out since.

The first film is great (in my opinion, of course - mileage may vary) as a cinematic experience. And I don't care (or have to care) about Asterix and the comics, and the creators and stuff like that.