Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– The Museum of Modern Art has a big schedule of films and artwork upcoming:

On Tuesday, Apr 17, 2007 at 6:30 PM, they will host an “Artists Speak” session:

Conversations on Contemporary Art with Laurie Anderson and William Kentridge as host by MOMA’s Glenn D. Lowry.
Performance artist Laurie Anderson and William Kentridge – director and scene designer for BAM’s spring production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute – discuss how they bring their creative process to performance.

To reserve tickets go here.

Kentridge‘s The Magic Flute will play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for four performances beginning April 9th. Kentridge directed and designed it and has animated pieces in his signature style throughout the program.

To see a video trailer for the opera go here.

To buy tickets to the Opera go here.

The Museum also has what it calls Projects 85. You can see Romanian artist Dan Perjovschi draw his “spontaneous” art on the walls of MOMA.

“For two weeks prior to the official opening, April 19, Perjovschi will draw on the wall during public hours, allowing visitors to observe the creation of the work.” This work will then be exhibited from May 2 thru August 27, 2007.

Of course, one of the earliest 20th Century quick-draw artists was Winsor McCay. He performed on Vaudeville stages with a large pad telling his stories which he illustrated live. Eventually, he added the animated backdrops of his cartoon characters.

Finally, regarding MOMA, I wanted to point out that they’re just starting a complete retrospective of the films of Rainier Werner Fassbinder. If you don’t know his films, you should. If you do know his films, you get to see them again in excellent projected format. Check the museum schedule for times.

– Enough about art. Let’s talk Popeye. Warner Home Video has announced a July 31st date for the Popeye dvd: Popeye the Sailor – Volume 1: 1933-1938.

The package will include 60 cartoons plus 5 hours of bonus material: retrospectives such as “The Story of Popeye the Sailor Man” and “The History of the Fleischer Studios”. There are also “behind-the-toons” featurettes, bonus shorts, and commentary tracks by animation historians and other experts. Greg Ford directed one of the documentaries. He spoke on camera with every notable animator in New York. As one of those interviewed, I have particular reason to be interested in seeing the docs.

The Popeye shorts, themselves, will be uncut, unedited cartoons that are authorized and come from the original masters. The fact that it’s labeled volume 1, gives us good hope that other volumes will follow.

Of course, real Popeye aficionados will go back to E.C. Segar’s original strip. There’s another Popeye there that is beyond even the Fleischer shorts.

- While we wait for Satoshi Kon‘s most recent feature Paprika to open in theaters, (opens in NY May 25th/in LA June 1st) his last film Tokyo Godfathers was just released on dvd. His other features, Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue.

Tokyo Godfathers is another version of that John Ford classic, Three Godfathers. This same story was reworked to make Three Men and a Baby (both American and French versions) and Ice Age.

The John Ford version was a remake of the Richard Boleslawski film of the same title done in 1936. That original film, Three Godfathers, got a lot of reworking.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Paprika watch it here.

(This is the box for the Japanese dvd.
I like it more than I do the US version.)

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