Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

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- There’s a comic book interview with Marjane Satrapi at Stripped Books. She shows herself to be a bright and articulate woman, even in English. No surprise in that.
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- Karl Cohen writes to inform me that two animated short films that were screened at Sundance and were invited to be part of the festival’s online shorts program, have been censored. As Nancy Denney-Phelps reports on her blog Sprockets, Signe Bauman‘s Teat Beat of Sex and Because Washington Is Hollywood for Ugly People, by Kenneth Ti and Kin Hung, were rejected by the online store for being, respectively, too sexually explicit and too political.

Director Baumane said about her film that it, “comes from corporations unwilling to take a risk. Corporations never push the envelope; it is individuals. It is remarkable that violence is OK, but not sex.”
Karl Cohen, president of ASIFA-SF, commented: “I see this as another stupid act of censorship that illustrates the dangers of having a few corporations in control of our media. TEAT BEAT OF SEX was commissioned for European television by a distributor and it is being shown there, but it’s considered too controversial to show on iTunes, Netflix, and Xbox. Isn’t something wrong with this picture?”

- This Sunday, Feb. 10th, the BAFTA awards will be held. You can watch them on BBC in America at 8PM EST and repeated at 10PM.

The Animated Shorts nominated are:

The PearceSisters – Jo Allen/Luis Cook
Head Over Heels – Osbert Parker/Fiona Pitkin/Ian Gouldstone
THE Crumblegiant – Pearse Moore/John McCloskey

I can’t help but note that The Pearce Sisters was nominated by BAFT for an award, this year, but it was skipped by the Oscars. Last year, the same was true of Dreams and Desires – Family Ties by Joanna Quinn. It’s a bit disturbing to me. Peter and the Wolf won the prize last year.

The nominations for the Best Animated Feature are:
Ratatouille – Brad Bird
Shrek The Third – Chris Miller
The Simpsons Movie – David Silverman

Not a good category. Ratatouille had best win.

By the way, in case you’re in London this Sunday and want to watch the red carpet in person check out this link for info.

- Mark Kausler has an excellent post giving us his thoughts on the Charles Schulz biography by David Michaelis. Mark includes a gem of a story about getting Schulz to sign a book. There’s something wonderful hearing about any small contact with greatness. See that autograph on his site.
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- Finally, I have to again point you in the direction of Mark Mayerson‘s great blog. He’s posted another mosaic. This time he’s not picking apart a film, but a scene. It’s a Bob Wickersham scene from Thru The Mirror. He couldn’t have started with a better scene from a better film. Rod Scribner, check it out. I can’t wait for Mark’s written analysis.

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