Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- There were a couple of great blog posts this past week.

Amid Amidi, on Cartoon Brew, gave us one of the blockbuster pieces of the year. He catalogued a number of Asian-Americans who worked in animation during the golden years and offered a brief bio of them as well as links to more information on all. It’s quite a serious bit of writing and I’ve saved it for my own records. I don’t think anything comparable has been done before re animation’s history.

The amount of work Amid put into this could only have been enormous, and my gratitude couldn’t be stronger. I assume most of the readers of my blog have seen that post; if not go. Here’s the link again.

- Speaking of Amid, he’s also updated his other site, Cartoon Modern. He’s started the Cartoon Modern Tumblr where he intends to post a picture a day of art from the period. The drawing to the left, from the Tumblr is by Ed Benedict.

- Mark Mayerson pointed us to the upcoming celebration of Chuck Jones’ work on TCM next March. This is all centered around the new documentary Chuck Jones Memories of Childhood, directed by Peggy Stern. The film records a conversation with Chuck Jones as he reminisces about his childhood in 1920′s Los Angeles. The half-hour program blends family photos, clips from classic Jones shorts and original animated sequences directed by John Canemaker, drawn from drawings Jones made during the interview filmed in 1998.

Some of the Jones shorts to be screened include: Prest-O, Change-O (1939), Sniffles and the Bookworm (1939), Elmer’s Candid Camera (1940), Duck Amuck (1953), One Froggy Evening (1966), What’s Opera Doc (1954), and The Dot and the Line (1965). Mark gives the complete schedule.

– Over the Christmas holidays the Film Forum will be screening a beautiful 35mm print of Fleischer’s second feature, Hoppity Goes To Town.

This remarkable film opened Dec 4th, 1941. Pearl Harbor occurred three days later, and the fate of the feature’s financial success was settled. Paramount closed the studio and fired the Fleischer brothers.

Dec. 24th through Jan. 1st you can see the film paired with “Betty Boop’s Rise to Fame,” a 1934 short starring Betty and Max Fleischer.

Tatia Rosenthal‘s feature, $9.99, is about to make its debut in LA with an Oscar qualifying run at the Laemmle Theater. The film is a stop-motion feature done in Australia. It stars the voices of Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush (“Shine”) and Golden Globe winner Anthony LaPaglia.

You can watch the trailer here.
The film’s website can be found here.

If you live in LA, make the effort. Support the film, check it out.

- There’s a newish blog in town (meaning NYC) that’s worth the visit. It’s an addition to the ASIFA-East website. Called The Exposure Sheet (do studios other than mine still use these things?) it reports on business and events involving NY members of ASIFA.

The most current of these articles is the big lay-off of workers at Nickelodeon and the shutting of the doors of this last big network studio in NY.Linda Beck writes an informative piece about the actual events occurring here, and for a reality check it’s worth the read.
The article listed above has been removed from the blog. There’s no given reason. Perhaps Linda felt she’d misstated something. Perhaps someone will post something more.

- Finally a big congratulations to Nina Paley. Her film, Sita Sings the Blues, won the Gotham Independent Film Award. Theater Near You category. It took home the $15,000 prize from Artists Public Domain and D.R. Reiff & Associates.

Nina’s also been been nominated as “Someone to Watch” for this year’s 24th Independent Spirit Awards. That’s a brilliant coup for Nina. I believe this is the first time an animated film has been nominated for a ‘Spirit” in any category, and if there’s any justice in the world she’ll win. I’ll be watching on Feb. 21st with fingers crossed.

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