Commentary &Daily post &Puppet Animation 05 Dec 2009 09:46 am
Screenings&Events
Dec 5th – Today is Walt Disney’s birthday. I’ll celebrate by seeing The Princess and the Frog. Nothing like 2D animation to celebrate the man. Maybe later I’ll also watch a couple of great Mickey shorts from the early thirties.
Today’s also the day that we start our fifth year working this blog. It doesn’t feel that long to me, and it still continues to be fun. Hopefully I’ll be able to say the same in another four years.
Mary and Max
- I finally got to see Adam Eliot’s feature, Mary and Max. For those of you unfamiliar with the movie, it’s an animated feature by the Australian creator of Harvie Krumpet, which won the Oscar for animated short in 2003. I won’t go into the story other than to say it’s a penpal tale between a girl in Australia and a Jewish man with Asperger’s Syndrome in NY.
Since I’ve only seen these two films, I can only judge one against the other – with no other references. These are the aspects both films have in common:
. They have excellent, picaresque stories that move forward through their characters’ lives.
. They are narrated rather than played out and have close to no dialogue spoken by the characters. The work is done in clay with very inventive scenes, but animated in a strongly limited way. (Eliot had once boasted that he’d never done a walk cycle in any of this three previous shorts. Indeed, Mary and Max mostly shows them walking from the waist up. There’s one excellent cycle of a very heavy character walking, so Eliot can do it. Or at least one of his animators can; I don’t know if there are any other animators since there’s no credit for animation on the film.)
. Lastly, the celebrity voices are bordering on brilliant. Geoffrey Rush was at least half the film in Harvie Krumpet. In this feature, Philip Seymour Hoffman gave one of the best animation vocal performances of the past several years.
This last bit counts for a lot. The narration can carry you draggingly through a half-hour short like Harvie Krumpet, but in a a feature like Mary and Max it gets a bit tedious regardless of how interesting the story. After a half hour of only three principal voices (narrator: Barrie Humphries/Dame Edna, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Toni Collette) you start looking for more, and the film does wear out its welcome a bit. (Eric Bana also has a small, underwritten part.)
I enjoyed this film somewhat, but it’s in a different league from The Fantastic Mr. Fox or Coraline.
John R. Dilworth
- This coming Tuesday, Dec 8th, ASIFA-East will present an evening with John R. Dilworth. The program should promise to be an unforgettable evening of films, conversation . . . and surprises and comedy.
There will be a screening of a number of John’s films including the NY public premiere of John’s most recent short, “Rinky Dink.”
Tuesday Dec 8, 2009
SVA 209 E 23rd Street, 3rd floor amphitheatre
7 PM
Admission: FREE
By the way, ASIFA-East calenders will be on sale at the event ($10 each), as well as some Dilworth merchandise. Get Christmas shopping in while attending this event.
Mad Monster Party
– Can’t get enough Stop-Motion Animation? Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mary and Max, and Coraline have just wet your appetite? Lert’s go back to the creators of the feast – Rankin-Bass. As part of its Tim Burton retrospective, the Museum of Modern Art will be screening today and tomorrow (Dec. 6th and 7th) Mad Monster Party. (I’d personaly prefer to see Daydreamer, The World of Hans Christian Andersen.) Dracula, the Mummy, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde plot to gain control of Baron von Frankenstein’s secret weapon during a monster convention. Featuring the voices of Boris Karloff, Phyllis Diller, the movie should be a trip down memory lane.
December 5, 2009, 5:45 p.m.
December 6, 2009, 5:30 p.m.
A drawing by Don Duga who storyboarded the film. __________________
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UPA
-On December 14th, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences will have a program celebrating the short films of UPA. John Canemaker will host the event with a look back at the studio’s output. Eight rarely seen films will be screened in 35mm.
These will include:
_____GERALD MCBOING BOING
_____MISTER MAGOO’S PUDDLE JUMPER
_____ROOTY TOOT TOOT
_____MADELINE
_____THE TELL-TALE HEART
_____THE UNICORN IN THE GARDEN
_____FUDGET’S BUDGET
_____GEORGIE AND THE DRAGON
Take it from someone who knows, the collection of shorts couldn’t be better. Lots of Oscar winners and nominees among them. The 35mm prints from the UCLA Archives, will be immaculate. This show will be a treat.
At 7PM December 14, 2009 at the Lighthouse, 111 East 59th Street, between Park and Lexington avenues
$5.00 admission ($3.00 for members)
on 05 Dec 2009 at 11:03 am 1.Bill said …
Re: Mad Monster Party
Michael,do you know to what extent print cartoonists Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis were involved in the making of the show?
on 05 Dec 2009 at 11:37 am 2.Michael said …
I know, of course, that Harvey Kurtzman penned the script with Len Korobkin. Credit is sometimes given to Forrest J. Ackerman for cowriting, but he doesn’t receive a film credit nor is there any other verifiable proof that he was involved with the film. Jack Davis designed many of the characters in the film. Other than, I’m sorry to say, that I don’t know much more.