Bill Peckmann &Commentary &commercial animation 19 Nov 2011 07:55 am
Oscars, Miyazaki, & other things
- This was a packed week. I saw a lot of films; I mean a lot. Here are some short short comments.
Sunday: My Weekend with Marilyn The movie was good; Michelle Williams was out of this world. She’ll definitely be nominated. B+
Monday: Saul Bass Tribute The film titles were brilliant (though I would have had a larger assortment.) The logos were magnificent. All of the speakers were dull. B+
Tuesday: Puss in Boots Some brilliant design work, a few nicely animated scenes. Tiresome plot with an exhausting sound track. C-
Tin Tin The same problem as Puss in Boots. Go Go Go Go Go, then it’s over. LOUD sound track and never resting camera. Spielberg has it constantly moving around and over and under the characters. For no purpose other than to show that he can. Zero character development. C
Wednesday: The Descendants This was a very fine film. A seemingly relaxed pace to a somewhat chaotic story. George Clooney was fine in the lead role, and others around him were equally good. A-
Thursday: The Artist A fun and very romantic film. The 10 mins where they steal Bernard Herrman’s soundtrack from Vertigo was my favorite. Nice acting. B+ Harvey Weinstein threw a great after party.
Friday: Dinner with friends. A large contingent of Academy voters came down from Canada and are staying with Candy Kugel and George Griffin so they can attend the voting today. I joined Candy and the others at dinner and had a good time catching up. Three cheers for Candy for coordinating events with this group (Last night, there were 11 of us out to eat.)
- Today there’s the Academy screening of animated shorts in NY – 45 of them. This is the first vote on the full list of those that have successfully qualified for the competition. It certainly doesn’t mean that any of them are good; it just means that they’ve followed the rules.
Today’s voters will select a group of 6 to 10 films to make the short list. These will be open to another voting in January to narrow it down to the five nominees.
45 shorts will probably take about six to seven hours to screen. All in one sitting with a one hour break for lunch. Usually, the lunchtime conversation isn’t about the films but about general conversation. You have to be careful not to insult any film makers who might be there.
The full list was laid out on Cartoon Brew this week. It was only two years ago that I listed those competing and received severe warnings from the Academy for having done so. Now, they release the titles, themselves. It’s something they should have been doing all along.
Hopefully, the films will be a better assortment than last year’s selection.
December 16 to Thursday, January 12 will be Studio Ghibli time in NYC. G-Kids will present a retrospective of Miyazaki‘s feature films at the IFC Center in New York this Christmas. The titles to be shown include: Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle and Kiki’s Delivery Service. All will be shown in both dubbed and subtitled versions.
- The brilliantly funny Xeth Feinberg has been posting Reasons 2B Happy on a daily basis. It’s the only way to get through that first cup of coffee. Check it out . . . DAILY.
- Leif Peng has posted four storyboards for Cheet-o’s Mouse commercials done by Bill Peckmann. They’re on the site: Storyboard Central. They were done in the style of Paul Coker Jr. for PK&A (Phil Kimmelman & Ass.)
MTV has put up 20 episodes of The Head on their video website. If you’re a fan of this Eric Fogel show, you can now watch the online for free. The Head is the 5th series, joining Aeon Flux, The Maxx, Wonder Showzen, and Liquid Television on the site.
- And Bill Benzon continues with his assessment of Fantasia’s Pastoral Sequence. He’s just finished his fifth piece and has one more left in him before wrapping up the entire film.
on 21 Nov 2011 at 9:38 pm 1.Mario NC said …
Very interesting comments, Michael.
Regarding the Tin Tin film, are you familiar with the original comics? You mentioned the lack of character development, but as far as I remember, Tin Tin is one of those serialized euro comics in which the characters are static, they never change or evolve and they mostly remained within a limited pattern of personality traits (like Asterix and Obelix).
Now to be honest, I only have some vague memories about Tin Tin, I saw the specials/tv series that Nelvana made and read some paperbacks for the comics, but that’s pretty much it. I was just curious if you were familiar with Herge’s work and your general opinion about it.
on 21 Nov 2011 at 11:58 pm 2.Michael said …
Even on the surface this masked live action film has no relation to Herge’s comic strip. What point is there in reviewing the comic strip except to try to validate a bad film? I can tell you that there is a lot more personality in one panel of the strip than there is in this entire movie, in my opinion. This is just a typical action adventure movie not even on the same level as Jurassic Park. Not close.