Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

– Last night I saw the exuberant new musical, Idlewild and just absolutely loved it. It’s a grab-bag of songs by Outkast members André Benjamin and Antwan A. Patton, better known as André 3000, and Big Boi of the hip-hop group OutKast. They all had a hand in writing and performing the songs. The joint is jumping, and it’s not really hip-hop; it’s a hip-hop take on music of the thirties. The dance numbers, choreographed by Hinton Battle, to me, are the heart of the film making it an original and fresh musical of a movie.

All of the reviews I read were negative and with good reason. The movie is a mess of cliches and inability, but the total effect of the songs and dances and cgi animation (cuckoo clocks, musical notes, a rooster on a flask, et al) makes for a lively and fun mess. It should have been 20 minutes shorter, and it might’ve helped if they really knew what they were doing so they could have pulled it off properly.

But you have to love the imagination and enthusiasm. The end result is fun. I had a great time.

Reviews: A thoughtful negative in the LATimes. A pan in the NYTimes. Ditto Daily News.

- Speaking of imagination and enthusiasm, I suspect none of either can be found on Tom & Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers. This is a feature length version of Tom & Jerry Meets The Pirates of the Caribbean and couldn’t be a duller idea. Why don’t they put together all those smoking scenes that the BBC is excising from the older cartoons and make a feature out of that? At least the animation would be good.

- Now if you want to see some imagination, click on over to The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog. They’ve posted a slew of classsic Disney model sheets. Of course, they’re in great shape (as are all of the art pieces posted on this vital and necessary site.)

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