All Things Animated

Sony may be newer to the arena, but I thought SURF'S UP was underrated and deserved a better BO reception.

Aardman and the Nick Park crew deserve a shout-out. Charming characters, pitch-perfect humor, and excellent storytelling all around. Course, I'm also a sucker for stop-motion (Harryhausen, I'm looking at you), and I'm delighted that Tim Burton and Henry Selick have championed the tradition.

Who doesn't love masters like Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, and Chuck Jones (just bought a dvd collection of his Kipling adaptations= RIKKI TIKKI TAVI!)? Hanna-Barbera's early Tom & Jerry stuff? John K & Spumco? SECRET OF NIMH, to this day, remains one of my faves. Don Bluth, where'd you go?

I've been revisiting all the Disney stuff (I have a 4-year old) over the past couple years and there's so much great work. SNOW WHITE is still an amazing achievement. My daughter has been keeping SWORD IN THE STONE on heavy rotation, and I always stop what I'm doing to watch the wizards duel. All the pulpy live-action flicks springing up (INDY 4 ) inspired me to pop in the still-solid ATLANTIS last night and I took advantage of my surround sound system.

Taking the daughter to KUNG-FU PANDA on her birthday, and I think I'm just as excited as her. WALL*E is going to be a special event.

This thread never took off, did it? I just found it while I was looking up any thread on CHICKEN RUN (which I haven't seen for years and am currently enjoying right now) by typing in Aardman.

I'll second the Surf's Up appreciation. I was inundated with the trailer for that movie so many times before its release, I grew to hate the movie without seeing it. Big mistake, because it's beautiful and a lot of fun.

I watched BOLT last night and while it wasn't anything particularly special, it was a lot of fun and it managed to draw some tears from me. I would've really loved to see what American Dog would've become had it been made with its original director, but Lasseter helped Disney finally make a pretty damned good CG movie (though I say this without having seen Chicken Little).

My friends and I are working towards producing our next CG short, and our writer/director wants us all to really study the works of Disney's Old Men, Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, etc to get our heads right for the game. At the moment, we have a tone (Chuck Jones), a look (sci-fi from the 1920s-30s), and an idea (mad scientists and robots). Our previous short got 2nd place in last year's CGSociety contest, so we wanna chase that feeling.

Hope you guys can nail the tone, nooj. Jones was genius and nobody's done it better since.

As for recent Animated films, I enjoyed HAPPY FEET and KUNG FU PANDA more than both WALL*E and THE INCREDIBLES.

Thanks! We'll shoot for the stars, but will be happy to get even a quarter of what made Jones special.

Happy Feet was an oddity. I was with it till the hammered message at the end.

I am actually interested on what Disney is trying to accomplish with RAPUNZEL. Their return to the Classic Fairy Tale genre.

This trailer for Waltz With Bashir looks pretty darn spiffy.

No mention of Miyazaki yet? I'll start, his films are filled with life, the affirmation of life and the constant divide between humanity and the environment, he also made a film about a pig who flies planes.

Just finished CHICKEN RUN and I have to say that I can't believe I forgot how much I loved the movie before. Its utter charm makes up for how familiar the story is and it's just so damned clever without being in your face about it. Probably has a lot to do with its British creators. I think I definitely preferred this to Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

"A cling-on, Captain! The engines can't take it!"

"Eggs from heaven!"
"Naw, from a-bum!"

"Mrs. Tweedy! The chickens is revoltin'!"

And I must must continue to praise Powell & Gregson-Williams for their score. It goes a long way to making it feel like the classic escape movies.

Easily one of the best scores in the last ten years, especially if you're at all familiar with the scores from The Great Escape and Bridge on the River Kwai. "Building the Crate" is one of my favorite tracks pretty much ever.

It uses kazoos. You cannot resist.

Oh, and it's got a great voice cast. Not even Mel Gibson distracts.

EDIT: Oh, and the movie features Death by Scalding Gravy. Well... not really death. More like defeat, but it's a metaphorical death!

"Git-face..."
"Pillock..."

Brad Bird's The Iron Giant is still the champ for me when looking at recent western animated films.It makes be blubber* every time i watch it and its a great story for kids and adults alike.

*On a side note the pulling together scene** from Finding nemo causes a lump in my throat every time too.

**I can't get over how many full movies there are on youtube?

If there's anyone following this thread who hasn't yet caught up with the painstaking "Recobbled Cut" fan restoration of Richard Williams's lost magnum opus THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER, do so at once. If you've only seen the Miramax version, try and put that abomination out of your mind. With the rights to this film in limbo (the film and the footage needed to repair it owned by separate companies who don't like each other that much) this is as good as it gets for this landmark of 2D animation. Don't settle for the low-quality YouTube copy, get a proper one from the sorts of places you might expect to find such things. It's a full on special edition with commentary by the man behind the restoration, and as many bonus materials as could be scraped together.

I in no way approve of boots but here may be found a comprehensive documentation of the 'Recobbled' project. A long read but worth it.

I couldn't believe that I actually found this on youtube. It's another Richard Williams psychedelic showcase that seriously screwed with my childhood brain. Emery Hawkins (Woody Fuckin' Woodpecker!) is responsible for the Greedy, which to my eyes looks like an animated Philip Guston painting--horrific and compelling. If you have never seen it before, prepare to be amazed.

I figure this is a decent enough thread to post this:

Recently I've been watching the Miyazaki movies with my daughter, except this is the first time that I've watched them with the English Dubs.

Color me impressed. Being a purist, I would only ever watch the original language tracks with subtitles. That being said, Disney does a great job of getting some fine cast work for their dubs.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was an especially good dub.

I had never seen this before, and I am suitably amazed. It reminded me of Gahan Wilson. Creepy as hell.

Fantastic find. Where did that 'scope-ratio transfer come from, I wonder?

John Canemaker did a book covering the making of the film, from concept to release. Highly recommended.

A little googling around and I found this site, which says the video transfer is "by Crest Digital and source provided by Orange Cow Productions." The latter is the website of Garrett Gilchrist, who is also responsible for the aforementioned Thief and the Cobbler restoration. I just love that there are geeks out there in the ether posting these things on youtube.

Yeah, Gilchrist got his hands on a 35mm print of it (from Ebay, I believe) and had it transferred himself. As with THIEF RECOBBLED, there's a lovely DVD of this transfer kicking around certain alcoves of the internet frequented by Pirates. Two lovely DVDs, actually - one's 2:35 letterboxed in a 16:9 image (the usual way scope films are presented on DVD), the other is 2:35 anamorphically squeezed to 16:9 to use every pixel of the DVD format. I use VLC to stretch it back out to 2.35, and the end result looks much better than a conventional DVD.

It's hard to find an animated film that flew under the radar, but if you're a comic book fan and haven't seen Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, you're really missing out.

Mask of the Phantasm is great, but I really wish that it had been given a decent budget so that it would LOOK better than an above average episode of the show.

The animation I've been thinking most about is the newish Adult Swim show Superjail.

For a programming block that revolves around cartoons, Adult Swim has always been noticably disinterested in the art of animation. Most of their stuff is very sparsely animated Flash stuff, and some stuff like Tom Goes To The Mayor is more of a slideshow than a cartoon.

Superjail is the antithesis of all that. It's not the funniest show around (in fact, I have a hard time remembering one time I've laughed watching it) but my God is the animation beautiful. It all (appears to be) hand-drawn, and incredibly surreal and imaginative. It's super violent and juvenile, like a Mad Magazine comic come to life, but there hasn't been an episode yet that hasn't wowed me on a visual level. I highly reccomend checking it out.

Jesus... my mind can't even begin to wrap around the concept of animating ANYTHING like that. It's Hedonism-Bot crossed with what becomes of Tetsuo in AKIRA, laced in LSD (or whatever trippy drug you may prefer). Amazing.

I love Mutual Assured Destruction-themed animated films of the 1980's. Raymond Briggs' and Jimmy Murakami's "When the Wind Blows" is a masterpiece of Cold War paranoia, but it deserves to be shown to anybody that continues to live in ignorance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EbsrJuAoQo

and for some lighter fare, the brilliant Richard Condie...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBeLt2S35G4

Here are some more incredible shorts:

"Frank Film" (Oscar winner created at Harvard University that deconstructs its creators life)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa9r5Z4hC_U

Ukrainian animator Igor Kovalyov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YecjiKzZStg

Jim Blashfield (if you like "Frank Film", don't miss this one)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC6mPvbGqGk

Raoul Servais

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/ckrr-jde6Kg/


If you're interested in picking up some great books on animation, check out Tachen's "Animation Now!" (which comes with a great DVD) and Karen Mazurkewich's exhaustively researched history of Canadian animation, "Cartoon Capers".

Tezuka's Broken Down Film

MY LIFE AS MCDULL (Hong Kong, 2001)

For a relatively recent film that won a truckload of awards all over the world and cleaned up at the local box office, this is one hell of a difficult film to find - which is utterly inexplicable. By now, it has been out of print for far longer than it was ever in print. I was lucky enough to blind-buy it from a Chinese video store in Cleveland, OH when it originally came out on DVD, and that was, in all seriousness, one of the best blind buys I've ever made. The theatrical poster above gives a much better feel of the film's combination of cute character designs and the dirty, chaotic Hong Kong these characters inhabit than does the DVD cover:


This is, on the surface, the story of a little pig named McDull who wants to make his mother proud, told in episodic fashion and narrated for the first two thirds of the film by McDull, the boy. But the final third is narrated by an adult McDull, as the recollections of a middle aged man whose perspective on the events of his childhood have changed with the years. More detail would be detrimental in my opinion - but if you must, an excellent, lengthy overview is up at Animation World Magazine.

Easily one of 2001's best films, with no qualifiers like "animated" or "foreign" required. Its lack of US distribution is absolutely shameful. I can't even find a real trailer for it, but here's the bullshit French dubbed version. Followed by a sequel, MCDULL, PRINCE DE LA BUN which I haven't seen but which is supposed to be equally good (and this one's in print!), a live-action animation hybrid, MCDULL THE ALUMNI, which is also in print, and the still-in-production MCDULL, WUDANG aka WU-TANG MCDULL. No, seriously.

We have here a film that's successful enough to warrant three sequels and yet the original's totally unavailable. Bootlegs on EBay don't equal "available". What the hell?

Most, but not all, of Will Vinton's advanced Claymation from Return to Oz.

Henry Selick and a very young Craig "Hey Arnold!" Bartlett both worked on that project. I love Vinton's "Adventures of Mark Twain", too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak3z2Pm7Iwg

Atlantic Releasing sure did a shitty job of selling THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN. I remember seeing commercials for this as a kid and thinking it looked sorry as hell.

Then again, how do you sell that? It probably traumatized all fifteen kids who saw it in theaters; this must have been a huge flop or else it would be more notorious...

Turner Classic Movies has an entire evening devoted to Chuck Jones next March 24. Included is the new documentary Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood. You can read more about that documentary over at Cartoon Brew. In addition, they will show The Phantom Tollbooth, the feature that Jones directed based on the book by Norton Juster. Here's the schedule for Eastern time. Note that the last film of the night is 1001 Arabian Nights, the UPA feature starring Mr. Magoo and directed by Jack Kinney.

8:00 PM Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood (2009)
8:30 PM Night Watchman, The (1938)
8:40 PM Prest-O, Change-O (1939)
8:50 PM Sniffles and the Bookworm (1939)
9:00 PM Elmer's Candid Camera (1940)
9:10 PM Scent-imental Over You (1947)
9:20 PM Haredevil Hare (1948)
9:30 PM Duck Amuck (1953)
9:40 PM One Froggy Evening (1966)
9:50 PM What's Opera Doc (1954)
10:00 PMDot and the Line, The (1965)
10:15 PMBear that Wasn't, The (1967)
10:30 PM Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood (2009)
11:00 PM Phantom Tollbooth, The (1969)
12:30 AM Night Watchman, The (1938)
12:40 AM Prest-O, Change-O (1939)
12:50 AM Sniffles and the Bookworm (1939)
1:00 AM Elmer's Candid Camera (1940)
1:10 AM Scent-imental Over You (1947)
1:20 AM Haredevil Hare (1948)
1:30 AM Duck Amuck (1953)
1:40 AM One Froggy Evening (1966)
1:50 AM What's Opera Doc (1954)
2:00 AMDot and the Line, The (1965)
2:15 AMBear that Wasn't, The (1967)
2:30 AM Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood (2009)
3:00 AM Phantom Tollbooth, The (1969)
4:30 AM 1001 Arabian Nights (1959)

A person could conceivably do some real damage to themselves if they watched a marathon of 1001 ARABIAN NIGHTS (1959) with Mr. Magoo, A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS (1969) by Osamu Tezuka/Eiichi Yamamoto, and the short 1001 NIGHTS (1998) by Yoshitaka Amano/Mike Smith in the order in which they were produced.

Times like this I wish I got TCM.

Congratulations Australians, you're the first English-speaking country with a distributor that has the balls and good taste to pick up MIND GAME. Go straight to the store and buy that shit.

I don't mind the idea of a Toy Story 3. I didn't like it when Disney was gonna go ahead with it themselves, but now that Pixar's back on it, I'm for it. I love those characters. Cars 2, not so much. I have no idea where they would take those characters other than some new wacky adventure and I'm not particularly fond of said characters either.

I think Brad Bird's films are the most risk-taking endeavors for Pixar in general (though Stanton's Wall-E kinda muddies this selection for me). I think they are the most exciting and complex of the lot. I love John Lasster's old-fashioned approach and you cannot deny that it was his vision that got Pixar to where it is today. I love Andrew Stanton's sincerity and his willingness to let his emotions be laid bare. Pete Docter... I only have Monsters Inc. to base off of. I'll wait for Up.

The possibility of them working in live-action interests me. As long as it challenges them instead of making them too big and anonymous as any VFX company.

Toy Story is a favorite, watched countless times...the sequel I don't remember, except for thinking it was nice to see those characters again, and that it was fairly unremarkable.

Ralph Bakshi is under-appreciated. Some of his best or most interesting work is out of print or was never released on DVD. In general he's only known as the guy who made that animated Lord of the Rings (which endured studio butchery throughout its production). And he's one of the greats! His 70s adult flicks are comparable to Scorsese's in quality. Heavy Traffic is a masterpiece. Fritz the Cat is great. Coonskin, American Pop...I don't know, I haven't been able to see them!

I still miss "traditional" hand drawn animation, which is why I'm rooting for "The Princess and the Frog" which features animation by my favorite (current) Disney artists, Andreas Deja.



Teaser trailer here;
http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/princessandthefrog/

I don't have my hopes up though, Enchanted didn't do that well and Bolt was kind of a flop. Still, at the very worst, this animated film will rectify the travesty that is "Home On the Range" currently being the very last Disney animated feature ever.

You should really watch it again. Please excuse the broken formatting in this article.

It's hard to argue with Bird's 1-2 punch of The Incredibles and Ratatouille, but damn if Stanton doesn't give him a run for his money with Nemo and Wall*E.

They may not have been anywhere near Lion King/Nemo/Shrek successes, but I feel that Enchanted and Bolt were two pretty solidly respectable hits. Nothing to sneeze at. Disney has to work its way back into our good graces.

Enchanted wasn't really an animated film, and Bolt had the misfortune (or poor planning) of opening the same weekend as Twilight. And while both grossed over $100 million, that's not what Disney expects from its animated films, especially with Pixar and DreamWorks routines bringing in double that.

Yeah, considering the usual live-action Walt Disney film, I thought Enchanted was seen as a pretty modest success. Other than the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the National Treasure movies, Disney's live-action movies usually aren't that huge.

How successful was Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons? Because Disney shouldn't be expecting anything Pixar/Dreamworks huge with their films yet.

If not for Twilight, I feel like Bolt would've done as much as their previous 2 movies.

Here's an interesting article from Jim Hill on Bolt;

"Toon Tuesday : Disney tries to figure out why "Bolt" missed its box office target "

I enjoyed Enchanted, but I'm going to have to watch Bolt again on DVD. I was tired that day and had a hard time keeping awake for the whole movie. My daughter kept trying to wake me up.

Anyways, from the article, Buzz did much less than Horton Hears a Who, so from the perspective of the Disney execs that's a pretty horrible performance.

AMERICAN POP on DVD from Sony can easily be yours via the Amazon.com search on CHUD's front page. COONSKIN/STREET FIGHT is more problematic - any release after the initial Academy Entertainment VHS tape (as STREET FIGHT) is almost certainly a bootleg.

Blue Underground put out a very respectable edition of Fire and Ice.

Regarding Bolt: I think it underperformed because the concept (movie dog thinks he's a real hero) is outdated. What was the last animal movie to feature a creature that wasn't already part CGI? Kids today don't know who Benji was, let alone Rin Tin Tin.

Marley and Me? I know, I know, I get your point of course :-)

Uh... I guess that's amazing...

Mwuh huh huh... Poor guys! The tears aren't coming! The tears aren't coming!!!!

EDIT: Thanks for the Jim Hill link, Cap.

I kind of like these clips from Coraline, but they're out of context. I hated Corpse Bride (although the animation was nice).

Click on record player to see father playing the piano

The Mouse Circus

EDIT: Adding to this, ROCK AND RULE was kind of a cool concept that was ruined. It's too dark for kids and too gay for adults... I mean Don Bluth gone to hell.

Best animated film of '08?

Waltz With Bashir.

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