“Where do people go when they die?” “They go to hell.”

Hells is a well-executed stylish and action-packed animated exploration into a teenager’s journey back from the depths of hell after she’s the victim of a car accident on her way to her first day at a new school. It’s kind of an afterlife, afterschool special in anime format.

Oh, but it’s not that cut and dry. Linne, the protagonist, wasn’t supposed to end up in Hell and this is discovered because there’s no record of her death and she’s able to bleed—something that doesn’t happen to those who dwell in the netherworld.

Linne does end up at a school in the afterlife known as Death River Academy and she needs to graduate before she makes it through to Heaven because in Hell, you are studying for your next life. Her new school is full of a wild group of teens that don’t fit within the traditional, school uniform-wearing clique. In particular, the headmaster is a big burly red fella named Headmaster Helvis who bears striking resemblance a mash-up between the King and Hellboy.

Hells features some interesting Christian and Buddhist themes such as the classic Cain vs. Abel brother’s quarrel, mention of reincarnation, the power of intention, the energy of mantras, interconnectedness, emptiness, existence and the acceptance of both happiness and unhappiness rather than rejecting one over the other. On this note was the assertion by one of the characters that there is a denial of reality in not accepting death.

The notion of Hell existing in one’s own mind is also explored as one scene within the film was devoted to the perspective that we create the world that we live in and it can be viewed as a Hell if we make it so.

Japan’s Madhouse animation studio has delivered a highly energetic and colorful piece of work with Hells. I encourage checking it out if you are interested in being taken for a wild ride of the human and hell-dweller condition. It’s dark, fast, funny, rock and roll, sad, philosophical, colorful, detailed, shocking, sweet and optic nerve stimulating—all at once.

Check out the trailer here:



Hells has a second showing at Fantasia on Wednesday, July 22nd at 2:00 p.m.

Labels: anime, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Japan, Madhouse

Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to see Tokyo OnlyPic 2008 at the Fantasia Film festival.

Tokyo OnlyPic 2008 comprises a selection of the series of both live-action and animation segments of fictional sports events, and I'm using "sports" in the loosest sense of the word. This film is strange, at times awkward, and always funny. I highly recommend it.

Some of the animated events include the CG-animated Men's Independence, in which men hurl their mothers in a discus-like throw (trust me, it works, you'll be laughing as you think, "This is soooo wrong"), and Bill Plympton's Love Race, in which female celebrity of Paris Hilton proportions is chased around the stadium track by runners who happen to also be world-class at winning a material girl's heart.



That was a trailer for 1000-character SMS Texting, but here's one for the Home Athlon short, which doesn't appear in the selection shown at Fantasia, in case you don't want a spoiler.



Tokyo OnlyPic 2008 shows again on Sunday, July 19th at 2:15 p.m., right after Evangelion 1.0.

Labels: Bill Plympton, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Japan, shorts

This just in: you can win one of 25 tickets to tonight's Montreal screening of Les Lascars, a French feature based on the Flash animations of the same name. Les Lascars shorts are a little rough around the edges but sidesplitting. The feature keeps the overall feel, but some care has been put into the production values, providing lots of polish.

The International premiere of the film takes place tonight, Friday July 17th at 7:00 p.m. at the Fantasia festival.


If you would like a ticket to tonight's film, be one of the first 25 people to send your full name by email to lascars@fpsmagazine.com before 1 pm EST. (You must be available to pick up your ticket at the Hall theatre 20 minutes before the film begins).

Labels: contest, Fantasia festival, features, France

In addition to the opening film and animation highlights revealed by the 2009 Fantasia festival, the rest of the films do not merely round out the animation portion of programming. These selections reflect some of the more interesting selections of on the cinematic edge.

The features, in addition to Genius Party Beyond, Hells, and Les Lascars:

• Edison and Leo, the first Canadian stop-motion feature, is described as a "surprising chunk of steampunk fun, a revisionist, retro science-fiction thriller with a zesty dash of decidedly adult gags." OK, I'm in.
• anime features Eureka Seven and Evangelion 1.0
  

The shorts, in addition to those in Tokyo OnlyPic 2008, Celluloid Experiments 2009, DJ XL5's Razzle Dazzle Zappin' Party:

• Outer Limits of Animation 2009 includes Run Wrake's Control Master, PES' Western Spaghetti, and Theodor Ushev's Drux Flux among others
• Outer Limits of Animation 2008 and DJ XL5's Hellzapoppin' Zappin Party will be shown in separate special outdoor screenings in Parc de la Paix

Also of note:

• Even more animation shorts are sprinkled throughout the festival as usual and are by no means segregated, exposing animation to the wider Fantasia audience. You can find shorts in this year's edition of Small Gauge Trauma and the many Courts métrages québécois and Courts métrages québécois DIY selections. Look out for Malcolm Sutherland's Tourists and The Astronomer's Dream.
• The fight sequences in Battle League Tokyo, animated by Gonzo
• Antique, a live-action adaptation, based on the manga Antique Bakery, which also has an anime adaptation
• M.W., a live-action adaptation based on the powerful manga by animator Osamu Tezuka.

Bon festival!

Labels: anime, Canada, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Japan, National Film Board of Canada, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Osamu Tezuka, PES, Run Wrake, shorts, stop-motion, Studio 4C, US

The full Fantasia 2009 lineup will be announced soon, but here are some of the animation highlights of North American's largest cult film festival, right in fps's home base of Montreal.

I'm excited about Genius Party Beyond, Studio 4C's companion to Genius Party, shown last year at the festival.


Hells Angels is a Madhouse production with a star crew behind this manga adaptation. Cencoroll is a shorter take that seems quite intriguing. Seems equally intriguing, but with a more sedate, less over-the-top storytelling style.

The feature Les Lascars is based on the French cult show of the same name and should go over well with the boisterous festival crowd (if you've not yet made it to a Fantasia festival screening, the involvement of the audience is worth the price of the ticket alone).

Tokyo Onlypic 2008 looks like it will be a side-splitter. It's an anthology of animated and live-action shorts describing outrageous Olympic-style events. Check out Bill Plympton's Race For Love in the trailer.


DJ XL5's Razzle Dazzle Zappin' Party promises another year or crazily juxtaposed shorts (many animated) simulating the channel-changing experience... to the power of ten.

Celluloid Experiments always features edgy animation selections in its roster. I doubt this year will be any different.

You'll be able to view the full schedule online and procure a printed festival program with a DVD full of trailers on Friday. Hope you can survive the wait!

Labels: Fantasia festival, features, festivals, France, Japan, Madhouse, shorts, Studio 4C

The entire lineup looks promising at the Fantasia film festival this year, running from July 9 to 29. While fps focuses on animation, Fantasia (the largest event of its kind in North America) is a combination of the best cult film worldwide, and has an impressive lineup of film of all types, including live-action and animated horror, action, fantasy, science fiction, weird and edgy films.

As I said, we like to stick with animation around here, but I have to mention this year's opening film, even though it's got (gasp) real people in it.

This year's opening film is the live-action feature Yatterman that began life as a manga in the 70s, which shortly after became an anime series (that was recently updated in 2008).
This is the part where we usually begin a lament (but not always). Definitely not this time!


The director is the irreverent Takashi Miike who made films such as Audition and Sukiyaki Western Django. To me this is more reason to see it. However, if viewers are worried about how he would do an all-ages film, I point to the fantastic film The Great Yokai War, which featured his signature style, but also was a wonderful film for younger viewers.

I think this film will be the type of fare which is best watched with an enthusiastic audience, in the same way that the live-action version of Cutey Honey (directed by animator Hideako Anno) wowed audiences just a few years ago.

The full Fantasia lineup will be available on Friday, July 3.

Labels: anime, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Japan, live action, manga

This release makes me so sad. I'm not even sure where to start commenting on it. I had decided previously that all reviews I submitted would fit a format, with portions devoted to story, video and disc features at the very least. That format just won't work for what I have to say about Koch's release of Gulliver's Travels.

Read more after the jump:

It's pointless to review the story here. It's a classic book (or chapter of a book, as the case may be) adapted into a classic animated film. It would be like critiquing Wizard of Oz. There's no point. It is what it is - a 1939 animated feature film produced by the Fleischer Brothers in answer to Disney's success with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It's far from perfect but the animation, rushed as it was, stands the test of time.

At issue here is the quality of the Blu-ray disc versus the claims made by the distribution company, Koch and the people from Cartoon Crazys who are responsible for the restoration. I think it's fantastic that they've attacked Gulliver's Travels with such enthusiasm, doing what they perceive to be the best they could with the materials at hand. Also, I'm incredibly thankful that they made a screener copy available to us, enabling me to write this review and inform you of the contents of the Blu-ray. What makes me sad is the result of their efforts and the fact that they don't see what a travesty they've created, that what they've released is such a misrepresentation of the original film print and the artists' intent.

Let me put it in bold, certain terms: Gulliver's Travels has been stretched and cropped to fit your 16:9 widescreen display. This is unacceptable under any circumstances. Need proof? Here you go. I took a trip into Photoshop and merged a couple of screen-grabs - one from an old 4:3 public domain copy I downloaded and another from Koch's 16:9 Blu-ray disc presentation.



In the first image you can clearly see that these two frames don't line up (I tried to match them by keeping the facial area parallel, having lowered the opacity on the Blu-ray screen-grab to make it slightly see-through). The 16:9 version from Koch has clearly been stretched, despite their claims to the contrary. Note how the faces line up for the most part, but the further you move from them the further from congruent the images become. That stretching has also made the Blu-ray frame slightly more squat. Observe the water line in both images.



This second image sees me distorting the 16:9 of the Blu-ray frame to match the 4:3 of the older release. They line up almost perfectly, with slightly more information on the left side of the screen, less on the right and tons cropped off of the top and bottom of the Blu-ray frame.

Koch claims in their press info that the remaster process was performed,

"...frame-by-frame without stretching characters or losing any image beyond standard vertical safe areas - and the use of proprietary techniques actually enables more picture to be visible on the left and right sides of the frame than ever before"

I cry foul. This is either the press folks completely unaware of what was happening in the lab or an out-and-out untruth. There's the evidence, staring us in the face in the images above.

I'm further disturbed by the claims made by Peter Rosenberg of Cartoon Crazys, the company responsible for the restoration, in comments over at Cartoon Brew. He asserts,

"It wasn’t a 4:3 movie on the film print, it was 35 mm. and the 4:3 version seen on TV was panned and scanned and had image removed for the tv safe area’s."

And,

"The original was in 35mm and cut to fit TV screens in the 60’s but we restored all the lost images and safe area’s and it really looks terrific. We took over 12 months to do it and make sure it was right and as i said Tom discussed doing a wide screen version on film with Richard (Max Fleischer's son) and he thought since the Fleischers were innovators in their own time Max would be delighted by our innovations and he trusted only us to do it right."

Not only is it ridiculous to contend that the 35mm print was anything but 1.37:1, essentially a 4:3 aspect ratio, but it's further insulting to maintain that the Fleischer's would have appreciated an alteration of their work that would include the cutting and distortion of the film frame. If I could, I would direct Rosenberg and his entire crew to read the transcript from the Home Theatre Forum's discussion with the restoration team responsible for the current release of Fox's The Robe. Now, there's restoration done right and with respect for the filmmakers' original intent! If Cartoon Crazys and Koch truly care for this film and have a desire to bring a properly restored version to the home video market, they'll have to cut a deal with Viacom who currently own the rights and have the original nitrate successive exposure negatives, backup positives, optical soundtrack negatives, and isolated Main Title elements in the vaults of the UCLA Film & Television Archives in Hollywood. Now that would be impressive indeed!

Allow me to qualify the above criticisms of Koch's Gulliver's Travels by saying that I would have little to no problem with this release had the studio and the "restoration" team not made claims that didn't hold true. The disc still wouldn't have won a purchase recommendation from me but I wouldn't have taken issue with their interpretation of a public domain film. It's out there for anyone to do with as they please. This version is just as valid as any other. It's the contentions made by Koch and Cartoon Crazys regarding the transfer and restoration of Gulliver's Travels that make this Blu-ray a questionable release.

Aside from aspect ratio/stretching issues, the image on the Blu-ray disc is a bit of a mixed bag. It appears equivalent to a poor standard definition transfer on screen: hazy with severe colour bleed and lack of detail, leaving the impression that most of the clean up was rendered with heavy-handed use of digital noise reduction tools, affecting the look of a dirty, old still taken into Photoshop and posterized, with some Gaussian blur added for good effect. On a positive note, the colours are quite vivid here, possibly even more accurate than ever before, creating what might be the brightest and most brilliant presentation of Gulliver's Travels seen in years.

Without going too deeply into the rest of the issues plaguing the feature on the Blu-ray disc (film judder, jerky movement, poorly assembled and static menus, thin and unnecessary 5.1 surround mix) I'm forced to recommend giving Koch's Gulliver's Travels a pass. If you must own a copy of the film now, you would be better served tracking down the long out-of-print Hal Roach studios Image Entertainment DVD release.

PS: There are two bonus cartoons and a brief vintage documentary on the Blu-ray as well as the feature. Not that these additions alter my opinion in the least.

Labels: Blu-ray, DVD, features, Fleischer Studios, Gulliver's Travels, Popeye

Since Thursday, WNET in New York has made Nina Paley's independent Flash feature Sita Sings The Blues available in its entirety online. The primary story arc is a retelling of the Ramayana from the point of view of Sita.

The film will also air on WNET on March 7 for those who want to gather around the television.

(via Mark Mayerson, Brent Smith, and Matt Forsythe.)

Labels: features, Flash animation, Internet, New York, Nina Paley

Spring break is here and it is time for Festival international de films pour enfants de Montreal (FIFEM) once again. The opening film from France, Mia et le Migou is far from the only animated selection this year, but it is definitely an interesting one. The film's director is Jacques-Remy Girerd, the producer of Tragic Story with Happy Ending and Hungu (recently featured in the NFB Screening Room) and director of delightful La prophétie des grenouilles (Raining Cats and Frogs). Mia was released in France last year, and is proving to be a hit with families.



Another animated feature that recently received accolades, Nocturna, a 2007 feature from Spain, is also screening. In all there are five animated features to keep the kids and their animation-friendly parents interested.

fps favourites Komaneko and Ludovic are back in the Mini-cinephiles program track, geared toward animation for children as young as 2 or 3. Komaneko is a stop-motion cat, who likes to make stop-motion films. Ludovic is a little teddy bear whose educational and inventive tales are also told using stop-motion animation, directed by Co Hoedeman, Oscar winner for the short, Sand Castle. The Ludovic television series is a follow-up to the Four Seasons in the Life of Ludovic shorts.

Even more shorts will screen before feature films, including Konstantin Bronzit's Oscar-nominated short, A Lavatory Lovestory.

Do it for the kids... er, les enfants... all fillms will be screening in French or with French subtitles.

Labels: Canada, features, FIFEM, France, Japan, Montreal, Russia, shorts, Spain

Via Boing Boing, we hear about From Inside, a new animated short feature film by John Bergin based on his graphic novel of the same name, a story about pregnancy symbolised by a massive, home-destroying freight train. Here's Gareth Branwyn describing it:

From Inside has always been a film, even when it was a comic book. When I first got the galleys and began thumbing through it, I saw storyboards, I saw frames and camera angles, I saw sweeps and transitions. The experience on the page was very cinematic. So it makes sense that John would want to go the other way and make a film that feels like reading a comic book in motion. And no, we're not talking about a comic book being adapted to the big screen as a full-blown animation. John worked with the original art from the book and did the ol' Ken Burns Effect on the panels, adding some animation elements, and 3D models and set pieces. The result feels like a mash-up between a static comic book, a pop-up book, and full-blown 3D animation. Its "bookness" is more intact than other comics made into films.

And here's the trailer, which looks glorious. (And anybody who wants to buy me this print? In my good books, forever.)

Labels: features, From Inside

Coraline, the first stop-motion feature film to be presented in 3D, is being released in North American theaters on 6 February 2009. Neil Gaiman, author of the multiple award-winning novel upon which the film is based, stopped briefly in Montreal on his promotional tour for the film. I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with him about the choice of animation versus live action for interpreting Coraline and The Graveyard Book, as well as some of his ideas about animated adaptations of his other works.


Arin Murphy: You’ve explained that Coraline was very firmly a stop-motion idea in your head. Your Newbery-award winning novel The Graveyard Book has been optioned by Neil Jordan, who’s going to be doing a live-action adaptation of it. Did it ever cross your mind that that could be done in animation of some form?

Neil Gaiman: No. No, I wanted what I was seeing in my head. For The Graveyard Book I’ve always seen real people, and part of the fun will be how they’ll do the ghosts. But the idea of making anything less than very, very real people and sets in which you can walk around and tap on headstones – it just seems wrong. On the other hand, now, I would love to do something like The Wolves in the Walls as animation. Whether 2D or 3D or stop-motion — as long as it felt like Dave McKean, that would be amazing. Henry and I have started chatting in a lazy kind of way about Odd & The Frost Giants as an animated project. That may well work as a cool animated idea. So I think there are definitely things of mine out there that I do want animated… I just didn’t want The Graveyard Book. For me, in my head, it’s live-action.

I think it’s wonderful that as an author you can say, “I feel this about this book,” and people will actually say, “Great, let’s actually explore that direction.”

I think it’s so incredibly lucky. I think as well there’s part of me that worries that if you made Coraline as a live-action film and really made it well, you’d end up with The Shining for kids. You would wind up with something… I don’t know if you’ve been on the Coraline website, but they have this wonderful thing where you can put buttons over your eyes?

Yes, I can’t bring myself to do it.

It’s really disturbing. It’s so much more disturbing. The fact that these [stop-motion puppets] are little dolls and you kind of know that they don’t have [real] eyes behind the buttons… that somehow makes it kind of okay. [pause] Not very okay, but kind of okay. They have buttons. Doing that with real human beings might be really seriously disturbing.

Well, there’s that one moment in the film where they say, “If you want to stay with us, all you need to do is…” and they push the buttons across to her. In the book that gave me pause as well, because when you read it, you visualize it. If you saw a real live flesh and blood person with buttons sewn in their eyes—well, just think about your button trailer!

Yeah!

Everything’s fine until you actually put the buttons up, and then you smile—

And I have no idea how actually sinister that smile would have been without the buttons there. There was this weird thing where I knew that if I just put buttons up in the right way, and I did the [demonstrates] smile, it was going to be absolutely terrifying. Just for a moment.

Yup. It worked.

Shouldn’t have done, but it did.

Thank you so very, very much.

You are so very welcome. Thank you for coming.





Previously on fps:

Interview With Neil Gaiman, Part One
Coraline (review)

Labels: 3D, Coraline, features, Henry Selick, interviews, Laika, Neil Gaiman, stereoscopy, stop-motion

Coraline, the first stop-motion feature film to be presented in 3D, is being released in North American theaters on February 6. Neil Gaiman, author of the multiple award-winning novel upon which the film is based, stopped briefly in Montreal on his promotional tour for the film. I had the pleasure of sitting down and talking with him about the development of the project through its various stages.

Arin Murphy: Neil, congratulations on the imminent release of Coraline.

Neil Gaiman: Thank you. Yes, three days to go!

I was lucky enough to see it at the press screening last week.

Did you get it in 3D, or 2D?

I saw it in 3D.

Oh, good!

It really is quite the experience, isn’t it?

Yes, it’s not quite like anything else. And you know, it’s a lovely thing when you can actually say, “It’s not like anything else.”

Well, some of that is due to the story.

That’s true. But story aside, the way Henry uses 3D to delineate space is something nobody’s done before. You get that one needle gag five seconds into the movie, almost just so he lets you know that he could do this, if he wanted to. [It’s like saying] we can do this, and now we’re not going to. Now we’re going to use 3D in a way that isn’t about throwing things at the audience. This is the film you’re going to see, and we will simply make it good.




And he does a fabulous job with it.

It is awesome.

Were you thinking cinematically when you wrote Coraline?

No. I was thinking story when I wrote Coraline. When I finished I thought, “You know, somebody’s going to make this into a film, and I would like to see it… and if I had to pick anything, I would like it to be stop-motion.”

I had seen and loved Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, and had liked it enough that I had taken note of who directed it. Which meant that a few years later when James and the Giant Peach came out, I went to see that. And while I had problems with it, I loved it; the genius was there. I just thought there were some missteps. Like the going from live action to stop-motion; that seemed wrong. I wanted it to have been stop-motion all the way through. I wound up asking Henry about [it] many years later, and he said it was the budget; they could not afford to do it entirely stop-motion, and they played the hand they were dealt. So when I handed in the manuscript for Coraline I asked my agent, “Could you get this to Henry Selick?” And about a month later I found myself in an editing suite watching poor Henry as he struggled with the madness of Monkeybone, and very shortly after that he gave [Coraline] to [producer] Bill Mechanic, who bought it for Henry.

And Henry wrote a script, and sent it to me. And I said, “I think it’s too faithful.” And it was. It felt very, very laboriously faithful. You know, it kept turning into a silent little girl walking down corridors.


Which works in a novel –

Well, which works in a novel because you’re inside her head. You know what she’s thinking, you know what she’s feeling. But without benefit of voiceover or turning to the fourth wall and talking, you don’t have that.

So then Henry went away, rather sadly, and came back about a year later with a second draft script, which was essentially the script of the film you saw. But at this point it had to be live action, because Bill Mechanic had some sort of deal with Disney which precluded him from doing animation of any kind. And I believe that Michelle Pfeiffer was meant to be the Other Mother… And I’m sort of watching and thinking, “Well, that’s okay, I suppose, but I really wanted stop-motion.” And then 9/11 happened, and it became slowly apparent that Bill Mechanic’s funding was never going to [come through]. Eventually, the rights lapsed. And I wound up doing something you’re never meant to do, which is giving them – I think they got about nine months to a year of free option. Because I believed in Henry.

That’s such a wonderful statement of faith.

Well, it was a particularly wonderful statement of faith because the book had since come out, been published, been a huge success, and now had lots of large shark-like entities swimming around going, “We will give you real money, we will get a lot of money….” But I like Henry. And I trusted him. And I trusted somehow that things were going to work out. And then Henry wound up at Laika, and he showed the script at some point to [Laika Vice President of Animation and stop-motion animator] Travis Knight, who was a fan of mine anyway. And Travis loved the script.

Bill Mechanic did not like stop-motion. He thought it was antiquated and that nobody was interested, and that [the film] should be done in CGI. And he was pushing Henry incredibly hard to have him make it half CGI and half stop-motion, something like that, so that it would go out of antiquated puppetry animation into cool modern animation. Thank God Henry came up with 3D and said, “What if we did this instead?” There were enough bells and whistles in the 3D concept that they abandoned the CG idea, which made me so happy. And it made me happy because, look, if I’d wanted a CG movie when I finished writing I would have given it to my agent and said, “Could you get it on John Lasseter’s desk.” He’s the best at [CGI]. I didn’t. What I said was, “Can you get it to Henry Selick,” who is non-pareil in what he does. The only stop-motion person I like as much as I like Henry, but who works in a completely different direction, is Jan Švankmajer. And I guess it may say something about why I wanted this to be stop-motion that when my daughter Holly (for whom I originally wrote Coraline) was five years old, her favourite movie was Jan Švankmajer’s Alice.


Jump to part two of the interview.


Previously on fps:
Coraline (review)

Previously on The Critical Eye:
Neil Gaiman on anime and Miyazaki

Labels: 3D, Coraline, features, Henry Selick, interviews, Laika, Neil Gaiman, stereoscopy, stop-motion

I tend to be very protective of the books I’ve read and loved, and I feel that most film adaptations don’t do their literary sources justice. Author Neil Gaiman’s repeated positive references to the progress of the stop-motion animation film adaptation of his Hugo-award winning short novel Coraline on his blog and in interviews have kept me hoping for the best, and I’ve enjoyed the vignettes and teasers Laika has released. Nothing in the promotional material gave me cause for concern: Henry Selick seemed to be treating it with respect. And that’s not a surprise, because when Gaiman completed Coraline he handed it to his agent and asked her to send a copy to Henry Selick before it had even been published. When the author trusts the filmmaker enough to do that, it eliminates the need for excessive amounts of anxiety on my part.

Director and scriptwriter Henry Selick has created a fantastic (in the true sense of the word) adaptation of the world in the multiple-award-winning book by Neil Gaiman. The screenplay is remarkably faithful to the book, with the exception of the addition of a new character. Wybie, a boy approximately Coraline’s age, was created by the filmmaker to serve as a foil for Coraline. In a book an omniscient narrator can share a character’s thoughts with the reader, but in a film that character sometimes needs interaction with others to evoke their feelings or thoughts. Wybie serves his purpose, and doesn’t detract from the story or from Coraline herself in any way. And whereas the book has Coraline very deliberately planning her final triumph over her Other Mother, the film has a more immediate and action-based conflict and resolution. If you’ve read the book, you’ll have expectations of the mouse circus: it’s delicious in film form, too. The pacing is excellent, the balance of dialogue to action is good, and each character is well-defined. All in all, the screenplay is a success.

My other concern about the film was its use of 3D technology. Too often this technology is used as a gimmick or a way to prop up what might otherwise be a less than successful sequence. This concern, too, was laid to rest in the enjoyably chilling opening sequence. Coraline is the first animated stop-motion feature to be filmed entirely in 3D, and successfully uses stereoscopy to create a seemingly more realistic stop-motion animation. There’s no gimmickry here, only a serious use of the technology to enhance the entire experience and to create the feeling of a stage with depth instead of a flat screen. There are a couple of things in the opening sequence that move out toward the audience, a nod to the experience the technology can give, but in general the technology is used to create the sense of depth and space. It makes the story more real instead of pointing out its meta-reality.

The animation is outstanding. The smoothness of the motion, the camera moves and angles are justifiably jaw-dropping. The production design is incredible. Apart from the unity of style throughout the design, the colour palette and texture are big players in the film. There’s a certain excitement knowing that the animated film you’re about to see has been actually constructed in tangible, physical form. The magic is real; it’s not an effect. Of course, the star of the film is also only twenty-two inches tall, but that doesn’t make it any easier to build her world realistically. Textures and fabrics need to be to scale, and everything needs to be as realistic as possible. For certain close-up shots of hands and such things, larger models need to be built to provide the proper sense of proportion and scale. The animating team also used rapid prototyping technology to create the multitude of facial expressions exhibited by the puppets. Working from scans and casts of original sculpts, the rapid prototype department built multiple replacement faces in CG modeling programs, which were then “printed” by three-dimensional object printers to create the puppet faces for the replacement animation technique, hand-finishing each face before applying it to the puppet.

The film features excellent voice acting from a strong cast. There’s no stunt casting here: every voice actor has been cast for a genuine talent and what they bring to the role. Dakota Fanning manages a wonderful balance between eleven-year-old bravado composed of aggression and fear, while Teri Hatcher’s Mother and Other Mother are a terrific contrast between mundane and just too good to be true. The delightful John Hodgman voices Father and Other Father.

Bruno Coulais' score fits right into the film without being memorable on its own, supporting the story without calling attention to itself. The children’s choral pieces successfully contribute to the unsettling feel of the film, particularly in the opening sequence. The score features lots of harp, which creates an idyllic feel for the Other House. Much of the music makes one think of a music box, a parallel image for the falseness of the world beyond the secret door. There’s a fun little They Might Be Giants ditty sung for Coraline by her Other Father, too.

While the film projects a strong message of self-reliance, overcoming fear, and being careful about what one wishes for, it also features creepy visuals and chilling concepts, and could well serve as nightmare fodder for younger children. (Heck, I know adults who are unsettled by the notion of buttons for eyes and who refuse to see the film.) Parents considering bringing a child to the PG film should view the available trailers and excerpts available at www.coraline.com, and evaluate their child’s maturity level and story preferences carefully beforehand. (On his blog, Neil Gaiman addresses this problem by saying much the same thing: You know your child better than the filmmakers and the MPAA do.)

Stay till the end of the credits for a credit cookie, as well as a bonus “for those in the know.”

Labels: 3D, Coraline, features, Henry Selick, Laika, Neil Gaiman, reviews, stereoscopy, stop-motion

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, as usual too early for anyone who likes a decent sleep. Wall-E has been nominated for Best Screenplay, which though mostly dialogueless is an extremely worthy nomination.

Waltz With Bashir has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Academy has played it safe with the nomination of Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, and Wall-E in the Best Animated Film category. They are all great films, but I expect no upsets in that category. There seem to be some great choices that are not in the running.

Labels: Bolt, features, Kung Fu Panda, Oscars, Wall-E, Waltz With Bashir

The Golden Globe Winners were announced on January 11th.

That Wall-E won for best animated feature is no big surprise, since, as Emru pointed out, "when Pixar gets things right, it's perfect".

The nice surprise was that Waltz With Bashir won for Best Foreign Language film. Last year, Persepolis was nominated in the same category. Maybe animation is starting to leave the ghetto – at least when it's not in English.

Labels: features, Golden Globes, Wall-E, Waltz With Bashir

In the flurry of holiday films it might be easy to miss a few. The animated feature-length documentary Waltz with Bashir opens this week theatrically in select cities, some of which include New York, Los Angeles, Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto.

While I am not a big fan of the animation style typically, in this context I think it strikes an interesting balance with the tone and subject matter of the film. The film is a meditation on war from the point of view of former Israeli soldiers from the war with Lebanon, so there is much to discuss in addition to the animation.

Labels: documentaries, features, Flash animation, Israel

Another day, another trailer! This first look at Tezuka's little robot boy in CGI form isn't really filling me with glee. Combine the fact that it all looks somehow wrong (Astro Boy's clothes don't scream manga/anime icon to me) with the lacklustre showing of Imagi's big-screen CGI TMNT debut last year and you can colour me concerned.

If the YouTube version above isn't floating your boat, maybe the HD streams at Moviefone.com will satisfy.

Labels: anime, astroboy, CGI, features, Imagi, Osamu Tezuka, TMNT, trailers

For the first time in a long time, I saw a Disney film and missed the publicity hype preceding it. Except for some of the recent commentary scanned on Cartoon Brew (a testament to my level of Busy; this blog is a pleasure in life that you need to take your time to read), I managed not to see any web banners, marquee posters, or newspaper, radio or television ads.

At a much earlier time, I read of the changes to the stewardship of the Bolt in the wake of restructuring changes at the Walt Disney Animation Studios. I knew from the Brewmasters' reports that the film had changed markedly from its original vision, but I hadn't really thought about it lately.

But time had passed, and Bolt was not really on my mind as the studio was gearing up for the film. I managed to side-step the Disney hype machine this one time. So I'm writing this based entirely on my impressions of what I saw in the cinema on Wednesday.

Bolt is a winner.

There are tons of laughs in the film, but you don't feel like you're having your buttons pushed, and the dialogue is really snappy, but not in the way I find a lot of mainstream animation features tend to do it - lots of pop culture references, "aren't we clever" one-offs that get dated quickly. The lines are truly clever and fit the characters' perfectly.

Also, it's no secret that I'm not a fan of stunt-casting. The celebrity voice talent do their job well and don't get in my way of enjoying the film. They make their characters more believable and serve characters, not the other way around.

I did see the trailer for this film just this morning, and I must say I'm glad I went into without any preconceptions. As a result, the opening scene was more thrilling and taut than I think it would have been if I knew what was coming.

This is a fairly conventional Disney family feature, but I don't mean that in a bad way. Yes, it's safe. But it doesn't draw away from the fact that the film is engaging, the timing and pacing are dead-on, and the character animation is above-average. I can't help but wonder how much further the character animation could have been pushed if it were hand-drawn. Like Dreamworks' Kung Fu Panda, there is a point where the animation style changes and I wonder, why does all digital animation that touts the CG label feel it has to be hyper-realistic? However, I don't really spend much time on it because I thought that the animation I was watching was well-done.

Speaking of techniques, I did watch this film in 3D (as well as trailers for Blue Sky's next Ice Age instalment, and Pixar's Up), and as much as I get annoyed by reading reviews that solely focus on a new technique or "gimmick" I liked the use of 3D in the film (as well as the trailers) because they all finally got something right. Unlike Beowulf, I never felt like the whole point of making Bolt was so we could watch it in 3D. Instead of setting up shots so that the viewer would get the feeling of things being moved toward them, the enhancement was used to convey a feeling of depth. There was very little effort made to break the fourth wall. Instead, the screen was the boundary for the actors on a stage.

The next Disney feature regardless of technique better be good, because a lot of viewers will be disappointed if it doesn't entertain as much as Bolt.

Labels: 3D, Bolt, CGI, Disney, features, reviews, stereoscopy

Joseph Chen, curator of the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, likes to highlight the fact that animated films are neither tied to a specific genre or animation technique, nor are they thematically hide-bound – the only thing linking them is that they are animated and generally do not include much live-action (although some do mix it up). The “Midnight Madness” screenings are, in Joseph’s words “all about edge” – both story-wise and in the techniques used to “paint” the story.

This year’s two midnight screenings were We Are the Strange (by MDOTSTRANGE, a filmmaker based in San Jose) and From Inside (by John Bergin, a Missouri-based artist and feature filmmaker).


We Are The Strange is definitely edgy - an assault on the senses for which I wasn't really prepared, but which had me thinking for some time afterwards. It was a clever composite of 8-bit, pixelated gaming imagery, cut with stop-motion animation, a couple of live-action appearances, and anime-style animation. The soundtrack was cranked to 11, and, frankly, you're not meant to be comfortable with it. But I was definitely engaged - and it was as visually complex and interesting, as it was disturbing. Not for everybody, but I really liked it.


From Inside was the Saturday night midnight screening. John Bergin, the writer, director and animator, warned us before the movie started that the story was as bleak as the weather outside (it was windy, bitterly cold and snowing). What followed was a visually stunning, dark allegory. How do you find hope in a world going to hell - what can you do to stop it, and should children be brought into this chaos? Or are children the only redemption we have? I loved this movie - it combined 3D animation along with awesome 2D 1930s-inspired, dark illustration. Again, not for everyone, but a truly beautiful piece of artwork, and a story that ends on a more hopeful note than you're lead to expect.

Labels: border-crossing, features, festivals, From Inside, Joseph Chen, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema

On Day 2 of the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, we got to see a screening of an original 35mm print of Grave of the Fireflies. This is an Isao Takahata, 1988 Studio Ghibli film, based on a short story about a 14-year-old boy who tries to care for his sister after their ailing mother is killed during a raid in the 1945 Kobe bombings. He and his sister experience the fear-inspired selfishness of an aunt and he must find a way to take care of himself and his sister on his own.

There was a panel discussion following the film lead by Fred Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics; John O'Donnell, founder of Central Park Media (the publishers who license the film for North America); and Fred Ruh, author of Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii.

The conversation between the panelists and the audience covered debates as to whether the film was anti-American or rather just anti-war generally, given that the American bombers were barely referred to directly except by the subtle display of some American signage a couple of times on the bomber planes. Another point was raised about the divide between the themes considered culturally sensitive in western animation versus the plain-speaking storytelling of Japanese anime. As a nod to the animated film genre, it was agreed that this socially important, and poignant story couldn't be told the same way in a live-action film (a live-action version was made in 2005), given the youth of the actors required to play the parts and the fact that they couldn't be represented as realistically in the unhealthy conditions in which they were portrayed for the anime version.

This screening was also presented by UrbanEx and their Out Of The Cold programme.

Labels: anime, features, festivals, Fred Schodt, Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata, Mamoru Oshii, manga, Studio Ghibli, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

Quirino Cristiani's parents had really wanted him to be a doctor. Just after the turn of the 20th century, the Italian immigrants in Argentina had hoped that Quirino would "get over" his penchant for drawing, and be a doctor in the Buenos Aires hospital where his father worked.

Young Quirino only wanted to draw and was especially fascinated with representing movement, and later made a living drawing political satire cartoons for various newspapers and magazines. Newsreel producer and entrepreneur, Frederico Valle, first commissioned Cristiani to make artwork for the end of his newsreels, and wanted Cristiani to see if he could make them move. This lead to them making El Apostol: a 70-minute animated feature satirizing Argentina's President Yrigoyen, which premiered in 1917 and was a runaway success, playing to packed cinemas for six months.

None of the footage survived a fire that destroyed all of Valle's precious stock in 1926. But we know about it - and its impact on the history of animation from the Italian documentary, Quirino Cristiani: The Mystery of the First Animated Movies.

Labels: Argentina, documentaries, El Apostol, features, festivals, Quirino Cristiani, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema

This year’s Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema kicked off last Thursday night with a screening of Europe’s first animated feature film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed (Die Arbenteuer des Prinzen Achmed). Considered Europe's first animated feature film, it is 81 minutes long, and was made in 1926 by Lotte Reiniger (along with her husband and two others).

Reiniger made the film with paper cut-out shadow puppets – apparently over 100,000 of them. What was particularly special about Thursday night’s screening was the live soundtrack performed by Miles and Karina, who were commissioned earlier this year by The Northwest Film Forum to compose a new score for this amazing piece of cinematic history. I lost myself in the story – a tale based on 1001 Arabian nights – partly because the beautiful details of the animation worked so well at propelling the story, but also very much because the music was such a brilliant complement to the visuals… Miles and Karina’s music evoked the moods and humor of the story beautifully – and so subtly that I completely forgot the music was being performed live!

Labels: features, festivals, Lotte Reiniger, silhouette animation, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema

Independent animator Bill Plympton's feature Idiots and Angels will be screened this Saturday at the 2008 Toronto After Dark genre film festival, running from October 17th to 24th.

Plympton's 2007 short, Shut-Eye Hotel, will also be shown on Sunday as a part of the Shorts After Dark program, which also features Michael Langan's Doxology, and includes an even split of live-action and animation shorts.

Previously on fps
Bill Plympton

Labels: Bill Plympton, features, festivals, Michael Langan, shorts, Toronto, Toronto After Dark

It's been a crazy year, but I have been looking forward to the Ottawa International Animation Festival, well.. since the last one ended. This is always the case.

Emru will miss his first festival since 1988, but Brenden Fletcher, Rene Walling and I will be taking in the fest, and we'll try to bring some of it back to you, too.

As usual, there lineup is exceptional. I don't know how I am going to make to all of the special screenings and retrospectives. Just a few of my must-see list items include the Michael Sporn and Jonas Odell retrospectives, Brainwashed! Cartoons That Tell Us What To Think, and The New Wave of Japanese Animation.

Richard Williams' presentation (in interview with John Canemaker) would be in my list, but it's sold already out, which is altogether unsurprising considering the circumstances. If there are any seats left 15 minutes before the event, rush tickets will be sold, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I will have to satisfy myself with a special screening of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? instead. I'm also looking forward to the Yo Gabba Gabba! presentation on Saturday.

I haven't even gotten into the masterclasses, workshops and panels. Honestly, it's like trying to bail out the ocean with a bucket. I'm going to enjoy trying!

Labels: features, festivals, Jonas Odell, Michael Sporn, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Richard Williams, shorts

They say the best things in life are free, and in this case it's hard to argue. Since July there's been an exhibition in Manchester called How Manga Took Over the World, and they've been offering free anime screenings that will continue through to September 21. The roster is staggering: there are daily screenings of the first episodes of Astroboy, Tetsujin 28, Noein, Naruto: Unleashed, Otogi Zoshi, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and Dominion: Tank Police.

But that's just the appetizer. Every Thursday through Saturday, there are screenings of anime features, many of which have been seen on DVD but really deserve to be shown on the big screen. Drool-worthy entries include Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky (start lining up—it's this Thursday!), the Cowboy Bebop movie, Akira, and the wonderfully old-school Golgo 13. Check the Urbis website for dates and time.

[Thanks, Nausicaa.net.]

Labels: anime, features, festivals, United Kingdom

Hero Complex, the LA Times geek blog, posted some pictures for those of us who can't make it to the San Diego Comic Con of a display of maquettes from Coraline, Henry Selick's 3D stop-motion feature, based on the young adult novel by Neil Gaiman.

Labels: features, Henry Selick, Laika, San Diego Comic Con, stop-motion

Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew and Harry McCracken of Harry-Go-Round have both commented on the San Diego Comic Con preview of footage from Up and Bolt. Take a look at this teaser for Up.

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

Labels: CGI, Disney, features, Pixar, San Diego Comic Con

Montreal is home to the world's largest comedy festival, Just For Laughs. The festival's annual live action and animated Eat My Shorts program begins today and continues until July 18. Among the animated offerings are John and Karen and Lapsus (pictured above) two recent shorts I enjoyed.

Space Chimps, a CG feature by the Vanguard in the UK and Starz Animation in Canada, will also be previewed tonight.

Labels: CGI, features, festivals, Montreal, shorts

The audience of the Monday screening of Fear(s) of the Dark was treated to a bonus before things got rolling: Hot Dog, the third in a series of shorts by independent New York animator, Bill Plympton. Many know Bill Plympton's name, but those who don't will immediately recognize his trademark style in the clip shown here. Only a portion of the short is in the clip, and gets much funnier as it moves from one stage to the next.

His current feature, Idiots and Angels, seems distinctly different in tone. In Plympton's words:

The look of the film is very Eastern European - something like what Jan Svankmayer might make, or David Lynch if he made animation - very dark and surreal.

Fear(s) of the Dark will replay again tomorrow at the Fantasia festival, but without Hot Dog preceding it. Later in the day, Plympton will present the Canadian premiere of Idiots and Angels, and continuing the festival's spotlight on Animated Auteur Visions.

Previously on fps
2008 Fantasia Festival Animation
Review: Plymptoons: The Complete Early Works of Bill Plympton

Labels: Bill Plympton, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, New York, shorts

Warner Bros. marks their entry into the Indian animation field with an as yet untitled film directed by Jyotin Goel (Zahreelay, Inam Dus Hazar, popular sci-fi T.V. show Antariksh) and produced by Goel Screencraft. Goel had this to say about the upcoming film,

"This is a story of love and adventure, full of color, music, drama and comedy. The film is not based on the humans but portrays the melodious world of birds and attempts to explore their lives from an unusual standpoint. It is a journey into the lives of birds as they soar over dense jungles and teeming cities, giving them a point of view of the world that is hilariously different from ours."

Am I the only one excited by this? I don't know Goel's work but the premise sounds quite charming. If the animation is handled well, we could be seeing this one on the festival circuit relatively soon!

via IndiaFM.com

Labels: features, India, Warner Bros.

Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea is almost upon us, evidenced by this cover tease of the newest, gorgeous artbook from Studio Ghibli. Filled with sketches, backgrounds, storyboards and cel reproductions, the newest volume in the Studio's famous "Art of..." line will be available on August 2nd for 2,900 yen.

via GhibliWorld.com

Labels: anime, art, features, Hayao Miyazaki, Ponyo, Studio Ghibli

The Canadian premiere of Peur(s) du Noir on Monday is a part of Fantasia's 2008 spotlight, Animated Auteur Visions. Not all of the six shorts are horror films, but each features a black and white animated exploration of fear. Contributors include comic artists Charles Burns and Blutch.



The screening will also be a benefit for fps editor, Emru Townsend. A portion of the profits from each ticket sold will go toward Emru and his immediate family as he prepares for his upcoming bone marrow transplant.

(Earlier this year, Emru wrote a message letting people know that they could help to save his life or that of another person waiting for a bone marrow or stem cell transplant. In June, a potential match was found in the system where there previously were none among over 12 million people registered as potential donors. You can read more about his experience on the Heal Emru blog.)

Previously on fps:
2008 Fantasia Festival Animation

Labels: comics, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, France, shorts

One of the first films that ever screened at Fantasia was the animated adaptation of Katsuhiro's Otomo's Memories, produced by Studio 4°C. Over the years, the studio has produced some notable feature-length narratives and shorts in omnibus films, including but not limited to Cat Soup, The Animatrix, Mind Game, Tekkon Kinkreet, and Batman: Gotham Knight. They have a powerhouse of talent that has allowed them to create some of the most interesting animation anywhere.

In Kenji Ishimaru's 2007 interview with studio CEO Eiko Tanaka, she mentions that all of this hard work was to get to one point: to be profitable enough to create what became Genius Party.

These seven stories are as distinct as they are breathtaking. Shanghai Dragon, Dethtic4, Limit Cycle and the opening sequence Genius Party (also a self-contained short) are the shorts that are seared into my brain. Almost every short has perfect pacing, a great aesthetic, and an interesting story.

The project grew large enough that this is the first of two omnibus films, the other being Genius Party Beyond. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Genius Party plays again on Sunday, July 6th at 1:00pm at Montreal's Fantasia film festival.

Previously on fps:
2008 Fantasia Festival Animation
Studio 4°C
Genius Party
Interview: Eiko Tanaka
Interview: Masaki Yuasa

Labels: anime, features, Genius Party, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe, Shoji Kawamori, shorts, Studio 4C

There is a reason Batman has his own label on fps. Besides many of us being big comic fans, many of us are huge fans of the Bat specifically. He has numerous animated interpretations and the notable incarnations in the 90s and 00s have definitely left their mark on (what was) Saturday morning television, cable television, comic book adaptations, and Warner Bros. television animation.

So people are a little nervous about an anime version of Batman since Batman: Gotham Knight was announced. I am a huge Batman fan and a huge anime fan, but I won't champion one at the expense of the other. After hearing about the talent behind the series of interrelated shorts, both American and Asian, I was somewhat relieved, but I was also willing to wait for a final verdict once I'd actually seen the shorts. After getting a peek at the soon-to-be released DVD in a theatrical setting gearing up for the 2008 edition of Fantasia, I think people's fears are largely unfounded.

Disliking the stories because they use the visual style of anime is just as bad as only liking it because it is anime. What you need to know is the stories are told well. What you need to know is these stories all embody something about the Legend of the Bat and are consistent with the characters that have already been established. It does look great!

And the same people that dismiss the anthology because it is anime will probably be the ones who refuse to notice that there are six very distinct visual styles that are employed to tell each story. The level of interestingness does vary depending on the style you are drawn to, but this is also the case of a decades long comic-collector who has some artists they prefer over others. Like these artists, Batman's look changes at the whim of the artists involved. The two stories with styles I found the most recognizable and distinct from the others were produced by Studio 4°C. They were even distinct from each other. Selecting one of these as the first story in the set was a great choice as it breaks conventions of what people consider the "anime style."

There are no spoilers in this entire post. I am not interested in ruining it for anybody, especially the die-hard Batman fans. However, if you are told or read spoilers elsewhere, you will not find out anything new about Batman if you already know his character. You will feel comforted by the way the stories fit easily into the mythos that has already been created from past stories. Just go and watch the stories unfold, and enjoy another glimpse of Batman's early days as he tries to learn the ropes of crimefighting.

You can catch a theatrical screening of Batman: Gotham Knight at Montreal's Fantasia festival on Saturday at noon, before it is released on DVD next Tuesday.

Previously on fps
2008 Fantasia Festival Animation
Batman: Gotham Knight Promo Video Online
DC Comics OAVs
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo
The End of Justice League

Previously on The Critical Eye
Batman Animated
Batman & Batman Beyond
Paul Dini
Bruce Timm & Glen Murakami

Labels: anime, Batman, border-crossing, comics, DC Comics, Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Madhouse, shorts, Studio 4C

Just a few weeks ago I was in a car with Tee Bosustow, on the way to an interview for his Toon In podcast. We kicked around a few thoughts on different animated productions, and when I mentioned that I really liked Persepolis, he said he wasn't as enthusiastic about the film.

"What?!?" I said. "Let me out of the car right now. You know what? Don't even bother stopping. Just slow down and let me jump out."

Okay, so maybe that's not exactly how it went down. For that matter, I don't really remember why he didn't like it as much as I did. But at the time his reasoning struck me enough that I recently re-read the comics in anticipation of the DVD release, which I watched not too long ago, along with all the extras. Here are some of the impressions I came away with:

It's always kind of funny when you mistakenly get the DVD with Spanish menus.

Catherine Deneuve is at the Persepolis press conference at Cannes and doesn't get asked a question? How is that possible?

I suspect that Iggy Pop is incapable of sitting in one place for too long without taking his shirt off.

Finally, upon rewatching I think that Persepolis is as much a tribute to Marjane Satrapi's grandmother as it is an autobiography. Never mind the bittersweet ending; from the moment the young Marjane opens her mouth to question authority in school, she's negotiating the principles of self-awareness and honesty to oneself that her grandmother taught her against the realities of the world around her. Whether she's telling off members of the Guardians of the Revolution or standing up to French bigots, she's channelling her grandmother; and guess who's the person she goes to whenever she has serious problems, and the first person to bite her head off if that's what she needs?

Because of the story's geographic and spiritual location in Iran and the timing of the movie's release, some might consider Persepolis political. Because of the strength and intelligence exhibited by Marjane, her mother and her grandmother, some might consider it feminist. After watching the extras, I don't think Satrapi would agree with either sentiment. Persepolis is the story of ordinary-yet-extraordinary people—we all know folks who fit in that category—in trying circumstances, and the legacy that she carries.

Yeah, I'm still on the Persepolis bandwagon.

Where to Get It
Buy Persepolis books and DVDs from Amazon.com

Labels: features, Persepolis

I hate it—I mean, really hate it—that whenever an animated feature is reviewed, writers feel compelled to mention whether or not kids would like it. It's a testament to the fact that, regardless of what the individual writers, editors or publishers feel, the public at large still can't process the idea that adults might want to watch animated features for themselves.

Past responses to this prejudice have included making films that are most definitely not for children, making films that are mainly for kids but include nod-and-wink throwaway gags for adults, and making films that kids and adults can enjoy equally. These have worked to varying degrees, but they all carry with them a fairly standard idea of what children will watch and enjoy.

WALL-E is a bit different in this regard, because it expands the idea of what kids will find entertaining. When Cast Away was released eight years ago, a big deal was made of the fact that there was no dialogue for almost half the movie (in the literal sense; Tom Hanks's character did speak, but no one answered). A similar fuss is being made over the lack of dialogue in WALL-E, but the unspoken question is, will kids be able to sit still for a 103-minute film where the main characters rarely speak?

From the reactions of the kids in the audience (especially the ones in the row right behind me) on Wednesday night, the answer is yes. And in the same way that Tom Hanks's acting was credited for making the dialogue-free parts of Cast Away so compelling, the Pixar animators must be given props for the remarkable acting in WALL-E.

With one exception, none of the many robot characters in the movie can truly speak, and the two that do (WALL-E and EVE) pretty much only say their names, each other's names, and the word "directive." That means that every robot character has to rely on rigid bodies and eyes (or eye surrogates) to communicate and express emotion. Interestingly, WALL-E himself is among the least flexible of the movie's robots; he has treads instead of feet, a pair of rigid mechanical viewfinders instead of an eye-mimicking LED display, and unbendable arms with three flat "fingers" at the end.

In sum, the movie has to be carried by characters that can't speak and are all limited compared to human bodies, and the main character is in some ways the most limited. And it works, thanks to Pixar's careful application of animation's twin traditions of pantomime and bringing inanimate objects to life. There are several references in WALL-E to A113, an in-joke that refers to CalArts's old character animation classroom. In few other films is that gag as relevant as it is in WALL-E; the movie is such an accomplished expression of the pre-digital yet universal art of conveying emotion and story purely through movement that when human characters show up and start talking, they seem clumsy and inelegant in comparison.

So, yes, kids will like WALL-E, as will adults. And we have the art of animation to thank for that.

Labels: CGI, computer animation, features, Pixar, reviews

There are a few things I didn't like about Kung Fu Panda.

First, I couldn't take all the fat jokes. Actually, not the fat jokes per se, but one line ("I eat when I'm nervous") adds a subtext to some of them. In the funny-animal world of Kung Fu Panda, it kind of makes sense that everyone would make fun of title character Po, as he's the only rotund character around, while being somewhat graceless and easily tired despite his designation as the prophesied Dragon Warrior. The problem is, that one sentence (and one the end of a later scene) ratifies some of the stereotypes surrounding real-life overweight people by suggesting that he eats so much due to a lack of control (i.e., it's his fault he's fat; weight becomes a character issue). But he's a panda. Of course he's round, and of course he eats a lot. It's like criticizing a frog for eating flies. The movie could have played out the same way without that element.

Second, when Po wistfully looks off in the distance at the film's opening because he dreams of being more than a noodle cook—exactly like in every other animated feature in which our frustrated hero yearns for something more than his or her dreary life—I wanted to scream and throw something at the screen. Enough, already!

And yet, much to my surprise, I enjoyed the rest of the movie. I say "To my surprise" because I'd barely gotten out of the lobby after Bee Movie when I realized I was sick of DreamWorks' apparently endless formula of using wisecracking New York humour. Same with the earlier Madagascar, where they were often joking about New York. It's a bad sign when side characters (the penguins) uspstage everyone else.

Ah, but Kung Fu Panda doesn't do that. It is a period piece, more or less, with all of the characters firmly entrenched in a village in China, much as in any live-action kung fu movie. And while much of the humour is verbal, it's equally physical, sometimes at the same time. In fact, for all of the brouhaha about Madagascar's cartooniness, I'd say Kung Fu Panda comes closest in practice to the Looney Tunes comedy aesthetic; that is, in making the timing and snappiness of the drawings as important as the timing and snappiness of the jokes, balancing quiet with loud, broad with subtle, and seen with unseen. Mix that in with crackling action scenes that can get laughs without sacrificing tension, and you've got—surprise!—an enjoyable animated comedy.

As much as I enjoyed it, though, I'm a little disappointed. The introductory scene, which is a tight bit of stylized hand-drawn animation, was so well done I was let down when we got to the CGI. As much as I enjoyed Kung Fu Panda as it was, I'd really like to see the movie they were hinting at.

Labels: CGI, computer animation, DreamWorks, features, reviews

Waltz with Bashir looks like one of those films that could be simultaneously fascinating and trying. Fascinating because the Israeli autobiographical feature focuses on writer/director Ari Folman's experiences as a 19-year-old soldier in Lebanon during the early 1980s. Trying because feature-length Flash-animated films can, depending on how they're made, make your eyes bleed.

The key, of course, is the phrase "depending on how they're made." Watching the YouTube clip from the film, Waltz with Bashir might be quite watchable, and I'm always fascinated by documentaries that look at wartime through the lens of individuals rather than armies.

I am a bit irked by publicist Richard Lormand's claim in Israel21c that Waltz with Bashir is "basically the first animated documentary ever." Clearly, he hasn't read our first PDF issue, which focused on animated documentaries. And what about the more recent Persepolis, which was also autobiographical and the darling of independent animated cinema last year? It seems to me that everyone involved—including the article's writer—was so excited at the prospect of this film being a "first" that no one bothered to question the assertion. And besides, who bothers to fact-check articles on animation, anyway? Certainly not mainstream journalists.

Labels: animation press, Cannes, documentaries, features, Flash animation, Israel

If there were awards for truth in advertising, then Kino International would have to win something for the use of one adjective. The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto contains the bulk of the animation master's work, seven short films made between 1968 and 1979.

Kawamoto is considered a stop-motion animator, and his recent feature-length masterpiece, The Book of the Dead, features gorgeous sets to accompany his beautiful puppets. However, this DVD serves as a reminder that his shorts were rarely quite so straightforward. All of the films on the DVD involve the manipulation of physical objects—if not puppets, then cutouts—but Kawamoto freely mixes them with drawn animation and flat paper cutouts with varying degrees of abstraction.

In earlier films like 1972's The Demon, Kawamoto plays with this stylization by having characters move in sync with the background music's rhythm, almost as if they were performing the story as a dance. By the time of the final film, 1979's House of Flames, he's also using stark lighting and elegant compositions to suggest, at times, a stage play. The three middle films in the collection, An Anthropo-Cynical Farce, The Trip and A Poet's Life (from 1970, 1973 and 1974) all break from the use of puppets and the use of ancient Japan as a setting, but are no less compelling. They are perhaps a bit more obtuse in that unique way that independent animation from the 1970s could be.

Kino has also released the feature-length The Book of the Dead, which features some of Kawamoto's most exquisite—there's that word again—stop-motion work to date. Like his best-known short-form films, the movie features Buddhism in ancient Japan. However, this time Buddhist teachings are central to the film, as it takes place in the eighth century, around the time that Buddhism was being introduced to Japan from China. Unlike his shorts, Kawamoto has chosen here to fill out his sets with physical objects and far more characters, all realized with considerable detail. It's hard to watch a sequence with a room full of elegantly dressed puppets with their clothes blowing in the wind and not be awestruck by both the scene's verisimilitude and its poetry.

As lovely as these releases are, there are a few things I'd have liked to have seen. The Book of the Dead uses the English narration with no option to hear the original Japanese (though all the dialogue is still in Japanese, with optional subtitles) and neither disc includes any kind of extras. While Kawamoto's work speaks for itself, the level of craftsmanship on display on both DVDs leaves you wanting to see and hear more. Finally, completists are likely to wag their fingers: The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto lacks four shorts that were included on the Region 2 Kihachiro Kawamoto Work Collection DVD.

Where to Get It
Buy The Exquisite Short Films of Kihachiro Kawamoto from Amazon.com
Buy The Book of the Dead from Amazon.com
Buy Kihachiro Kawamoto Work Collection from YesAsia.com

Labels: anime, features, Kihachiro Kawamoto, reviews, shorts, stop-motion

I'm generally not a fan of live-action adaptations of animated TV shows, because they almost always disappoint. The problems usually start with the choices the filmmakers make in order to get animated (or animated-looking) characters into a live action universe. The Flintstones had fake-looking rock sets; Alvin and the Chipmunks and Scooby Doo had CGI critters in an otherwise realistic universe; Fat Albert had the TV characters coming to life in the real world.

In Speed Racer, the Wachowskis do what none of the creators of these other films had the will to do: they created a cohesive universe in which all of the elements in any given frame look like they belong together. In the process, they also highlight something that's been missing from mainstream animation for quite some time.

As I was sitting in the cinema watching Speed Racer, it occurred to me that I already knew how most journalists were going to describe the movie's look. Some would say that it looks like a video game, or that it's anime come to life. They're dead wrong. Outside of some race scenes the movie looks nothing like any video game you've actually played, and outside of a few Akira-like shots and a nod to the original series opener, it looks nothing like any anime you've ever seen. Really, these are just phrases that reviewers use when they want to say that there are lots of things moving around very fast, or that have bright-coloured, futuristic-looking elements.

In a strange way, however, they're also right. Speed Racer, like many video games, demands that its viewers process a lot of visual information at once. Like anime, it stylizes motion in a way that isn't entirely realistic but is believable within its own reality.

If anything, Speed Racer's filmic cues come from green-screen/digital-set movies like the most recent Star Wars trilogy and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, along with shorts that feature heavily processed and manipulated live action, like Gaëlle Denis' City Paradise. But the Wachowskis' real inspiration here is manga. This doesn't just apply to the racing scenes, but to just about anything set outside of the Racer family home. Take a look at these images, and pay special attention to how they put the focus on certain foreground objects or characters and use the backgrounds to denote movement, atmosphere and mood. These compositions are pure manga:







Better still are the transitions, in which the camera moves around a foreground character's head and the backgrounds change to show scenes either as a transition or as a flashback to the past. Some of these scenes are multi-layered, including audio from both the current time and place and the location or time being referenced. There's even one scene where one character tells Speed about about something that will happen in the future; as the camera whirls around Speed, the background shifts to show scenes that highlight what the other character is saying—and eventually we discover this isn't speculation, but what actually happens in the future. The whole sequence interleaves the present moment and flash-forwards, kind of like an episode of Lost on, well, speed. (Lazy journalists will look at all this and make references to audience members with short attention spans or ADD; the truth is, you really have to pay attention if you want to follow it all.)

I'm just scratching the surface here. All in all, Speed Racer is a visual effects spectacle that doesn't reserve its inventiveness for eye-candy money shots; rather, it's a carefully constructed, dynamic reality that is unlike anything seen on the big screen. All of which brings me to the question I kept asking myself when I left the cinema: why haven't I seen anything like this in feature animation for so long?

It's a cliché these days to say that effects-heavy summer movies are cartoon-like, and there's some truth to that. But it's also true that live-action movies have, through the heavy use of CGI, taken animation's "anything can happen here" mentality and run with it. Meanwhile, feature animation has largely concerned itself with looking more realistic, obsessing over things like realistic fur and hair. Even those productions that aren't so fixated are, relatively speaking, conservative. I've very much enjoyed Pixar's films, but when you get right down to it they mostly fit into a niche best described as "Talking ____s," with the blank filled in by toys, bugs, fish, rats or what have you. The Incredibles was an exciting departure, but so far the new direction that it signalled appears to be a dead end.

Where's the wow? Where's that moment when you jump up in your seat, excited because you've been shown something you've never seen before? Speed Racer provides that in spades, but in feature animation it's been sorely lacking. I remember seeing Tron in 1983, Akira in 1988 and Mind Game in 2005 and each time feeling like someone had redefined what was possible in animated cinema because I was being shown things I hadn't seen before. I've had that same feeling many times over since then, but when it comes to animation it's generally been in OAVs, shorts and—much to my surprise—television.

I'm all for the blurring of boundaries, but to me movies like Speed Racer indicate that feature animation is ceding ground to live action. Something is very wrong with this picture.

Labels: anime, CGI, features, live action, manga, Speed Racer, visual effects, Warner Bros.

Just 15 months after Kodansha and Production I.G. kissed and made up over optioning Ghost in the Shell, they've found a taker: DreamWorks, who released Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence in North American cinemas under their GoFish banner in 2005, has acquired the rights to make a live-action, 3D version of the property.

While I think Ghost in the Shell is a great selection for a 3D film, I can't say I'm particularly enthusiastic about the news. I'm generally not a fan of live-action remakes of animated shows or comics; overall, there have been more misses than hits. More to the point, the recent spate of rights acquisitions for anime (or anime-like)-to-Hollywood live-action adaptations (Robotech, Akira, Avatar: The Last Airbender—have I missed anything?) reminds me of the old maxim that in Hollywood no one wants to be first, but everyone wants to be second. Speed Racer is due to hit cinemas in just a few weeks, and I've long had the sense that these acquisitions are a means of lining things up to ride an anticipated wave of anime-inspired movies, in the same way Spider-Man and X-Men helped launch a wave of comic-inspired movies.

One thing I won't do, however, is claim that Spielberg (or any of the other directors/producers working on adapted anime works) will somehow "ruin" the original. Gimme a break—that's like saying a bad date will ruin your memory of your first kiss.

Labels: anime, DreamWorks, features, Ghost in the Shell, live action

The "To the Source of Anime" retrospective ends its run today at the Cinémathèque québécoise with a tribute to Noburo Ofuji. The "Wartime Japanese Animation" programs included propaganda cartoons that feature strikingly American character designs. I mentioned this to Akira Tochigi, the curator of the retrospective, when I interviewed him during his stay in Montreal. Mr. Tochigi spoke with enthusiasm during our lengthy interview.

Armen Boudjikanian: This retrospective does a survey of Japanese animation from 1924 to 1952. Is there any reason why there are not any films from before the 1920s?

Akira Tochigi: Actually until last year, we haven't had any surviving elements of animation from the 1910s. But a private collector found two elements of early animation from 1917 [35mm prints]. We are now doing their digital restoration. We will showcase them soon in a program highlighting recent restoration projects.

What can you tell us about the state of Japanese animation in the 1910s?

Animation was first imported to Japan between 1908 and 1910 from France [the works of Émile Cohl] and the UK. The Japanese film industry created its first major studio in 1912: Nikkatsu studio. Nikkatsu was very powerful at making and distributing its own films but also distributing foreign films. Gradually, along with its competitors, it began being interested in making animation. Pioneers of early animation found opportunities in these studios.

Around the 20s, as more animation came from abroad, especially the States, the majors lost interest in producing their own animation. Rather, [they decided to focus on] importing. They believed that American animation was much more sophisticated and more appealing to [Japanese] audiences.

But also in the 1910s, there was a heated debate in Japan about the influence of cinema on children. The portion of young audiences was big: about 30 to 40 per cent of the moviegoers. The government, academics and intellectuals were all concerned on the [effect of films] on children.

So in the early 1920s, the Japanese central government set up the policy of supporting educational films [which at the time also encompassed] animation. By this kind of categorization the government supported animation filmmaking and sometimes commissioned independent filmmakers to make animations for kid audiences. Animation became a way to safeguard children [from] the influence of cinema. And so, its quality changed at that time.

Coming to the question of governmental funding for animated films. I have noticed that films from the WWII era which are heavily funded by the government resemble Hollywood cartoons much more than earlier Japanese animation. Is there a principal cause for this?

Yes, [this is the result of the combination] of two elements. In the late 20s, early 30s, more and more American animation came to Japan: Disney, [Fleischer's] Betty Boop and Popeye, etc... Japanese animation was very quick to react to this situation by creating its own [set] of characters which originated from comic books and also from Japanese folklore such as Momotaro, monkeys, badgers, etc...

It seems that the synthesis is very well done, though. These are early cartoons but they are very well executed technically. The western influence is obvious but the Japanese elements are blended in successfully.

[The reason for] this synthesis is that in the 1940s, the Japanese government set up the Film Law which forced culture films [documentaries], educational and animation films to be shown in theatres to [large] audiences.

The law also controlled film projections, and [theatre] personnel. There was severe censorship. [Nevertheless], the field of animation became prosperous in these times because the government supported it with its law. So as the influence of American cartoons on Japanese animation continued in the 1940s, it came together with the film law and this resulted in the making of the first medium and feature-length animated films in Japan [the 1942 war film Momotaro and the Sea Eagle was Japan's first five-reel animation].

[Films from this period] used characterization that was typical of American animation. [This] is pretty ironic because these films were very much anti-American propaganda, but still [laughs] it is very apparent that their character designs and aesthetic were coming from American animation.

Coming to Momotaro and the Sea Eagle, can you talk about its cast of characters? Why is the leader of the Japanese army a young girl and why are its soldiers animals?

I think that it's a young boy, not a girl. It seems that he has a kind of femininity but it's a boy. [These characters] come from the original story of Momotaro, who was a boy character that fought the enemy [with the help] of animals.

What happened to Japanese animation between the end of WWII and the establishment of Toei Doga studio in the fifties?

This is one of the hardest ever periods for Japanese animation. There was a shortage of film stock and taxes were high. The defeat of the war finished the [governmental] support to filmmaking. There were no festivals, no theatrical exhibitions, but there were a lot of talented young artists who tried to make films on an independent basis. So when Toei started in the '50s, and TV animation in the early '60s, they [offered the young] animators a way to sort of continue making films under a well-financed situation.

Noburo Ofuji, an animation pioneer to whom you attribute a program to in this retrospective, made Burglars of Baghdad Castle in 1926. This film is very innovative. The techniques used in it foresee some of those that Japanese animators will employ later such as limiting the movement of characters. Do you see a link between Ofuji's work and some of the techniques that were used later on?

Noburo Ofuji started using chiyogami [Japanese coloured paper] as a medium of motion in the 1920s. Celluloid was very expensive in Japan and most animators were not able to use it until the middle of the 1930s. Even then Ofuji remained interested in using chiyogami.

He would cut them [drawings done on chiyogami] out, right?

Right. Ofuji continued making films in the late '50s, and in his later films, used colored cellophane—not to use celluloid [laughs]. And because of the materiality of the [cellophane] paper, [he had] to find ways to economize the motion of the characters. And this seems very associative with TV animation. As you may know, when Osamu Tezuka started the program Astro Boy, thirty minutes of animation were aired on TV weekly. It was pretty hard to make original pictures for thirty minutes amount of work per week.

The team of Tezuka Productions only animated eight pictures in a second [as opposed to 24] to sort of economize the motion of characters... So when trying to connect history to what came before it, [early] paper animation and TV animation [seem] closely related.

Also, Burglars of Baghdad Castle, like current anime, has also plenty of action.

Yes. The Baghdad film features mass action.

Yes! A lot of crowds.

[Laughs] Something like a Kurosawa movie.

How about other links between the early animations and contemporary anime? Do you see any similarities in terms of inspiration?

I think that [there] is a very clear association with contemporary anime [especially] with the work of Studio Ghibli: in Pom Poko for example, a community of creatures [raccoon dogs, or tanuki] fight against human beings. This Ghibli film is not similar in content to 1930s cartoons that have [similar] characters, but [in terms of] the idea to use creature characters to make a satire of human society, it is very closely related. Ghibli, in this sense, is a very traditional animation creator.

So what got you interested in animation?

To be honest, I didn't have a special interest in animation for a long time. Of course, as a child I was intrigued by theatrical animation—and in fact had a passion for TV animation. I [also] read comics in my elementary school [years]. When I entered college, I continued reading comics, [especially the work of] Otomo [creator of Akira]. He was popular with the college crowd not only because of his aesthetics but also because of his handling of contemporary issues.

At this time, my interest in animation was not so much special. [However], when I started working for the Film Archives several years ago, I found many animations in their collection [from the past]. When I watched these films, I was struck by their power and complexity. Of course most were for kid audiences; but from a contemporary perspective, I found out about the [ability] of animation to deal with fantasy, illusion and delusion in many different ways. It seems to me that because these early animators worked mostly independently [their only support came from the government], their individualities and sense of art as filmmakers is apparent in their films; [whether] they worked on mainstream films or in alternative cinema.

[And since] I was struck by experimental cinema in college, including [laughs] Norman McLaren...

Of Course! [laughter]

[Continues laughing] So... Because of this intrigue, my connection with these animated films [felt] natural. And of course as an archivist, I was interested in the history of animation cinema.

There is going to be a retrospective of Canadian and Québécois animation in Tokyo in 2009. Is there an interest in Canadian animation in Japan right now?

Yes, definitely. Next year's exhibition of Canadian and Québécois animation will be programmed by [Marco de Blois of the Cinémathèque québécoise]. We like to leave him to make the final decisions for that [exhibition], as I did for this one.

The staff members of our institution [the National Film Center in Tokyo] are very eager for [this] program because when Norman McLaren was first introduced in Japan in the late '50s, many young artists were so surprised by his films: they were experimental and personal expressions of ideas and feeling through the medium of animation. Most of the Japanese audiences at the time thought animation would [only] be kid entertainment.

That's something that's common in many countries.

Right... And in the late '50s, early '60s, the word "animation" was first introduced in Japan.
Before then, we used the word "manga" film, not animation. But the exhibition that introduced McLaren's work was called "animation film screening". [This] means that the term animation was related not to Disney type of animation but to experimental film and personal film... So this context of Canadian animation has a special [significance] in Japan: it is a kind of individual expression.

Which filmmaker from the "To the Source of Anime" retrospective is of special interest to you as a researcher?

When I was watching the films of this retrospective again and again, the films of Masaoka Kenzo struck me so much [in terms] of aesthetic, ideas and technique.

The Spider and the Tulip is very well directed and animated, could you talk about the artist and how he got into animation?

[Kenzo] had a unique background; he came from a very rich family from Kyoto. He studied western painting in college. Then he joined a major film studio as an actor. He then made his first film, a documentary. [It is only afterwards] that he moved to animation.

Because he came from a prosperous family, and because of his movie studio contacts; he did not rely on [external] funding to make his films. He was exceptionally able to have his films exhibited in theatres, even his first film. Also, because of this, he did not care about targeting his films to children. He wanted to show his films to regular audiences. He often created in his own small studio. He [also coined] the Japanese term doga which means "animated images" in English.

He [did this to be able] to cover all aspects of animation: from puppet to silhouette animation, [whether designed] for children or not. He wanted to value animation as an art for everybody.

Labels: anime, features, Japan, Masaoka Kenzo, Montreal, Noburo Ofuji, Osamu Tezuka, shorts, Studio Ghibli

DC: The New Frontier was an ambitious, twelve-issue series created by Darwyn Cooke that reimagined the circumstances of the first encounter of the DC superheroes who would become the Justice League in the late 1950s. Justice League: The New Frontier, its animated adaptation, is on the ambitious Warner Premier label, which aims to release OAVs based on DC properties, along with striking acquisitions like Appleseed: Ex Machina. And with all this ambition going around, you'd expect a pretty amazing end product, right?

Let me back up a bit. In 1998, I was blown away by the striking, dynamic opening sequence to Batman Beyond, so I interviewed the man who was responsible for it. Fellow Canuck Darwyn Cooke's background was originally in graphic design, and he brought a fresh approach to his animation work, and later to his comics.

Last year I picked up the trade paperback compilation of DC: The New Frontier and read the whole thing in two and a half hours. I'm a fast reader, so that's a bit long for me; but I kept stopping to admire Cooke's bold lines, his compositions and his colours. He's one of those artists who makes good work look much easier than it is.

All of this is in service to one hell of an idea. After World War II, the "mystery men" who aided the war effort—the Golden Age heroes like Hourman, Dr. Fate, Black Canary and the original Flash—are forced to register or retire as Cold War paranoia whips up. Superman and Wonder Woman sign loyalty oaths and work for the government. Batman goes underground. But now a new, younger breed of heroes are starting to pop up, working in secret to do good, like the new Flash and the Martian Manhunter—all at around the same time Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman are realizing their old ways aren't working anymore. (Cooke expertly lifts some of these ideas—in a good way—from previous must-read comics mini-series JSA: The Golden Age, The Dark Knight Returns, and Kingdom Come, all of which expertly mix adult themes with the mythological wonder of the superhero story.)

It can't be unintentional that these events mirror what happened to DC superhero comics themselves between the 1940s and 1960s; they too were neutered post-war, and the Silver Age of comics was officially kicked off in 1959 with the introduction of the new Flash, launching an era of the "scientific" superhero. Many Golden Age heroes were born from the war or mysticism, but in the Silver Age just as many came from space or had their origins in astronomy, chemistry or physics. Cooke mined this and wrapped the story of The New Frontier—a phrase from John F. Kennedy's Democratic Party nomination acceptance speech—in the sense of discovery, adventure and optimism of new scientific discoveries that mixed with the uncertainty of growing social upheavals.

Embodying this spirit and this conflict is Hal Jordan, a jet jockey who will become the new Green Lantern. Driven to see the stars, the pacifist Hal joins the Air Force during peacetime and becomes embroiled in the Korean War. But he's also a man utterly without fear; presented (for the second time) with a death-defying, world-on-his-shoulders mission, his only response (again) is a smile and the simple response, "Outstanding."

That's a lot to fit even into a year's worth of comics, which points to the animated version's biggest flaw. With a mere 75-minute running time, a lot had to be pared down. Many characters and events were eliminated, sidelined or combined, and the net effect is a feeling of being rushed. Comics are incredible because a single panel can represent a split second, or several years; narrative animation tends to be more literal, so Justice League: The New Frontier is actually about 75 selected minutes out of a few years' events.

That would be fine for a conventional three-act story, but the New Frontier comic flits between the threads of multiple storylines and people that are gradually pulled together, each at different speeds. The animated version sticks with the same structure but doesn't have the luxury of time, which eats into things like characterization, back story, pacing and explaining who the hell these less familiar characters are.

The same comic/animation tension affects the visuals, too. A quick glance at the credits reveals the combined talents of the last sixteen years' worth of animated DC series, and it's all right up there on the screen. There's no resting on laurels here; although they've defined and refined a particular vocabulary, they're always pushing things forward. Everything in Justice League: The New Frontier screams 1950s, from the UPA-ish opening scene to the Saul Bass-ish title sequence to the many iconic Cold War-era locations, from Vegas to roadside diners. Colour design, compositions and staging are as sophisticated as the story's ideas. But for my money it all falls apart whenever I look at Wonder Woman.

Darwyn Cooke's Wonder Woman is pure 1950's smoking-hot sexy with generous zaftig curves that convey life, passion and power. Meanwhile, the current incarnation of the Bruce Timm-derived style has become increasingly angular, and the two just don't fit. This tension affects all the characters to one degree or another.

Like the real and fictitious era it represents, Justice League: The New Frontier is about ambition, but also uncertainty. I applaud Warner Premier's very existence, and the resources they put behind such a project. But to shoehorn everything into another 75-minute DC superhero cartoon regardless of the original style or format seems short-sighted and short-changing. One of the factors behind the initial success of the Japanese OAV market was a freedom from format constrictions; expanding Justice League: The New Frontier to a longer running time or mini-series and letting more of the Cooke visual magic shine through would have been a bolder experiment, and captured the bold spirit of the comic at the same time.

Justice League: The New Frontier
Buy Justice League: The New Frontier DVDs and more from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
Buy DC: The New Frontier books and more from Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

Labels: comics, Darwyn Cooke, DC Comics, features, OAVs, reviews, superheroes, Warner Bros.

Review by René Walling

Horton Hears a Who!, Dr. Seuss' classic tale of an elephant discovering a town on a speck is a childhood favourite for many people. The sheer inventiveness and magic of his book has been translated to an animated film before, with Ted Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) himself as producer. The question was, could the folks at Blue Sky expand a half-hour story into a feature without losing the magic in it? And could they do it without the author at the helm of the project?

Read the review

Labels: CGI, features, reviews

The new Wall-E teaser trailer went up yesterday, and it's a good one. Oh, it doesn't tell us any more about the story than the previous teasers, but it does give us a little more about the title character's personality. (I still think the sad-eyes design is a bit of a cheat, but we'll see how it works out.) In fact, about a third of the QuickTime video has Wall-E interacting with Luxo, Jr. in front of the Pixar logo before there are any movie clips.

I haven't loved all of the Pixar trailers in the past, but when they get it right, it's perfect. remember the Toy Story teaser with Buzz "falling with style?" It told you everything you needed to know about the characters and set up Woody's animosity toward Buzz, didn't give away any plot points, and had you wanting to see the movie for reasons beyond the novelty of a feature-length CG film. I've never confirmed if Pixar cuts their own trailers, but I strongly suspect it; if more studios did that, I probably wouldn't spend the first fifteen minutes at the movies figuring out where to put my popcorn.

Labels: CGI, features, Pixar, Wall-E

Les Trois Brigands, the French version of German feature Die Drei Rauber, opened today in cinemas across Quebec and in Ottawa, Ontario. While Montreal stopped being a market for limited theatrical releases about ten years ago, it still has the advantage of getting French-language or translated animated features that have not yet been released widely in English.

(Ironically, Quebec is often overlooked for anticipated anime features, despite the diehard interest ingrained in a two generations of Quebecois through French programming, which made it a stronghold for anime fandom long ago, showing you just how clueless major distributors are.)

The timing is perfect, as the Spring Break begins for elementary schools tomorrow, which means it's time for FIFEM. The film is the only animated feature at this year's edition of the children's film fest, and also its opening film.



FIFEM is also screening shorts before each film. Many are animated, and almost half are Hothouse 4 shorts. Hothouser Carla Coma will be present when her stop-motion short, The Squirrel Next Door, is screened on March 4 and March 9.

Labels: features, FIFEM, Germany, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, shorts

Labels: features, Oscars, Pixar, shorts, stop-motion

La Cinematheque Quebecoise is hosting the largest retrospective of early Japanese animation to ever take place outside of Japan. Just last week that distinction went to the Japan Society's selection of films.

From February 27 to April 5, the special Montreal screenings of Japanese animation from 1924 to 1952 will feature 53 films in 16mm and 35mm, including one feature - Japan's first - Momotaru, The God Soldier of the Seas. National Film Center/Museum of Modern Art of Tokyo curator Akira Tochigi will be in town to inaugurate the event and will lead a conference on February 29 on early Japanese animation.

A full schedule is available on the CQ website (French only), and Facebook, with a sampling of the shorts. As of this week, a bilingual (French and English) program for the retrospective is available at the Cinematheque.

Previously on fps
Japanese Anime Classic Collection review
Podcast 11: Our Baseball Match (1931)

Labels: anime, features, Japan, Montreal, shorts

The Japan Culture + Hyperculture festival at the Kennedy Center is the place to be in Washington D.C. this weekend for exciting anime. We've been falling all over ourselves because of Genius Party anthology for a while, and its North American premiere and the world premiere of Genius Party Beyond will be screening at the festival on Friday and Saturday. The other three anime screenings on Sunday are equally notable: it just depends on the type of animation you like to seek out. The east coast premieres of Appleseed: Ex Machina and The Piano Forest are firsts, but Five Centimeters Per Second, despite being listed as an east coast premiere, screened last November at WFAC.

Thanks to a head's up from Amid at Cartoon Brew.

Previously on fps
Genius Party
Masaaki Yuasa interview
Eiko Tanaka interview

Labels: anime, features, festivals, Genius Party, Japan, Studio 4C, Washington DC

Last week Friday, the Children's Film Festival Seattle kicked off its 2008 edition and there is lots of animation in its program. It's still not too late to catch some wonderful events:

The opening film, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, will be showing again this Sunday with a new score commissioned by the Northwest Film Forum. This feature was created in 1926, 11 years before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by German animator Lotte Reiniger. Her silhouette animation is gorgeous and will easily captivate an audience in 2008.

All the remaining feature-length films are live-action, but preceded by animated shorts. The short programs include some animated shorts, and two are devoted specifically to it: Saturday's two Awesome Animation programs feature recent shorts from Sweden, including the very sweet Aston's Stones and a Will Vinton retrospective.

Will Vinton will actually be present at the festival, and he will also be conducting a workshop discussing his personal experience in both clay and 3D animation.

(Thanks to Plexipixel, also a festival sponsor.)

Labels: features, Lotte Reiniger, shorts, stop-motion, Will Vinton

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the 2008 Oscar nominees. For all the concern of Beowulf getting a spot, the worry was for naught. The shorts are diverse, in technique, storytelling and geography.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, France)
Ratatouille (Brad Bird, US)
Surf's Up (Ash Brannon and Chris Buck, US)

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Even Pigeons Go To Heaven (Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse, France) entire short
I Met The Walrus (Josh Raskin, Canada) clip
Madame Tutli-Putli (Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, Canada) clip
My Love (Alexander Petrov, Russia) clip
Peter and The Wolf (Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman, UK) clip

Labels: Canada, features, France, Madame Tutli-Putli, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, Oscars, Persepolis, Pixar, Russia, shorts, United Kingdom

Update: The original image that accompanied this post has been replaced at the request of Focus Features.

Ward Jenkins and Neil Gaiman have both put up pointers to a sneak peek of Coraline, directed by Henry Selick based on Gaiman's novel of the same name.

The final film is be the first stop-motion film shot stereoscopically, however this clip is in glorious 2D (otherwise it would just look silly on the Web).

I'm satisfied with this treat. I can wait to see the Other Mother and the Mouse Circus when the film comes out. I don't want to see too much before it's in the cinema. I want to see it as a whole - a solid story, excellent animation, great concepts, striking design - all at once.

Hi-res Quicktime
Lo-res:

[Disclaimer: I am huge fan of both Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman. Huge.]

Previously on fps
Platform: Henry Selick Previews Work on Coraline

Previously on The Critical Eye
Neil Gaiman: The Sandman Scribe on Anime and Miyazaki

Labels: Coraline, features, Henry Selick, Laika, Portland, stop-motion

Tous À L’Ouest, the new Lucky Luke animated feature, is an extraordinarily refreshing film; a masterpiece in slapstick and screwball animation filmmaking. It is a feature Chuck Jones or Tex Avery could have made, had they been animating on the other side of the Atlantic. This film is somewhat of a rarity: it’s hand drawn 2D, it’s European (produced by French studio Xilam), and based on classic comic book characters that many would consider outdated by now. I did not see the live-action flick Les Daltons from 2005, so I cannot get into any comparisons with it, but Tous À L’Ouest firmly stands next to the Belvision and Dargaud Films animated Lucky Luke movies: an updated, more eccentric version of them.

In this outing, director Olivier Jean-Marie selects all the right elements of the Lucky Luke saga to spend time on, to update, and to take into a zany, Terry Gilliam and Buster Keaton direction: that means plenty of Dalton Brothers action, cinematic showdowns, bar fights, furniture destruction, bank robberies, chases, and cabaret dancers. All of this, delivered in muscular, over-the-top 2D animation (you won’t get enough of Joe Dalton going bonkers) and through a layered plotline.

The film is based on the Morris/Goscinny Lucky Luke comic book La Caravane, in which the lonesome cowboy shepherds a caravan from eastern United States to the West. In Jean-Marie’s version, the cowboy meets the caravan folk (immigrants traveling to California to claim their newly bought lands) in New York City, where he has just put the Daltons in jail. The two story points inevitably intertwine, as Lucky Luke accepts to help the caravan cross safely the country and drag along with him the Daltons, who, fresh from their Big Apple jailbreak, are quickly recaptured by the cowboy. Why he doesn’t simply find another slammer for them in New York did not cross my mind, as I was simply too engrossed in the film’s action.

The NYC setting is wholly entertaining and does not feel tacked on at all, despite the fact that none of Lucky Luke’s adventures have taken place in industrialized New York. After the Daltons escape prison, they are treated to a Wall Street full of banks on each side of a gold bricked road, and a Times Square with a five story “Gun and Rifle Store”. Much of the cityscape, including the wagons on the streets and those of the caravan that the cowboy escorts, are rendered in cel-shaded 3D that blends beautifully with the drawn characters. It’s not just the quality of the cel-shading that makes the blending seamless: all of the 3D elements are modeled in the Morris’s graphic style. During the chase sequences, as much stretch and squash is applied to the wagons as to the 2D characters.

The boldest and strongest aspect of Tous À L’Ouest is evidently the powerful cartoon animation seen on the Joe Dalton character and Crook, a new villain created for the film. This slimy estate broker is designed to be deliciously evil: tall and thin with a hunch, sporting a mustache and a hat (it might remind you of another recent villain: Bowler Hat Guy from Meet The Robinsons.) This design makes for serpentine poses and takes, which often occur in that order: Crook attempts to sabotage the caravan from reaching its destination; he goes into elastic takes when his plans fail.

The way Joe Dalton’s character is handled in this film is a call to other mediums of cinema (live-action, CG animation) to accept the challenge in portraying extreme comedic anger. Joe is like Kricfulasi’s Ren but more agitated. He’s a walking time-bomb, ready to explode at any moment. His animated anatomy is comprised of two basic shapes: his large head and his tiny body. They behave as though they are propelled by a trampoline whenever he jumps in the air and screams how much he detests Lucky Luke. This recurring Morris/Goscinny scenario is pushed to the next level on the big screen because the animation of two people that bother Joe the most- his slow-witted brother Averel, and the cool-tempered cowboy- is much more restrained.

Tous À L’Ouest is a celebration of the cartoony, the burlesque and of repetitive shticks. The Daltons have two things on their mind: to get their loot and kill Lucky Luke. You will witness them act on these goals throughout the film; each time displaying more of their sheer stupidity and ineptitude of actions. This film is a must must-see for all cartoon fans, not just Lucky Luke ones. It’s as close as its going to get to a proper Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck feature. We will probably not see this style of traditional animation on the big screen for a while, so see it before it’s out of the theatres.

Labels: Belgium, comics, features, France

The latest WALL-E trailer has been posted on MySpace.


Don't forget to visit the Buy N Large website, based on the film's fictional company.

Did I mention I love robots? I love robots.

Labels: CGI, computer animation, features, Pixar, trailers

Beowulf is no monster, but animation fandom seems to be welcoming it as if it were Grendel itself.

Robert Zemeckis' latest feature foray into the world of motion-capture moviemaking comes correct, despite any aesthetic predispositions and prejudices. Professor Z and his uncanny CGI-Men have lost all of the "dead eyes", much of the plastic skin, and most of the lanky posturing that infested previous big-budget, Hollywood attempts at motion-captured semi realism (Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Polar Express, Monster House).

Viewed in Disney 3-D with the oversized, specialized glasses (they fit over my small glasses), the effect is mixed, but mostly positive. Rapid foreground movement tends to appear blurry, but slower scenes crackle and pop with amazing detail. This isn't some chintzy Viewmaster effect. While humans sometimes appear flat, most objects (from pebbles and surging waves) have infinite depth. Even conventional, low-angle shots suck you in, before galloping horses trample over your head. The experience deserves at least one shot from any jaded moviegoer.

Beyond Beowulf's technical achievements is a far rarer achievement for North American animated features: It's a well-crafted, animated drama. With screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary brandishing their fine ears and pens to complement Zemeckis' cinematic sense, they bring brains and soul to this ancient story. The drama is less clumsy than Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, and more coherent than either Paprika or Tekkonkinkreet. It also has sharper wit, meatier dialogue, and stronger performances than all of them.

The storytellers are earnest enough to tell the tale with genuine emotion, but generous enough to play to the back of the room. Gaiman and Avary respect grand pronouncements and bawdy interplay. Zemeckis respects playful camera work, dramatic pauses and silent exchanges. Someone on staff respects blood and buck-nakedness, so the PG-13 rating is bent with glee. Crafty craftsman that he is, Zemeckis ensures that impalings and other impolitic protrusions are artfully obscured. Grendel's brutal assaults in Act 1 are bathed in an otherworldly blue firelight that strobes just enough to blot out the more gruesome deaths. The camera hurtles through spears and arrows instead of the bodies they pierce. Some naughty bits are obscured by foreground objects. Others are obscured by gold trim and dark shadows.

Which leads me to mention that a functionally nude Angelina Jolie facsimile appears in the movie. She may not be a thick-lipped, thick-hipped Ralph Bakshi goddess (like Elenor from Wizards) but she'll do. To wit, Ray Winstone has a gruff, Russell Crowe alpha-maleness mojo going, but I don't think he'll make anyone forget about Gerard Butler's Leonidas from 300. Sorry, these supposedly sensual elements of the story aren't fantastically nebulous enough to be smokin'.

What the performers lack in physical hotness, they make up in emotional presence. Unlike Tom Hanks in Polar Express, the actors don't have to pantomime excessively to get the performance across. With surprising nuance, the best scenes feature tiny smirks, darting eyes, and pained brows. These are not the wax puppets that you see in most video games. (God of War certainly didn't have the patience to tell a story with this much deliberation and visual detail.) Without the brilliantly rendered facial contours, we might miss the visual subtleties of Robin Wright Penn's notable performance, for instance. When her aged queen converses with a young mistress, the subtext in her face could only be captured by the finest character animators. Even the hammier performances of Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich grow on you, leading to incisive interplay late in the film. Don't judge these animated figures based on the motion-captured aesthetic offenses committed by past films. Watch this film and make the distinction.

Think of Zemeckis as a student of the Fleischer school of mimetic action animation, having completed his prerequisite study in Rotscoping 202 and The Animated Short Films of Superman. He's the art major with a computer science concentration, so forgive his literalism and obsessive sense of static detail. If Disney can develop a better multiplane camera to emulate live-action dollies and zooms, then surely the Z-man shouldn't be garroted for employing his own form of hybridization.

Silicon Valley has not yet crossed over into the Uncanny Valley, but it's getting pretty darn close to the down slope with Beowulf.

Labels: Beowulf, CGI, computer animation, features, reviews

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences just released their list of films that have been submitted for consideration for the animated feature film category for next year's Oscars. The features are Alvin and the Chipmunks, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, Bee Movie, Beowulf, Meet the Robinsons, Persepolis, Ratatouille, Shrek the Third, The Simpsons Movie, Surf's Up, Tekkonkinkreet and TMNT. Alvin, Beowulf and Persepolis still haven't had their Los Angeles qualifying runs, but I'm sure Fox, Warner and Sony will get right on that.

It also appears that the Academy has gotten over its uncertainty with regards to tagging Beowulf and Alvin as animated features (the former because of its extensive use of motion capture—which even direct Robert Zemeckis doesn't feel is animation—and the latter because of its blend of animation and live action).

So which three films do you think will actually be nominated for the li'l gold guy? Here's what I think, and why:

Beowulf: Gosh-wow technology; eye candy in the form of both lush imagery and Angelina Jolie; Hollywood loves a good epic; the novelty of a PG-13 animated feature.

Persepolis: Great festival buzz; the hand-drawn look balances out the CG of most of the other entries; topical themes; more straightforward plotwise than Tekkonkinkreet; a nod to foreign animation.

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters: Just kidding. Though I expect that The Simpsons Movie and Ratatouille will split the vote and we'll get something like Shrek the Third or Surf's Up in there.

Labels: features, Oscars

This Saturday and Sunday afternoon, November 10 and 11: leading up to the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC in partnership with Bandai Visual and the Waterloo Children's Museum will be holding a 20th anniversary screening of Wings of Honneamise, one the best anime features of the 80s, and the first feature ever produced by Gainax.

If you go on Saturday, On both days, you can catch Jin Roh, also in high-definition, based on the comic by Mamoru Oshii, and the English premiere of Detective Conan.

If you are anywhere near Waterloo, Ontario, this is not to be missed. All screenings are free.
Showtimes

Labels: anime, events, features, Gainax, Mamoru Oshii, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

The Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema is a small festival in the quiet town of Waterloo, Ontario, dedicated to long-form animation. WFAC's lineup has grown at a reasonable pace, from three anime films each for its first and second editions to a dozen or more selections since from all over the world, including independent features from North America.

The website is live and all the films are listed here.

"The World Cinema programme includes Oscar-nominated Leslie Iwerks’ The Pixar Story, a chronicle of the history, the challenges, the triumphs, and the people of Pixar Animation Studios and the art they pioneered: computer animation; the charming re-imagined fairytale The Ugly Duckling and Me, the hilarious and completely outrageous Aachi and Ssipak, master Czech stop-motion animator Jan Balej's incredible horror film One Night In The City, the infamous hilarious Norwegian romp Free Jimmy, Shinkai Makoto's heart-wrenching anime drama 5 Centimeters Per Second, vampire action RH+, and the edgy hard-boiled Film Noir, and Otto Guerra's irreverent hippie satire Wood & Stock: Sex, Oregano and Rock 'n Roll."

Balej's Fimfarum 2 was one of my personal favourites from last year's festival, but One Night In The City seems to be in a whole other league. On Saturday at 6:30 p.m. EST, Ladd Ehrlinger's adaptation of Flatland will be screened and the director will be present for a Q&A afterward, both of which will be broadcast live online. As if that weren't enough, Katsuhiro Otomo's latest short project is screening in the timeslot just before it.

The festival is about 90 minutes from Toronto, ON, 3 hours from Rochester, NY or Detroit, MI. I'd say it's definitely worth at least a day trip for animation fans in search of more than the slim pickings at the cineplex.

Labels: features, festivals, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

In the late 1980s, Yoshiaki Kawajiri directed four projects that would cement his distinctive style: the short film The Running Man, the 2-part OAV series Goku: Midnight Eye, and the features Yojutoshi (aka Wicked City, produced in 1987) and Demon City Shinjuku. All of them share Kawajiri's trademark slickness and his knack for moodiness, but only the last two feature supernatural horrors running around a nighttime urban landscape as if it were their natural habitat.

Of the two, Wicked City is the better movie overall. It posits the existence of the Black World, a world inhabited by demons that coexists with our own. Few know about the Black World, and fewer still know that every few hundred years, a peace treaty is signed between the Black World and ours, guaranteeing peaceful coexistence; a secret organization known as the Black Guard enforces the treaty. A splinter group of demons wants to sabotage the current peace treaty by killing the 200-year-old Giuseppe Mayart, a key figure in brokering the deal. Two Black World agents are assigned the task of protecting him: the human Taki Renzaburo, who carries a big gun and knows how to use it, and the beautiful, human-looking demon Makie, whose weapons of choice are her extendable, deadly-sharp fingernails.

The entire film takes place at night, of course, which allows not only for a reduced, somber colour palette and countless shadows, but an opportunity to explore the idea of an underworld in both common senses—the realm of the unnatural, and a criminal urban milieu that exists, much like the Black World, in parallel to our own. It's notable that many of the demons make their initial appearance not as ugly beasties, but as men and women in the dress we're accustomed to seeing in urban crime stories. The first female demon Taki encounters is in the form of a bar hostess; the first male demons are dressed in sharp black business suits. Confrontations take place in many of the same locations as in traditional noir films: foggy airport runways, hotel bars, back rooms, run-down buildings, brothels.

The setting is perfect for Kawajiri's style, which favours gorgeous establishing shots, backgrounds dense with details and scenes with one or two dominant colours. Particularly distinctive are the many ways that light spills into scenes: airplane lights on a foggy runway, street lights as a car speeds toward the city, moonlight filtering into a church. All of his movies play with these elements, but only Wicked City and Demon City Shinjuku make use of them all.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Wicked City is the large part that women's sexuality plays in it. Anyone with a double major in women's studies and film studies needs to watch this film, for the many ways in which it plays with the many images of women and men's fears. You've got vagina dentata, a spider-woman, a prostitute who literally absorbs her victims—the list goes on. The things that women do and the things that are done to women in this film could fill a few thesis papers, I'm sure. Either way—as a study in gender relations or just an exceedingly stylish film with nasty beasties and awesomely choreographed action—Wicked City is a must-see.

Where to find it: On DVD at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, or Right Stuf

Labels: anime, features, top 5, Yoshiaki Kawajiri

If you live in the greater Montreal area and are curious about what films are being made in other parts of the world, here's your chance to see something a bit off the beaten path.

Thanks to Atopia, we're going to select 5 names randomly for a pair of tickets to see Montreal's premiere of The District at Cinéma du Parc, this Friday, October 26, at 9:30 p.m.

Act quickly, this contest closes on Wednesday, October 24th at 11:59 p.m. Enter now!

Labels: contest, features, Hungary, Montreal, The District

Atopia has acquired North American rights to The District (Nyocker!), the 2005 Hungarian feature by Aron Gauder. The film screens in Montreal beginning Friday, October 26th at the Cinema du Parc for a two-week run. The film will then show at Boston's Brattle Theatre, Austin's Alamo Drafthouse Cinema beginning November 16 for a week, Winnipeg's Cinematheque from November 26 to 28, and Cleveland's CIA Cinematheque in late January.

In Fall 2005, I had the pleasure of seeing it at the Ottawa International Animation Festival and Matt Forsythe saw it a several weeks later at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema. It sported bold visuals, an infectious hip-hop soundtrack, and starred a motley group of teenagers from the streets of Budapest. Gauder did not shy away from any subject and touched on many, including sex, ethnic differences, politics, and time travel, just to name a few.

The District's satire is raw, strange and very funny, and you never know where the story is going to lead you, and that is all part of the experience. Some films try to be too many things at once, but the film's break-neck pace and unpredictability are definitely a part of its charm.


Over the last two years, fps contributors joined the chorus of voices that have noted the film's irreverent style and storytelling. It continued to be a hit a festivals and many people wondered why more films that broke the mold weren't available to a wider audience. If you didn't have a chance to see The District, here's your chance.

Hopefully, the continued successes of non-formulaic international animated features like The District will open up the theatrical market to innovative animated features that are not afraid to tell new stories, with distinctive visual styles.

Labels: Austin, Boston, Cleveland, features, Hungary, Montreal, Nyocker, OIAF, The District, WFAC, Winnipeg

Le Festival du Nouveau Cinéma is known for its wolf that adorns its publicity materials. The fest has a track called Les P'tits Loups or, in English, Little Wolves, with programming geared towards children, and only two shorts in that entire track are live-action. The selections will definitely be of interest to parents and guardians, and honestly, I think if you left the kids at home you might not notice.

The track begins on the morning of Saturday, October 13 with U, a feature from France that appears to be a fairy tale on the outside and is a coming of age story underneath it all, despite the unicorn and the castle. It deals with concepts of love and adolescence in a very disarming fashion.

Sunday, October 14 features an hour's worth of Komaneko: The Curious Cat shorts. I can't recommend this highly enough. Our heroine is the ultimate do-it-yourselfer and amateur auteur. This little stop-mo cat creates her own stop-motion shorts, makes her own props, sets and puppets, and can be found outside filming her surroundings. One of her partners in crime is a little cat who builds robots and fixes mechanical objects.
Kids take away a great lesson, and the shorts, although suitable for children as young as 3, can entertain someone in their 50s just as easily. The shorts are well-crafted, include engaging characters and they have a simple, but coherent story. In Japan, it is distributed by Geneon Entertainment. It's too bad that they'll no longer be distributing DVDs in North America. I hope that someone else distributes them here. For now, you can get them at Yesasia.

For a more diverse selection, Sunday, October 21 features the various shorts, mostly animated, including the hilarious Isabelle au Bois Dormant/Sleeping Betty from Claude Cloutier at the NFB. If the festival's selection doesn't get local kids interested in film and animation, I'm not sure what will.

Labels: features, Festival du Nouveau Cinema, festivals, FNC, France, Japan, live action, Montreal, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, shorts, stop-motion

When I sat down to watch Persepolis, the opening film at the Ottawa International Animation Festival, I was already a fan of the comics it was based on—even though I'd never read them. A year ago Kino Kid introduced me to Marjane Satrapi's work via Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with Plums), another comic set in her native Iran, and it quietly blew me away with its lyrical storytelling. Like Charles M. Schulz's work, Satrapi's style is deceptive: It would be easy to look at its simplicity and starkness (like most of Schulz's work, her comics are in black and white, with no greys) and declare it childish or naïve. It would also be an injustice. With heavy-lidded eyes, wide-open mouths or rubber-hosey limbs, Satrapi's characters convey everything from gleeful, kinetic action to stark terror to heart-rending anguish—which is perfectly fitting for the autobiographical Persepolis.

The movie opens in Tehran, just a few years before the Iranian Revolution. Marjane's educated, progressive and politically aware parents are anticipating the fall of the Shah, and when the demonstrations start they're out on the streets protesting. In the middle of all this upheaval Marjane is starting to piece together her world view in that broad, semi-understanding, somewhat egocentric way that only a child can. As the situation becomes more dangerous (the protests turn violent), then hopeful (the Shah goes into exile, political prisoners are freed), then horribly awry (the rise of Islamic fundamentalism) she's forced to learn complicated, terrible lessons in a very short time.

One of the hardest lessons for Marjane to learn is to temper her smart mouth. A bright child raised by socially conscious parents, she had long been encouraged to question and to speak her mind—not an especially bad thing during the Shah's last days in power, but a dangerous trait in an increasingly restrictive society, and especially in one that devalues its women. When she's fourteen, her parents realize that Marjane can't thrive in Iran, so they send her to a French school in Vienna. It's there that Marjane suffers the trials and confusion of culture shock, racism and adolescence, sometimes separately, often all at once.

I ended up reading the first two collected Persepolis volumes after seeing the movie, and was struck by how well they complement each other. Because of the way comics telescope time, there are some things that the movie compresses, and others it extends. In some cases, it's a mix of both: A scene in which the Guardians of the Revolution, Iran's militia and moral police, break up an illicit party is given more play in the movie, but Marjane's emotional aftermath is reduced to mere moments—and the result is that much more powerful.

The movie, which is co-written and co-directed by Satrapi (along with Vincent Paronnaud), is extremely faithful to her style; though it includes more grey tones to provide some texture, there are only slight concessions to the animated medium. (Again, a comparison to Schulz's Peanuts is apt here). Faithful, however, doesn't mean slavish: rather than using the comics as a literal storyboard, the movie uses them as springboard. As loose as the comics' style is, the movie takes advantage of animation's possibilities, especially with regards to the chadors and habits of the strictly religious Iranian women and nuns who have the misfortune to cross Marjane's path. Bodies bend, curve and coil; rarely to extreme, but often with a liveliness that's just a step above Satrapi's more contemplative comics. Several one- or two-panel elements (or even just speech balloons) from the comic get extended, sometimes hilarious play in the movie, including a whimsical take on the Shah's father's installation by the British, and the best rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" ever.

Persepolis is the cinematic sibling of other autobiographical films that encompass cultures and experiences that most in the West have heard or read of, but only really know superficially, like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies; but it's also quite different. There's no singular, epic tragic moment as in Barefoot Gen, nor is there the shadow of death that hangs over Grave of the Fireflies. What we do have is several decades of a life, rather than a tiny sliver; and by observing the growth of that life, we're given a nuanced look at the culture and the people that shaped it. Satrapi's gaze is unflinching as she exposes everyone's good and bad sides; she not only reveals her own failings and hypocrisies, she exposes the good in people it would be easy to write off. When two militia members stop her family late one evening, she and her grandmother try to get to the apartment quickly so they can ditch her father's supply of alcohol. When the grandmother plays at being hypoglycemic for their excuse, one of the guardsmen softens for a moment and says, "Just like my mother. Go on."

This is Persepolis's magic. It presents a complex, layered, compassionate and often humorous look at the people of a country that has been presented only superficially to Westerners, most recently as a member of the "axis of evil" with a lunatic as a leader. It's a shame that the people who most need to see Persepolis likely won't, but in the meantime we can experience the joys and sadness of a life that is at once alien and familiar, in glorious black and white.

Labels: features, festivals, Iran, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Persepolis, Sony Pictures Entertainment

Since Persepolis and Madame Tutli-Putli each screened at Cannes and won awards this year in May, they have appeared at animation and mainstream film festivals to acclaim. Montrealers can now finally see both films by attending the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, which begins today.

Animation seems to have taken on a more important role in the festival with more shorts than ever. However, a few might slip through the cracks if you aren't careful. The visceral Face lies in wait in Competition 1, on Thursday, October 11 and Wednesday, October 17th. Madame Tutli-Putli is showing during Competition 2 this Friday, October 12 and Tuesday, October 16. Selina Cobley's Crow Moon screens in Competition 3 next week on the 17th and 18th.

The National Film Board of Canada Stereo Lab is screening four stereoscopic shorts, which 2004 OIAF attendees might have seen, but this screening includes the premiere of a stereoscopic version of Theodor Ushev's phenomenal Tower Bawher.

Previously on fps
Festival du Nouveau Cinéma coverage
Persepolis coverage
Two Podcasts for Madame Tutli-Putli

Labels: computer animation, events, features, festivals, France, Madame Tutli-Putli, Montreal, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Persepolis, shorts, stop-motion, United Kingdom

For any new filmmaker, getting that first movie in the can is a monumental task. Add a demanding script and a predilection for toggling between animation and live action and you’re really talking about a challenging debut effort. With his recently premiered film Imagination, Eric Leiser has assembled a surprisingly ambitious project that complements his animation skills, but he’s generally let down by his actors, who are desiccant to the film’s sea of imagery.

Imagination steps into the surreal world of twin sisters Anna and Sarah Woodruff (Nikki and Jessi Haddad) who have confronted their disabilities by turning inward to their own imaginations and shared alternate reality. One girl has been rendered blind; the other has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism characterized by difficulty interacting and socializing with others. The girls’ well intentioned but ill-equipped parents (Travis Poelle and Courtney Sanford) seek the aid of neuropsychologist Dr. Reineger (Edmund Gildersleeve) to chart a path to normalcy through the twins’ mental shroud.

The girls’ behavior becomes increasingly difficult for their parents to comprehend. Their food transcends the dinner plate to become living sculpture, and the girls play games in intricate, frenetic patterns that only minds in lockstep could achieve. Faced with the twins’ increasingly apparent and unexplainable abilities to defy accepted science and medical knowledge, Dr. Reineger is consumed with a profound professional crisis. He cannot effectively treat the girls, nor can he decode the bewildering world they have built for themselves within their minds.

The film’s real strength lies in its animation. Leiser’s whimsical but intricate method recalls Czech surrealism and charts a brave experimental path, though he’s not quite ready to stand on the podium with Jan Svankmajer. Nonetheless, Leiser’s multifaceted abilities are put to great use in Imagination’s engaging animated segments. His stop motion and puppetry work is spellbinding at times. Leiser also has some raw ability as a filmmaker beyond his wheelhouse of animation and sculpture, but Imagination’s live action portions are less appealing.

With the exception of a solid effort by Gildersleeve, the cast sleepwalks through its lines, nearly negating Leiser’s efforts to move Imagination’s narrative forward through force of artistic will. The effect makes an already challenging film even less forgiving of its audience. While acting is the primary offender, there are other weak points as well. Prominent plot devices (like the earthquake) come off as contrived, with camera work to match, but you have to admire the pluck Leiser shows in taking on thorny cinematic tricks with a $110,000 budget and limited experience. A lovely musical score by Leiser’s brother Jeffrey, who also co-wrote the script, helps mask the lapses and seals the duo’s status as a formidable creative pair. Imagination’s animation and ambitious script are enough to carry it through a successful run on the festival circuit, which will hopefully lead to more projects from this promising duo.

Labels: features, live action, reviews, stop-motion

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Persepolis [2007] Vincent Paronnaud & Marjane Satrapi, France

BEST INDEPENDENT SHORT ANIMATION
Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor [2007] Koji Yamamura, Japan

BEST STUDENT ANIMATION
Milk Teeth [2007] Tibor Banoczki, National Film and Television School, UK

BEST COMMISSIONED ANIMATION
Golden Age [2007] Aaron Augenblick, Augenblick Studios, USA

BEST CANADIAN ANIMATION
Sleeping Betty (Isabelle au bois dormant) [2007] Claude Cloutier, National Film Board of Canada, Canada
Honourable Mention: I Met The Walrus (2007) Josh Raskin, I Met the Walrus Inc., Canada

ANIMATION SCHOOL SHOWREEL
Bezalel Academy for Art and Design (Israel)

INDEPENDENT SHORT ANIMATION COMPETITION
Narrative Short Animation under 35 minutes: Madame Tutli-Putli [2007] Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski, National Film Board of Canada, Canada

Experimental / Abstract Animation under 35 minutes: Framing (Bildfenster / Fensterbilder) [2007] Bert Gottschalk, Germany

Honourable Mention: Teat Beat of Sex [2007] Signe Baumane, USA

STUDENT ANIMATION COMPETITION
Adobe Prize for Best High School Animation: Herbert [2007] Aven Fisher, King’s View Academy, Canada

Undergraduate Animation: Doxology [2007] Michael Langan, Rhode Island School of Design, USA

Graduate Animation: t.o.m. [2006] Tom Brown & Daniel Gray, International Film School of Wales, UK

COMMISSIONED ANIMATION COMPETITION
Promotional Animation: National Lottery ‘The Big Win’ [2006] Marc Craste, Studio AKA, UK

Music Video: OOIOO ‘UMO’ [2007] Shoji Goto, Japan

Television Animation for Adults: John and Karen [2007] Matthew Walker, Arthur Cox Ltd., UK

NEW MEDIA COMPETITION
AniBoom Prize for Animation Short Made for the Internet: L’eau Life [2007] Jeff Scher, Fez Films, USA

ANIMATION MADE FOR CHILDREN
Best Short Animation: Zhiharka [2006] Oleg Uzhinov, “Pilot” Moscow Animation Studio, Russian Federation
Honourable Mention: Nightmare at School [2007] Catherine Arcand, National Film Board of Canada, Canada
Honourable Mention: Aston's Stones (Astons stenar) [2007] Uzi Geffenblad & Lotta Geffenblad, Sweden

Television Animation for Children: Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends 'Squeeze the Day' [2006] Craig McCracken, Cartoon Network Studios, USA
Honourable Mention: Pocoyo 'Dance Off' [2007] Guillermo Garcia & Alfonso Rodriguez, Zinkia Entertainment & Granada International, Spain & UK

NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA PUBLIC PRIZE (Voted by the Audience)
Sleeping Betty (Isabelle au bois dormant) [2007] Claude Cloutier, National Film Board of Canada, Canada

Labels: features, festivals, Madame Tutli-Putli, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, shorts

Festival madness: Animatu 2007 kicks off its appreciation of digital animation in Beja, Portugal on October 17, featuring shorts like Ark, Codehunters and Guy's Guide to Zombies; in Spain, Animadrid starts off strong on September 28, opening with Nocturna; I'm still a little peeved at Aurora (formerly Norwich International Animation Festival) for dumping the word "animation" from their name because they think it's too restrictive, but damn do they have a lot of cool animation and animators in this year's fest, which starts November 7; Animae Caribe hits the University of the West Indies, Trinidad on October 25 and will feature a history of African animation; and the awesome Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema returns to the tiny town starting November 15, with an undoubtedly incredible lineup and steady supply of excellent hot chocolate.

Two new additions to our Sites We Like blogroll (over on the lower right sidebar, in case you hadn't noticed): Fill This Space is Patrick Smith's space for ruminating on the art and animation that he makes, and that inspires him; Diego Stoliar's self-titled blog features his personal and creative work. I featured Patrick's Moving Along in our Flicker newsletter a while ago, and praised his Handshake ever so briefly in my review of the second Avoid Eye Contact DVD; Diego was a participant in the National Film Board of Canada's most recent iteration of the Hothouse project, and you can see his contribution, One, along with the rest of them here. They'e both great guys, and I hope one day we'll all share beers together.

In the past we've mentioned the weekend animation workshops that the National Film Board hosts for kids here in Montreal; I should also mention that the NFB in Toronto has been running the same kind of program at the Mediatheque, for budding animators aged 3 to 13. The current program runs through to April 2008, but you can jump in at any time.

The Iranian feature Persepolis has been making the festival rounds for most of the year, but it looks like Sony Classics is giving it at least some sort of a theatrical release. I don't know about the rest of the continent, but Montrealers will be able to catch it in English and French starting January 11.

Speaking of Sony, the company is picking up where Disney left off with direct-to-DVD sequels of its feature properties; the first title is Open Season 2. Fans may howl at the resurgence of cheapquels, but I imagine it's hard for executives to ignore the heaping piles of money they generate.

Labels: Canada, features, festivals, Montreal, Persepolis, Portugal, shorts, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Spain, Toronto, Trinidad, United Kingdom, Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema, WFAC

I've been watching Ben Steele's newly re-edited cut of Fragile Machine and looking forward to seeing how that crisp, eye-popping style will evolve in Steele's upcoming debut feature, Kitaru. Currently in pre-production, episode one of the planned trilogy looks promising. Not only do early images look great (see below), the film's likely to sound good too, with a score composed by Aoineko and performed by the Tiberian Sinfonietta and Choral Society.

Labels: anime, Aoineko, Ben Steele, CGI, features

As a delegate for the 67th World Science Fiction Convention bid for 2009, I had the chance to attend this year's 65th Worldcon in Yokohama, Japan. While I was there, people were buzzing about many different types of fandom, including science fiction and fantasy in animated form. In addition to the Artist Guest of Honour Yoshitaka Amano, who got his start working on Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets or G-Force) and more recently contributed the character designs for Final Fantasy and the seventh dream in Ten Nights of Dreams, the big animation talk among fans from East and West was the DVD release of Studio Ghibli's Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea).

It didn't hurt that Yoji Takeshige, the film's art director, was on hand to discuss the look of the film and (unfortunately, unphotographable) art from the film was entered in the Art Show. The film was selling swiftly in the dealers' room, especially to North Americans who will be among the last to see the film because of a rights issue with the Sci-Fi Network, who released the execrable live-action mini-series based in the same world created by Ursula K. Le Guin (as a fan of her works, I am at once excited and scared to watch the entire film based on her reaction). Although , I am not so sure about the overall direction of the film given the very public tensions between Miyazaki father and son, one thing I do know is that the dub will be superb, as it has been overseen by John Lasseter. I'll crack it open soon and see how it goes.

Labels: anime, events, features, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, Studio Ghibli, Yoshitaka Amano

Film: VEXILLE
Country: Japan
Director: Sori (Fumihiko Sori)
Length: 110 minutes
Rating: 14A
Distributor: FUNimation

Watching Vexille is a lot like going on a date with that hot airhead from high school: five minutes in, you wonder what excited you so much to begin with.

Vexille is the story of Vexille Serra (or Serra Vexille, if you live in the West), a member of a UN Special Forces unit called S.W.O.R.D. that monitors the advance of robotics and cybernetics technologies. The year is 2077, and for ten years Japan has lived behind a veil of electro-magnetic cloaking, building up the Daiwa Corporation robotics empire and refusing to allow real communications or travel in or out. Now the world fears that Japan has developed an android capable of passing as a human being, in violation of the same international treaties that caused Japan to withdraw from the UN years ago. And you guessed it: they have, and only through a chain of explosions, pseudo-scientific explanations, and thunderous Paul Oakenfold club anthems can the world be saved from a Bodysnatchers-like plot of android replacement.

Vexille has serious problems that render it more suitable for a late-night pizza-and-beer DVD rental than a twenty-dollar film festival movie ticket. But it's not all bad: Fumihiko Sori was the visual effects director for Appleseed, and fans of that silken, motion-capture-against-digital-vistas style will not be disappointed. The environments, particularly the slums of Tokyo and the toothy, glittering expanse of Los Angeles, are lovely. Tiny details, like snowflakes hitting a windscreen or grit kicked up by a tire, are well done. And the mechanical designs are fabulous. The aforementioned Oakenfold soundtrack keeps pace with the action. And the actions scenes themselves are good -- Sori knows how to execute a chase scene, if not how to inject one with any tension or suspense.

From frame one, the film plays like a bid to the Bubble-era "Techno-Orientalist" anxieties that Toshiya Ueno attributed to the West. It's all there: the threat of individual humans being replaced by human automatons as a result of Japan's technological superiority, Japan's hubris eventually becoming its downfall, Japanese people nobly sacrificing themselves en masse so that their virus cannot spread... The trouble is that the Bubble popped years ago. America has other fears now in China and Iran. Vexille might be an acknowledgement of those fears, or a parody of them. And if the film were smarter, it could have worked as the latter.

But the film is not smart. Every interesting plot point (the replacement of world leaders with "bio-metal" androids, or the giant, metal-eating desert sandworms borrowed from Dune) gets dropped in favour of yet another chase scene. And the titular character, Vexille, is just plain boring. Although the audience is supposed to believe her as a member of an elite fighting force, she does not behave like a well-trained or functional soldier. Yes, she pilots a mechanized suit very well, but so does everyone else on her squad. She seems to have no special skills to bring to the table, and frequently screams at the camera, bemoaning the fate of androids and humans alike instead of doing something useful to help herself or others. After watching a younger, more capable, smarter heroine in Terra, seeing Vexille Serra scream, cry, and follow secondary characters around causes no small amount of yawns and eye-rolls. It's telling when a titular character's most interesting plot development is learning via flashback that her boyfriend was in love with someone else ten years ago.

I saw only four films this Festival, but the other three audiences were loads more enthusiastic than this one. They laughed. They cheered. They held their breath. At the end of Vexille, the audience stood up and filed out quietly, more inspired by the need to find the night's last subway than the film they'd just seen. If you're an anime fan and you want good news from this year's Toronto International Festival, listen to this: Takeshi Miike and Quentin Tarantino are anime fans, and they've worked together on a live-action film called Sukiyaki Western Django. It's violent, funny, and plays like a lusciously-coloured manga flip-book. And there are anime in-jokes. Do yourself a favour, and wait for it instead.

Labels: anime, CGI, features, festivals, Japan, TIFF, Toronto, Toronto International Film Festival, Vexille

Film: TERRA
Country: Canada
Director: Aristomenis Tsirbas
Running Time: 85 minutes
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Luke Wilson, Brian Cox, David Cross, Amanda Peet, Dennis Quaid, Rosanna Arquette, and James Garner

Today I saw Terra at the Toronto International Film Festival. My screening was packed, and I was lucky enough to attend a Q&A with the director. Tsirbas is a Montreal native, and remarked that premiering his first feature film at TIFF was a "moving and rewarding experience." There has been serious buzz about Terra, and after attending the film I learnt why.

Terra is the story of Mala, a young Terrian (a peaceful, art-loving, techno-wary race who resemble cute tadpoles) whose passion for designing and constructing gadgets makes her something of a misfit at school and home. One day, Mala (Evan Rachel Wood) and her friend Sen notice a mysterious alien ship. When it deploys several smaller ships, one of them crashes and Mala finds Lieutenant Jim Stanton (Luke Wilson) of the Earth Forces after he emerges from the wreckage. With the help of his robot Giddy (David Cross), she builds him an oxygen-friendly environment and learns his language. After the Earth Forces take Terra's father as a "test subject," Mala agrees to help Jim repair his ship if he takes her to the human mothership, known as the Ark, so that she can rescue him. Naturally, it all goes terribly wrong, and soon Mala and Jim are embroiled in a struggle for the planet Terra: Earth Forces military want to terraform Terra and render it uninhabitable for the native Terrians, and the Terrians must confront their warlike past in order to defend themselves.

Terra is not for everyone. It is not for neo-conservatives, although they would probably benefit most from seeing it. It is not for viewers who cannot stand violence in their animation. (Terra is very violent, but not graphic -- you'll see very little blood, but experience quite a lot of tension.) It is not for viewers who do not enjoy CGI, although the animation here is anything but the cheery plasticity of Cars. However, it is meant for people who enjoy great music, fast-paced action (including some fantastic aerial dogfights), and the sort of plot that Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks will never, ever create on their own. Although Tsirbas shied away from applying any sort of definitive moral to his story, Terra is already being discussed as an allegory for the Iraq War. Terra presents the sort of difficult moral world that Miyazaki fans will remember from Princess Mononoke. (But Mononoke does it better, thanks in part to a more eloquent script.)

Terra has a few other flaws. The character designs are somewhat at odds with the environmental and mechanical ones. The humans in particular look as though they have all been stamped from the same mould, which is partially a product of military costume: flight suits and shaved heads. One notable exception is the villainous General Hemmer, whose face one audience member called "copied from George W. Bush." In addition, there are the usual scientific errors that populate most film-based science-fiction: Terra is supposed to be a helium atmosphere, and at certain moments Jim's respirator helps him metabolize it into oxygen. And the script is not particularly witty -- instead it evokes feeling mostly through high-pressure situations and the grace of good actors.

That said, Terra is probably leaps and bounds more unique than most animated feature films due out this year, and it has a good shot at distribution. The kids at my screening had a great time, and the popcorn-munching died down quickly. During the final sequences, I could hear every tiny rustle in the seats -- the film held everyone's attention in a tight grip. I hope you all get a chance to see it, and decide for yourselves what the story's message is.

Labels: CGI, features, festivals, Terra, TIFF, Toronto, Toronto International Film Festival

There's just a week to go before the Ottawa International Animation Festival opens, and the lineup is impressive. If you'll be in Ottawa for the first day, Wednesday, September 19, then you will be among the first to see the film adaptation of Persepolis, adapted by the author Marjane Satrapi. It won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes earlier this year and screened recently at the Toronto International Film Festival. Unless you will be at the VFF in October, you won't want to miss it in Ottawa with a crowd that can't be beat for enthusiasm when the film is deserving.

Following the opening feature, Short Competition 1 also features a notable selection including instant personal classic, UMO, the visceral J-Pop video directed by Shoji Goto. The video melds multiple techniques, including stop-motion, CG and 2D, and effectively makes you want more when it ends. It won't be the first or last animation short that you will see over the course of the festival the latches onto you.

Labels: comics, features, festivals, Iran, Japan, OIAF, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Persepolis, shorts, visual music

The second animated feature to be shown at the Fantasia film festival this year was Aachi & Ssipak, a Korean film that, violence and urban dystopia notwithstanding, is miles apart from fest opener Tekkon Kinkreet, or from other Korean features like Sky Blue or My Beautiful Girl, Mari. Unlike those other three films, which profess some kind of introspection, Aachi & Ssipak is an outright and outrageous comedy, whose entire basis is, er, crap. (So maybe the touchstone should be Doggy Poo.)

It's like this: in the future, the world's new energy source is human feces. Everyone has an implanted anus ID ring, so that when someone goes to the bathroom they're rewarded with Juicybars, yummy—and, as it happens, addictive—popsicles. Blue mutants, led by a muscled, pierced, dreadlocked messiah, have been heisting Juicybar shipments in Shit City to such a degree that the city's disturbingly doll-headed fascist leader has commissioned a mad scientist to create a super-cyborg out of cadavers to fight them. Meanwhile, Aachi and Ssipak, two idiot petty Juicybar thieves, find themselves in trouble thanks to their no-good associate, the auteur-wannabe porn producer Jimmy. It's in the course of Jimmy's payback that they encounter the sexy Betsy (Beautiful in the English subtitles), and Ssipak falls head over heels for her on first sight. Betsy becomes the movie's MacGuffin when she's forcibly implanted with a new anus ring that delivers mountains of Juicybars whenever she hits the can, which further complicates things to the point where everyone is trying to catch and/or kill everyone else, with Betsy as the main prize.

At this point, reasonable people would no doubt shake their heads in bewilderment and move on. They'd also miss one of the funniest and well-crafted animated movies I've seen this year. Kino Kid put it well after we saw the film when she said, "It is what it is"—not in that shoulder-shrugging, "what are you gonna do?" way, but in the sense that in the first ten minutes, between the exposition and the car chase/gun battle, you know what type of story it is. And once the basis is established (the world is powered by shit!), there's no need to go for gross-out jokes or squishy sound effects; it's just part of the world, right down to its advertising. (Sure, the ads about happy communities crapping together is absurd, but is it any more absurd than animated marching cigarettes or winking Esso signs? Not really.)

Scatology aside, Aachi & Ssipak is also a relentless action movie that manages to be both ultra-violent (those blue mutants make for excellent exploding-body cannon fodder) and cartoony. If you check out the film's official website, you'll see what I mean. Even as the cyborg mows down mutants with a fervour and style that would be the envy of any Terminator, his body and his equipment maintain the same kind of squash and stretch we expect from gag cartoons. And bonus points to director/screenwriter Jo Beom-jin for putting in all kinds of movie in-jokes that are actually funny without calling attention to themselves (unless, as in the case of Jimmy's Jiffybar-overdose freakout, that's the point). If you've seen Battleship Potemkin you'll howl at the extended riff on the Odessa steps sequence, but if you haven't it's still funny and exciting on its own.

In terms of animation and design, Aachi & Ssipak is both consistent and ambitious. Everything in this dirty, corrupt world holds together visually, and the film is crammed with the kind of dynamic composition, animated camera moves and quick but clear editing that drew many people to anime over the last four decades.

One of the film's many movie posters declares that it contains "2D funky action in an awesome 3D reality!" It's true that there's some 3D work in there, but with one or two forgettable exceptions it's integrated quite well. Having watched the film only once (so far), I'd venture that 3D digital tools were largely used for anything that would be too complicated by hand, but the director set the "too complicated" bar pretty high. The result is that we still get some of that exaggerated, sometimes-snappy, sometimes-elastic feel in many action sequences, rather than fairly literal motion and acceleration. (This is why I'll take the space combat scenes in Macross over those in Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles any day.)

It's refreshing to see that the subject matter didn't make the filmmakers lazy, or too self-satisfied in their subversiveness. Aachi & Ssipak's story and animation work together to make a tight, hilarious action film. I don't know how likely this it is to get a domestic release, but fortunately the Korean DVD includes English subtitles.

Aachi & Ssipak
Directed by Jo Beom-jin
90 minutes
Buy the Aachi & Ssipak DVD (Region 3) from YesAsia.com

Labels: Fantasia festival, features, festivals, Korea, Montreal, reviews

Animation director Henry Selick gave a special presentation during the Platform International Animation Festival last week. After an extended reel including his (mostly stop-motion) work for MTV, the shorts Slow Bob and the Lower Dimensions from Liquid TV and the entirely CG Moongirl; and the features The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone, the audience was given a sneak peek into the evolution of the character design for the protagonist in his new directorial effort.

Coraline is based on the award-winning young adult novel of the same name by fantasy author Neil Gaiman. The original cover and illustrations were provided by Gaiman's frequent collaborator Dave McKean (their next collaboration for children is a picture book called Crazy Hair). McKean is known for his incorporation of photo collage in his artwork, but is also a deft illustrator. Although both writer and artist have worked with others, for many, you name one and the other name follows.

Unfortunately, no audio or video recording devices were allowed during the presentation, but I can tell you that I was delighted to see that:

1) The style does not look anything like McKean's. As huge a fan as I am of his work, it seems almost lazy to just go with his style because it's expected of anything associated with Gaiman's work. The medium is different and it's worth coming at the design from a different angle.

2) The new character design, similar to what you see above, really fits the character and the tone of the story. The audience was treated to a short animatic, and Coraline's look and movements make me very hopeful for this adaptation. The talented designers at Laika had me budgeting already for the book featuring conceptual art of the film.

Coraline is slated for theatrical release in late 2008.

Labels: features, festivals, Henry Selick, Laika, Platform, Portland, stop-motion

Review by Terrence Briggs

Ratatouille is Pixar's best film since Toy Story.

It may lack the rapid-fire whimsy of Toy Story's dialogue, but it tells a more nuanced and imaginative story than Toy Story 2, with fewer softball cultural references. As in Iron Giant and The Incredibles, Brad Bird grounds the characters with largely believable dialogue, and goes through amazing pains to legitimize its many narrative conceits. It's drop-dead gorgeous, almost the equal of Finding Nemo, with more elaborately choreographed action.

Read the review

Labels: Disney, features, Pixar, reviews

The first event of the Platform International Animation Festival took place on Monday night with Competition 1. Irene Kotlarz, Director of Programming (pictured) got things rolling and welcomed and eager crowd that had already been well-taken care of by registration and other volunteer staff. If there were any fires being put out in the background, attendees sure didn't know about it. The festival has been a well-oiled machine so far.

The first short to screen was Torill Kove's The Danish Poet, this year's Oscar winner. Luis Cook's The Pearce Sisters was a standout Aardman short and one of the newer shorts in the selection. Recently acclaimed shorts such as Run Wrake's Rabbit and Theodore Ushev's Tower Bawher were shown and I became newly acquainted with Herzog and the Monsters.

The opening night party offered a chance for people to reconnect and make some new contacts in a great setting and others snuck off later in the evening for Comedy vs. Art, featuring an animation face-off between Bill Plympton and Joanna Priestley.

Tuesday was the first full day of the festival and I started off the day at the Meet the Animators panel moderated by Ramin Zahed of Animation Magazine. The thread that ran through all of the discussions dealt with passion for animating. Marc Bertrand of the National Film Board said he would rather people make films for themselves with themes they care about rather than impressing a producer. Motomichi Nakamura suggested that animators put work in their portfolio that they really enjoyed and not put in the rest.

The highlight of the day was the feature Tekkon Kinkreet, with its lush visuals and bold style. Director Michael Arias (pictured) was in the house and answered an extended Q&A about the making of the film.

After Competition 3, I could barely survive Animation From Hell, which screened Shut Eye Hotel, Bill Plympton's new short. So many activities can get a bit taxing, and I had to get ready for another day replete with great activities.

(Photos by official festival photographer CJ Beaman.)

Labels: Aardman Animations, anime, Bill Plympton, features, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, Platform, Portland, shorts, Studio 4C, Tekkon Kinkreet

If you weren't hanging around in New York or a city in France when Tekkon Kinkreet was showing recently, you'll be able to see it on the big screen if you're near the Portland, Oregon area on June 26 at the Platform International Animation Festival.

Don't be fooled by the picture. As much as you want to snatch White up, this film is not for kids. I was reminded of that pointedly after rereading the first volume of the English comics adaptation of the original Tekkon Kinkreet comic, Black and White.

This is just one of the many exciting films and panels scheduled for the inaugural edition of the festival. Visit our contest page to see how you can win a Full Pass for two to Platform.

Labels: anime, comics, features, Platform, Portland, Studio 4C

The coarse but visually interesting Korean film Aachi & Ssipak, based on the rudimentary Flash webisodes of the same name, will be showing at the New York Asian Film Festival on June 30 and July 4. Censored expletives are really the only international language, if you ask me.

Labels: features, Flash animation, Korea, NYAFF

Pixar has announced that their 2009 feature will be titled Up, making it the most concisely titled animated feature ever, at least until Shane Acker's 9 comes out. According to Variety, the movie will be about "a 70-year-old man who teams with a wilderness ranger to fight beasts and villains." That's just vague enough that I went straight to Up helmer Pete Docter and asked if he could provide even a little more detail at this early date. For instance, is the movie set in the past, present or future? "It's set in the present," he said, "But I'm not supposed to say much more than has already been printed—other than it's going to be really cool!" Hopefully he'll be more forthcoming before the movie's June 12, 2009 debut.

The Mouse goes to Bollywood: In an effort to crack the Indian market, Disney is teaming up with Yash Raj Films to co-produce Bollywood-style animated features, voiced by Bollywood stars. It's a step up from, say, pitching Mulan to Chinese audiences, but it'd be really cool if Disney set up an exchange program between the Indian studio and Feature Animation in the States. It's a small world, after all.

You know we're gleefully anticipating Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga/Anime Revolution, but gnash our teeth mightily while waiting for its September release date. Happily, we can get a taste when author Frederik L. Schodt chats with KQED's Michael Krasny next Tuesday, between 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time. (If you miss it, you can download the archived podcast a bit later.) Oh, did I mention it's a call-in show? You can phone in with questions during the show at 415-863-2476 or 1-866-SF-FORUM (866-733-6786; toll free).

I had no idea there was such a thing as the Canadian Skills Competition, let alone that the thirteenth instalment happened last last week. And imagine my surprise at discovering that the "Olympic-style competitions that test the skills of young people at secondary and post-secondary levels in trade and technology areas" include animation! Specifically, there are two team events titled 3D Character Computer Animation and 2D Character Computer Animation. Congratulations to the winners, but of course I'm a little irked that animation is being considered a technology skill more than an artistic one.

I'm not a huge fan of '80s TV, and frankly the thought of another He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie bewilders me. (The Transformers movie, less so. The smart money has long known to bet on robot smackdowns.) But it's now been confirmed that Warner will be making the Thundercats movie as a CGI feature. Okay, they've got a cool logo and all, but... why? I know, I know, there's a fan base. But... why?

Labels: anime, Canada, Disney, features, India, Osamu Tezuka, Pixar

More penguins! But these birds don't sing, dance or march—in this, er, documentary, Cody, Tank and the legendary Big Z are surfin' birds. Sony Pictures Animation's Surf's Up opens on June 8, but we're giving our Montreal readers a chance to win one of ten double passes for the June 2 advance screening. Head over to our contest page and fill out the entry form for your chance to win. The contest closes on May 31, at 11:59 p.m. EST, so get flapping.

Labels: contest, features, Sony Pictures Animation

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud received the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for the adaptation of Satrapi's graphic novel, Persepolis. I can't wait to see this film. If you would like to see why I find this encouraging, pick up a copy of the original comic, or copies of Persepolis 2 or The Emboideries. If you can read French, Poulet aux Prunes is also a great read, which, like her other work, finds unexpected ways to make you laugh and break your heart. UPDATE: Poulet aux Prunes is now available in English under the title Chicken With Plums.

While the official Persepolis website hasn't been updated in a while, Satrapi's Myspace for the film has trailers up. Even if you don't know French, you'll figure most of it out. (Maybe not this one: At the end of the second teaser, the policemen are telling her to slow down and admonishing her for running in a manner the shows off her bottom. She yells back at them because they shouldn't be looking at her butt in the first place!)

Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski have received two awards at Cannes for the stop-motion short film, Madame Tutli-Putli. Both awards were in Best Short Film categories. The short received the Petit Rail d'Or and another award from Canal +, which means that their film will be broadcast on Canal + and the creators will receive the gift that keeps on giving: 6000 Euros' (over 8000 US dollars) worth of film equipment, courtesy of Panavision Alga Techno.

In addition to the Canal + broadcast, the short will be screened at Annecy, Toronto's Worldwide Shorts Festival and the Rome, Paris, Beirut and Mexico screenings for Cannes' International Critics Week tour.

Previously on fps:
Two Podcasts for Madame Tutli-Putli

Labels: comics, features, Madame Tutli-Putli, National Film Board of Canada, NFB, Persepolis, shorts, stop-motion

Afro Samurai (edited) (DVD)
Afro Samurai Director's Cut (DVD)
The last time I saw this kind of careful weaving of music, design and animation it was in a little series called Cowboy Bebop. It remains to be seen if Afro Samurai can get past its seeming ultraviolence-of-the-week structure and create something woven together as tightly as Bebop, but it's encouraging to note that all of the pieces are present right at the beginning. If you can take the gore, that's a good enough reason to keep watching. —Emru Townsend (excerpted from an earlier review)

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Earth Book 2 Vol. 3 (DVD)
An important chapter of the second season of Avatar: The Last Airbender, these episodes contain great series direction and fantastic writing. The episode "The City of Walls & Secrets" is as dark as it gets for Nickelodeon children's television animation, featuring an episode chock full of government conspiracies, kidnapping and even more teen angst. Avatar is a fun show to get into and possesses plenty of layers of intrigue for a variety of demographics. —Aaron H. Bynum

Doki Doki School Hours Box Set (DVD)
At less than five feet tall, 27-year-old high school teacher Mika Suzuki on many occasions finds it difficult to maintain the attention of her class. Fortunately, her ability to see her students eye-to-eye figuratively as much as she can literally grants Mika the opportunity to develop strong relationships in an academic setting. Doki Doki School Hours is a schoolyard comedy, but still manages to comfortably peek its way into serious discussions about the maturation of today's youth in between episodes about school festivals and the like. —Aaron H. Bynum

Gunbuster 2 Vol. 1 (DVD)
Nearly 20 years after the original Gunbuster introduced the world to the idea of female mecha pilots and the infamous "Gainax bounce," Gainax has gone back to their roots and done a sequel. This time around Kazuya Tsurumaki (FLCL) is the director instead of Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion), and you can definitely see this is closer to FLCL than the original Gunbuster. —Marc Hairston

Paprika (Japanese release) (Blu-ray)
Paprika (Movie)
I was lucky enough to see Satoshi Kon's new film at the Dallas Film Festival in March and it's Millennium Actress on steroids. It's the same idea and style as Millennium Actress and ratcheted up to 11. Millennium Actress combined reality and movies to blur the line of what is real. Here he's combining reality and dreams and movies to blur the line. Same styling, lots of running, lots of repeated scenes and images, and the resolution scene circles back to a throwaway scene at the beginning. Personally I think it's his best film yet, and as soon as the lights came up I wanted to go back and watch it again. Based on a story by the Japanese sci-fi writer Yasutaka Tsutsui, who also wrote the original story for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which won the Japanese Academy Award for best animated feature last year.

Labels: anime, features, releases, reviews, upcoming releases

I've been remiss, because I haven't yet mentioned that Bitter Films Volume One: 1995-2005, the collected films of Don Hertzfeldt, is one of the funniest and most enjoyable DVDs I've watched in a while. You could make a convincing argument that shorts like Billy's Balloon (in which a rogue balloon beats the tar out of its toddler owner) and catchphrase-inspiring lines like "My anus is bleeding!" place Hertzfeldt's work squarely in the frat-boy demographic, and I'd have a hard time disagreeing with you. The thing is, Hertzfeldt combines delightfully deadpan dialogue with a minimalist (read: stick-figure) yet expressive drawing style and a real talent for planning technically elaborate sequences that fit the story without screaming "Aren't I awesome?" Dive in to the copious extras and you'll probably come away more impressed than when you went in.

Speaking of DVD compilations and independent animators, you don't want to miss Liquid Tales, the collection of Patrick Smith's work. In some ways Smith's work is the opposite of Hertzfeldt's—it's colourful and scratchy and distinctively rendered—but it's no less enjoyable or personal. But hey, what say I show rather than tell: check out Puppet, his latest film, on Yahoo.

I've always said that a key difference between live-action filmmaking and animation filmmaking is that it's possible, though unlikely, that a live-action director can shoot a ten-minute film in ten minutes, while it's utterly impossible for an animation director to do so. J.Walt Adamczyk, who contributed to our January 2006 issue, insists on proving me wrong. His Spontaneous Fantasia, a one-hour animated program that he creates live, will be showing in a 180° full-dome theatre at the Glendale Community College Planetarium for four days in June, for a mere ten bucks ($6 for the under-twelves).

Don't know how this book slipped under my radar, but it looks fascinating. Orwell Subverted: The CIA and the Filming of Animal Farm digs into the CIA's hand in the creation of Halas and Batchelor's 1954 feature adaptation of George Orwell's novel. Author Daniel Leab not only dug through production archives and interviews, but CIA papers uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act. By the way, you can get 20% off the rather hefty $55 list price if you call 1-800-326-9180 (it's toll free) and mention the code OSRC.

Labels: books, CGI, computer animation, features, reviews, shorts

...collected in one, convenient article. In Sunday's New York Post, Reed Tucker gives us a preview of what we can expect from newspapers, television and radio as the summer's troika of high-profile CGI features unspools:

- Calling out the names of celebrity voice actors? Check.
- The implication that animation is the province of computer technicians rather than artists? Check.
- Talking about how many hairs can be simulated/rendered/otherwise computed? Check.
- A cursory reminder that animators actually, you know, animated something? Check.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, "But Emru, it's the New York Post, for crying out loud." To which I would say, "Isn't it a shame that most mainstream animation coverage can't rise above the Post's level?" Can you imagine what would happen if nine-tenths of the coverage on live-action movies were about pixel counts and the types of cameras and lenses used?

Labels: features

Hergé's Tintin is getting screen treatment again, this time by Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg. I'm not convinced that motion-capture is the way to go, although I always do cross my fingers in times like this and hope that people will laugh at me later because I had nothing to worry about (this rarely happens).

While I was thinking about what to say on the matter, Mark Mayerson wrote exactly what I was thinking (but way better than I could have).

Labels: comics, features

I've got to find a way to get to San Francisco. From June 2 to September 9, the Asian Art Museum plays host to Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga, an exhibition focusing on the work of the man who revolutionized manga and anime. Anime hipsters take note: without Tezuka's lovable, cute-as-a-button characters, you wouldn't have Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Death Note to swoon over. You can pay the man his due by visiting the exhibit, which will feature over 200 pieces of artwork from the God of Manga, including. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, with presentations, screenings and other events accompanying the exhibit. Can't make it to SF? Then at least check out the podcasts on the man and the manga. (You'll find them under the "Tezuka" link from the entry page.)

A couple of festivals are looking for animation submissions: Romania's aniMOTION European Animation Festival is accepting entries until May 20; the Woodstock Museum Film/Video Festival in New York has an early deadline of May 31.

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman still want to make a feature-length prequel feature based on the Dragon's Lair arcade game. In the right hands, I think I might enjoy the comedic adventures of Dirk the Daring as a young, somewhat hapless knight. I just don't know who "the right hands" would be.

A team of Iranian animators aims to produce two animated works with the theme of "National Unity, Islamic Solidarity" on July 5, with the intent of establishing (or breaking?) the record for the world’s fastest animation. Uh, how is that measured, exactly? I can make animation pretty quickly—it just wouldn't be particularly long. Anyway, the films will be produced between the morning and evening calls to prayer.

Animator Steve Moore has launched Flip, an online magazine entirely created by animators and animation artists. The first issue features an interview with storyboarding guru and all-around nice lady Nancy Beiman.

Labels: anime, events, exhibitions, features, festivals, Osamu Tezuka, Romania

Last week was only a warm-up: May is a busy animation month at the Cinematheque Quebecoise. Things get underway Thursday, May 3, with a selection of Animation Classics of the 1980s. Each of the six films would make it worth seeing an entire program of animation shorts.

Tale of Tales, Yuri Norstein
Tyll the Giant, Rein Raamat
The Cat Came Back, Cordell Barker
Rectangles & Rectangles & Rectangle, René Jodoin
Do Pivnice (Down in the Cellar), Jan Svankmajer
Jumping, Osamu Tezuka

May 10

On the eve of her retirement, a secret program of 10 films has been prepared for Hélène Tanguay (Marketing Manager for the NFB's English Animation Studio) by a team of employees at the CQ and the National Film Board. Details to come.

May 17, May 18, May 20, May 24, May 25, May 31, June 1, June 7

New York independent animator Bill Plympton graces the city once again with his presence. Yes, his films will be showing right until June!

May 17 is a special workshop with Bill Plympton. He will discuss his career as an animator, do an drawing demonstration and explain how directors can make a living working on short films. On May 18, there will be a screening of his shorts from 1977-1994 (in the presence of the director), and May 19, watch the balance of shorts from 1994 to the present. The next four screenings will be devoted to his features, The Tune, I Married a Strange Person!, Mutant Aliens, and Hair High.

If I died from an overdose, this is the way I'd want to go out.

Labels: Bill Plympton, events, features, Montreal, National Film Board of Canada, New York, NFB, shorts

It's good week to live in France. By that, I really mean it's only good to live in Nantes or somewhere really close by. Amer Beton, the French-subtitled version of Tekkon Kinkreet, opens on Wednesday theatrically in one theatre in that city, quite a few hours away from Paris. Allocine has the trailer and 4 excerpts of the film. Amer Beton was also the French version of the comic from which the film is adapted, and in English it was originally published under the name Black and White.

Now that Sony has picked up distribution rights, many people have been more hopeful. IMDB lists an American limited release for the second week of July, and I have yet to see or read anything for Canada outside of the festival circuit.

Several sites have been repeating that a domestic DVD release is set for the end of September. It seems to have begun with an announcement from Anime News Service, and picked up by several others, including the very reliable Twitch and Anime News Network. However, I have yet to see the date on the Sony website, despite most sites linking back to Sony's upcoming DVD releases, which are only listed until June. Viz is also planning to re-release the comic a few weeks before that, so it does make sense, but I'm still checking.

While all of this TK news is heartening, it bothers me that distributors still don't have enough faith to give innovative features a chance by giving them more theatrical exposure. I can't see it hurting their DVD sales, only increasing them.

At the end of the last week, the English Tekkon Kinkreet website went live, and you can access the trailer from the main page.

Labels: anime, comics, features, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Studio 4C, Tekkon Kinkreet

Speaking of retro mecha shows, I recently got a note from one Peter Jivkov that he's hard at work on Grendizer Returns, a fan-produced CGI feature based on UFO Robot Grendizer. He's posted a few stills and a brief rocket-punch test clip on his website. This reminds me that it's been almost a year and a half since I reported on The UFO, a similar Italian project that aims to make a live-action/CGI prequel episode to the original anime series. Check out the group's website for a smattering of new images, plus some making-of material (including a behind-the-scenes video) from last October.

Labels: anime, features

This has been kicking around on my hard drive for some time, and I was surprised to discover I hadn't posted it here before. Someone has posted an extensive collection of opening credit sequences from anime robot shows on YouTube, spanning from 1963 to 1996. The first collection starts with Tetsujin 28, the very first giant robot show, and the last collection closes out with Gaogaigar. A nice look at what hasn't changed (catchy pop songs, lots of crazy camera moves over zooming mecha) and what has (the sudden transition from black and white to colour, the creeping introduction of CGI) over the first 33 years of robot anime. Old-school anime fans can also see the original openings to Go Lion (brought over here as the five-lion Voltron), Dairugger XV (the vehicle Voltron, my favourite), Mazinger Z (Tranzor Z) and UFO Robot Grendizer (Grendizer, Goldorak and Goldrake in English, French and Italian).

Last week we kinda snuck a little note in our newsletter about a special going on at Amazon.ca right now, where several dozen anime DVDs are being sold for up to 42% off. Strangely enough, one of the discounted titles is the decidedly Danish The Boy Who Wanted to Be a Bear, which René Walling reviewed in our May 2005 issue.

From May 4–25, the Stay Gold Gallery in Brooklyn, New York is hosting the latest Too Art for TV exhibition, in which artists who have worked on such productions as Ice Age, SpongeBob SquarePants, A Scanner Darkly and Venture Bros. present their own artistic creations.

Black Entertainment Television are putting three new animated series into production: Bufu, an animated sketch comedy; Cipha, a near-future science fiction story in which young people rebel against the outlawing of hip-hop culture; and Hannibal the Conqueror, a series that aims to tell the life story of the legendary military genius. The variety of genres certainly looks promising, and the sort of thing I was hoping for when Denys Cowan signed on at the network.

New Israeli studio Animation Lab is embarking on a feature with a script by Philip LaZebnik, Alex Williams as director and Jim Ballantine as producer. Between the three of them they've worked on Mulan, Pocahontas, Open Season, Robots, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Brother Bear 2 and Bambi II. The movie is called The Wild Bunch and is about "a group of genetically modified cornstalks who attack a group of common wildflowers." That's the best you guys could do? Really?

Labels: anime, Black Entertainment Television, events, exhibitions, features, Israel, New York

Review by Noell Wolfgram Evans

Instinct is a funny thing. We know we should follow it and yet we rarely do. When we don't follow our instinct we kick ourselves and yell—we're angry because we didn't listen to ourselves and we're angry because we had to suffer in some way because we didn't listen to ourselves.

My instinct told me to avoid Happy Feet. I did so during its theatrical run but after its Oscar win and recent DVD release I decided to give it a chance.

Read the review

Labels: features, reviews, Warner Bros.

Meet the Robinsons is an inventive, engaging and fun film. It's enjoyable from start to finish and with luck could herald a new age in American animation. (That's not to say it's perfect or an instant classic, but it's got enough going right that the film gives us something different and special. In this day of copycat cookie-cutter films, that can't be overlooked.) This just-released Disney movie is a rare breed of Hollywood-produced animated films. It's not ironic, not moralistic, not a fairy tale on a grand scale; instead it's a pure story, well thought out and executed. It's the kind of movie that I left the theater liking and on the drive home found myself thinking back on and enjoying even more.

Read the review by Noell Wolfgram Evans

Labels: Disney, features, Meet the Robinsons, reviews

It looks like Disney's The Frog Princess won't be the next water-related heroine.

Hayao Miyazaki's next film will be about a little goldfish princess who wants to be human. The film is slated for 2008, and is titled Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on a Cliff).

After the divisive reaction to Studio Ghibli's Tales of Earthsea adaptation, directed by Hayao's son Goro Miyazaki, many will likely be breathing a sigh of relief that the elder Miyazaki is directing a new project.

Hayao Miyazaki's concept art and many of the full-colour images in his comics often use watercolours to beautiful effect, and Ponyo's storyboard are being rendered by Miyazaki in watercolour.

According to Variety.com, producer Toshio Suzuki, said Miyazaki will not be relying on computer graphics techniques. "Instead he will use simple, childlike drawings. He intends to make something different from his previous films."

(Thanks to Nausicaa.net for posting the link to the first image from the film.)

Labels: anime, features, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli

On Thursday, March 22nd, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will continue its free screenings of classic Disney features with Cinderella. One of my favourite touches in this film was the pumpkin carriage, which was inspired by the work of Beatrix Potter (one of the things I learned by attending the superlative exhibit, Once Upon a Time Walt Disney, to which these screenings are linked). If you can't make it for the film, Fantasia is showing on Friday, and I can't wait for Pinocchio on the weekend. See you there!

Don't feel for a feature film on Thursday? How about shorts?

Steamboat Willie, 1928, 8 min
Mickey's Orphans, 1931, 7 min
Mickey's Pal Pluto, 1933, 8 min
Mickey's Fire Brigade, 1935, 8 min
The Band Concert, 1936, 9 min
Donald and Pluto, 1936, 8 min
Thru the Mirror, 1936, 9 min
Clock Cleaners, 1937, 9 min
Don Donald, 1937, 8 min
Modern Inventions, 1937, 9 min

La Cinémathèque Québécoise will be screening these Mickey Mouse shorts (with appearances from the rest of the gang). These are all 35 mm prints.

Labels: Disney, exhibitions, features, Montreal, shorts