Review
THE ANIMATION SHOW
Curated by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt
Opens Friday, December 19
Uptown Screen
Take it from someone who’s seen all three original Wallace & Gromit shorts in a theatre – nothing beats a really good animation festival on a big screen.
Trouble is, in recent years, there really haven’t been that many genuinely good ones. Well-attended delights such as The International Tournee of Animation gradually fell by the wayside, until there was only one cartoon festival left: Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, a once fun event that’s been steadily declining in quality. Sure, Lupo the Butcher was fun at first, but did it have to become the template for every Spike and Mike entry ever since? The future of theatrically released cartoon short programs looked bleak.
Something had to be done.
Enter Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt.
Determined to produce an animation festival of genuine quality, these two internationally lauded animators have put together a remarkable collection of shorts now known as The Animation Show. This is the first instalment of what Judge and Hertzfeldt hope will be an annual event, and if they can keep up this level of quality, I can hardly wait for The Animation Show 2. At 94 minutes, The Animation Show is longer than most similar animation festivals, but feels much shorter, thanks to its superior entertainment value. No less than five of the entries are Academy Award nominees, and the material is intelligently organized, giving the entire evening a well-designed flow. It’s the perfect mixture of comedy and awe, intelligence and anarchy, and contemplation and irreverence. Here are a few of the highlights:
Welcome to the Show, Intermission in the Third Dimension and The End of the Show (2003): Don Hertzfeldt animated these three little interludes specifically for The Animation Show. Fans of Hertzfeldt’s Rejected (2000) will find them a nice little treat, but I worry that by the time Rejected appears at the end of the program, new viewers might already know a bit too much about what to expect. After all, much of Rejected’s potency comes from its shock value. Still, funny stuff!
Strange Invaders (2001): Ah…the NFB. One of the many joys of being a Canadian is the sense of national pride one feels whenever one of Cordell Barker’s endearingly oddball cartoons plays on a big screen, delighting a fresh new audience. Here, Barker gives us a typically excellent little chuckler about the joys and horrors associated with having a new child. At least, I think it’s a child, and not a space creature or something. Um…uh oh.
Mt. Head (2002): A Japanese folktale animated in a way that doesn’t resemble traditional anime one bit! Cool images and an amusingly overheated narration enhance this head-scratching, nonsensical fable.
Mars and Beyond (excerpt) (1957): Here’s a bit of animation history – an extremely cool exercise in speculation over what alien life might be like on other worlds. Made by Ward Kimball (1914-2002), one of the legendary "nine old men" from Walt Disney Studios, this one’s narrated by Walt himself, and is a genuine mindblower. Public interest in space exploration reportedly shot up after this was first broadcast.
Ident (1989): A slightly bemused look at identity, and the ways in which we present ourselves to others.
Vincent (1982): A popular little crowd-pleaser that’s not listed in the program. Superbly narrated by Vincent Price himself. (Man, I miss that guy.)
Parking (2003): It’s always great to see something new from Bill Plympton. This one pits a parkade attendant against a recalcitrant blade of grass, in what becomes an epic battle of wills.
Das Rad (The Rocks) (2001): Brilliant, thought provoking and funny, this Academy Award nominee from Germany looks at human progress through the eyes of a couple of rocks.
Rejected (2000): I’ve already raved about this twisted masterpiece several times in my Video Vulture column. How many more times do I have to say it? This is brilliant. See it. See it now. For crying out loud, just see it. |
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