Author Topic: Animation Education  (Read 23786 times)

Corndog

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #90 on: July 11, 2017, 07:05:28 AM »
Tom & Jerry is still awesome. No need to be afraid.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

pixote

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #91 on: July 14, 2017, 10:08:41 PM »
Tom & Jerry is still awesome. No need to be afraid.

I wonder if all the eras are equally awesome, or if the Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones cartoons are more what people think of when they think of Tom and Jerry, rather than the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 40s and 50s. (I'm hoping the 50s shorts show an improvement over the 40s ones since I'll be watching them at some point in the near future.)

Corndog, are any of the shorts I reviewed above ones you remember being awesome?

pixote
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oldkid

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #92 on: July 15, 2017, 12:30:45 AM »
Professor Tom, A Mouse in Manhattan and the Christmas ones are cartoons I remember fondly from my misspent youth, although I remember watching all of them.
"It's not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster." Bansky

pixote

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #93 on: July 15, 2017, 01:30:19 AM »
Professor Tom, A Mouse in Manhattan and the Christmas ones are cartoons I remember fondly from my misspent youth, although I remember watching all of them.

I hope you rewatch A Mouse in Manhattan for the Retrospots! I'll be very curious to read your take.

You named three of the best or most interesting ones, for sure, which is probably comforting for both of us. Puttin' on a Dog is the only other one that should have been a childhood favorite.

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Corndog

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #94 on: July 17, 2017, 07:23:33 AM »
Tom & Jerry is still awesome. No need to be afraid.

Corndog, are any of the shorts I reviewed above ones you remember being awesome?

pixote

I honestly don't remember any specifics, but I always enjoy watching it when I catch it on tv. Always funny to me. But I don't know which eras and animators and whatnot when I randomly catch it.
"Time is the speed at which the past decays."

filmnoter

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pixote

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #96 on: August 01, 2017, 02:37:25 PM »
Thanks for the link! Interesting to hear that "a leading Texas distributor" may have been influential in the continuation of the comically violent series.

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pixote

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Re: Animation Education [Animal Farm]
« Reply #97 on: September 30, 2017, 02:21:13 AM »




















Animal Farm  (John Halas & Joy Batchelor, 1954)

I really wish I'd written a review when I watched Animal Farm two months back because I had a fair amount to say about it back then, most of which I've of course forgotten. It's a fascinating film, both in its origins (funded by the CIA) and its execution. Producer Louis de Rochemont's background creating The March of Time newsreels definitely seems to infect the storytelling of Animal Farm in a negative way. There's very little flow to begin with, and the continual interjections of the newsreel-style narrator only makes that worse. The animation contributes to that choppy feel as it pivots back and forth between a very Disney-influenced style and a darker, more abstract tone, more adult tone that seems more properly Orwellian. Both styles work well independently of each other — the kid-friendly sequence of the animals working together to spruce of the farm is as appealing in its way as the scenes of shadowy Fascism — but they rarely mesh together. A few of the character designs seemed very off to me, and I generally didn't like Maurice Denham's voice work, but I'm not sure I was able to identify why. Despite these caveats, it's still a worthwhile film, one that I'm glad to have finally caught up with.

Grade: B-

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DarkeningHumour

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Re: Animation Education
« Reply #98 on: October 02, 2017, 08:10:00 AM »
That movie made me understand Stalinism when I was eleven. Good times.
« Society is dumb. Art is everything. » - Junior

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pixote

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Re: Animation Education [Pete's Dragon]
« Reply #99 on: October 06, 2017, 03:23:09 PM »


Pete's Dragon  (Don Chaffey, 1977)

I don't know what made me add Disney's partially animated live-action films to this marathon, but I severely regretted that decision about five minutes into Pete's Dragon. I had a whole rant ready to go here, but I let a week pass before writing anything down, and now I can't really be bothered. I'm tempted to just say that the films insists upon itself — because it really does. The production and the performances are all so sincere and committed, effervescently proceeding headlong at full volume (it's such a loud film) with zero regard for all the script's shortcomings (it's such a stupid film). There's a sad, throwback charm to the film's attempt to cling to the outdated style of movies from a decade earlier (Oliver!, Mary Poppins). I had thought Doctor Doolittle killed that dream, but I guess not.

The animation of the film is mostly a failure. For reasons that generally don't make logical sense, we only see the dragon Elliott intermittently; he spends most of the film invisible. That choice becomes a huge obstacle in terms of suspension of disbelief. The visual effect of incorporating the animated dragon in a live-action setting is far from seamless and takes getting used to; but every time Elliott reappears, that process of suspending our disbelief starts almost from scratch, and thus the illusion is mostly ruined. Compounding this problem is that Elliott's character design just feels too distinct from the surrounding world. In a cartoon, he'd probably be pretty charming — just an oversized, clumsy Scooby Doo. But in this overly bright, live-action world, the more muted hues of the dragon rarely mesh. There's one nice exception, when Elliott is sleeping in a cave, the darkness of which makes the effect more palatable. Otherwise, it's mostly a miss.

The songs and choreography are mostly unmemorable, except for a nonsense refrain that stuck in my head even though I (ironically) couldn't remember the words ("Passamamassy, Quoddamapoddy, Passamadaddy ..."). Helen Reddy has a perfect voice for this sort of film, though, so clear and pure. If only her acting were half as polished.

Please tell me Bedknobs and Broomsticks won't be this bad.

Grade: D+

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