Another clever short by Tex Avery. He takes the animal wars to a new level. Instead of cat vs mouse, he kicks it into high gear with dog vs. cat vs. bird vs mouse. To top it off you give them all a special solution which makes them grow, resulting in gigantic monster versions of the creatures chasing after one another. It's a cute short, but not quite as witty as some of Avery's other stuff.
Really a beautifully shot film, full of symbolism. The first shot is of a woman washing ashore on land. She climbs up a piece of drift wood, only to find herself crawling horizontally across a table at a house party, unnoticed by the guests. As she reaches the end she observes a chess game being played. She is transfixed as the pieces begin to move themselves, and a piece falls from the board, and gets lost. She desperately tries to find it journeying to find this missing piece. Eventually, she ends up back at the beach, where two woman are playing chess. This scene is very reminiscent of the game with death in 'The Seventh Seal'. It's a great film, which seems to want to say a lot. I can't say I understand every part of it, but it at least makes me think. On top of it, its a gorgeous film to look at.
Another experimental film that doesn't do anything for me except give me a headache. It's a decent concept, pasting insects and leaves on celluloid, but its too rapid and too chaotic. It turns into a mess rather than anything interesting.
This is a short dedicated to the filmmaker's love for New York City. It's essentially a bunch of shots of the city strung together. The problem is it's pretty grainy and lifeless. I love the idea of getting a glimpse of what the city was like in the early 1920's, but this really disappointed me.
A brilliant propaganda piece made by Tex Avery during World War II. The story is a farce on the Three Little Pigs, with Adolf Wolf as the wolf coming to invade. Only one little pig was smart and loaded his stone house with weapons to fend off the wolf, and finally sends him to hell thanks to the aid of the powerful defense bond bombs. Yes, it's that thinly veiled. Its a fascinating look at history through the lens of cinema. Despite its motives, its still very sharp, and funny. It was a bizarre medium for conveying their message, given its animated like a saturday morning cartoon, but its effective. It definitely shows its age with many racist jabs, which fixes it firmly in the paranoid war time era. It may not be PC by todays standards, but its still a great piece of propaganda filmmaking.
The title roughly translates to "Meditation on Death". Knowing this before viewing the film helps, a lot. Taken at face value, its a grating, surreal, compilation of gloom and blurry dancing. The sound is star in this piece. Using a mix of a heartbeat and a buzz saw creates tension and impending doom, which is fitting given the title. While watching the film I had no idea what Emshwiller was going for, which I think is a pitfall. Once I understood what he was trying to convey I appreciated it a bit more, but its still not enough to save this bizarre short.
There is so little to say about this short. The film is silent, grainy and completely lifeless. Perhaps director Joseph Cornell was attempting to capture the essence of summer, but it never comes across. It appears to be a normal home video. One taken by someone who is still learning how to use it, and pointing it randomly at uninteresting things. The film was made to remember a house that was to be demolished. Cornell cherished things from the past and tried to preserve this house he treasured before it was gone forever. However, I got no sense of emotion from the film. It was completely void of life which seems to be in complete contrast of what he was going for.
Edwin Stanton Porter's adaptation of a popular comic from that era. We are introduced to the fiend shoveling down Welsh Rarebit from a giant vat. He becomes intoxicated and stumbles home and into bed where he has a bizarre, Rarebit induced dream which involves his bed flying away from him. It's a fantastic trick shot film. For its time, its astounding what Porter was able to do, from the flying bed, to the furniture running away from him. True, there isn't much of a narrative here, its just an excuse for special effects, but its effective. Porter was a true innovator and this as a fine example of his skill at trick photography. It had me smiling the entire time, and amazed at what he was able to accomplish.
This is the third Norman McLaren short I've seen, and each has been very different, ranging from stop motion photography to pastel drawing. 'Dots' is the the most traditional of the lot, and the most basic. It's a great demonstration of animation. Succinctly put, its just a bunch of dots moving around and exploding. It's worth the watch given its short run time, and its pretty cool what he does with such rudimentary animation. In the end though, its just a bunch of dots, its hard to get too excited.
I'm always iffy on 'experimental' anything, and 'Adebar' is the perfect example of why. The video is essentially distorted silhouettes dancing around with incomprehensibly irritating music playing. The music can only be compared to a toddler violently blowing into a recorder. I have no idea what value this short has, cinematic or otherwise. I can only imagine this is the kind of stuff they run on repeat to torture people. Absolutely brutal.
This experimental animation/live action short by Len Lye reminded me of the opening credit dance sequence in 'Superbad'. A live action dancer is drawn over and incorporated into a 2D animated world. The video is essential a man dancing around after it rains with music playing. At one point he picks up a tennis racket and starts playing with large drawn orbs, which is a neat effect, especially for 1937. The quality of the film is very poor and diminishes the effect of the animation, but even if it was pristine I don't think it would evoke anything more than a "that's kind of cool" from me. The concept is greater than the execution.
A powerful animated short about a woman's effort to avenge her besieged city. Using a primitive, cave drawing-like, animation style with live action archival footage mixed in, gives a raw feeling to the barebones film. The narrative is a bit chaotic, and with no dialog or narration it took a bit of effort to get my bearings on what exactly was happening. The primary motif is a violent mix of explicit sex and even more explicit gore. By the end the message is clear, culminating in a jarring resolution. When forced into a corner, people will do anything to seek revenge. The short is certainly dark, but the underlying message certainly leaves an impression.
This is short is essentially a very elaborate Rube Goldberg machine. There are some impressive aspects to the complex machine which heavily uses chemical reactions and fire in its triggers. Also astounding is it's length at just under 30 minutes of continuos work. This is both an incredible feat and ultimately the films biggest fault. Rube Goldberg machines are fun to watch for a short period, but with such a hefty running time it becomes redundant and tedious. Also lacking is the finale, which just kind of ends without a final task. It's certainly an amazing effort, but doesn't really earn its length.
Norman McLaren's best known short film for which he won an Oscar. He implements a film style called pixelation, which uses live actors in stop motion. Curiously it won the award for best documentary short, which is peculiar since it clearly is not a documentary. Its about two men who live happily right next to each other without any problem. One day, a beautiful flower blooms directly in the center of them. They both are intoxicated by its aroma and want it all for themselves. They fight over sole ownership of the flower and quickly devolve into raging monsters. It is basically a thinly veiled condemnation of war. It was a strange mix of what the film was going for. On one hand it felt light and slapstick-like, but on the other hand things turn fairly dark.
One of the most memorable scenes however was really pretty impressive. Using stop-motion techniques, McLaren was able to make the men appear to levitate. This was accomplished by having the men jump and capturing them at their apex. The effect is unusual but it works. I'm not completely sold on the film effectiveness in its message, but it definitely does have a point, and it tells it in a very original way.
A D. W. Griffith short about a greedy wheat tycoon who corners the market making life miserable for the average poor worker. The film does a good job contrasting the high life of the wealthy against the grueling, miserable life of the poor families just trying to survive. Its pretty transparent in its intent on being social commentary and condemning corporate greed which destroys the lives of the people that make up the foundation of the country. My biggest problem is that its too on the nose. It is almost painfully straightforward and it weakens the film. None the less its still a trill to watch a movie such as this. An early work by one of the great directors who helped form what cinema is today.
An oddly conceived animated short which focuses on style over substance. The film is a continual morphing of an image which keeps changing from a chicken to an egg, and back again with outer space sometimes being shown. The painting was done using chalk and pastels, giving the entire short a surreal feel to it. The animation style is certainly very different from other work around the same time period, but I'm stuck pondering what the point of it was.
A completely surreal, silent, stoner comedy. It is a direct spoof on Sherlock Holmes. Our hero is Coke Ennyday. He divides his day into eating, drinking, sleeping and doping. He's very wealthy, and has all the latest technologies and gadgets. The plot is a bit garbled, but essentially the CIA needs him to find a criminal. He does so while injecting cocaine, snorting cocaine out of a giant box and eating opium. Every time he is feeling a bit sluggish he takes a hit, gets jittery and goes on his crime fighting ways. He is like Popeye, only with drugs rather than spinach. At one point he fends off a mob of gangsters by injecting them with drugs and blowing cocaine in their face. I kid you not. Its completely ridiculous, taking a very lighthearted look on hard drugs. Its so out there that it almost works, if only the actual detective plot was better.
Taken at face value this is nothing more than a screensaver with sitar music. For some it may be trance inducing, for me it was headache inducing. What can be said is the amazing amount of work James Whitney put into creating this short at the time, and the painstaking labor required to produce what can so easily be done by a computer in seconds now. Lets face it, it doesn't hold up, but it was remarkable at the time none the less.
A crude comical biographical short about famed professional flatulist Joseph Pujol. The british film toes the line of satire and straight forward biopic. It was a well put together piece, and the life of Pujol is absolutely absurd, and yet intriguing. There was even a touch of sentiment thrown in by the end. It depicts a man who took his 'craft' very seriously. This was not my type of humor, and yet I can't fault the film too much as this was an actual person and they never went overboard with the material. It just felt a bit one note and went on far too long for my enjoyment.
Basically a music video for Throbbing Gristle which is comprised entirely of distorted footage of a T.G. live performance. At no point did I get anything out of this mess, except perhaps a headache. There were flashes of colors and every once and awhile you could make out a person, but that was about all there was too it. I just couldn't really see the point in it.
Life is full of random moments. Moments which are completely non-essential, but nonetheless intriguing to you at the moment. These are generally personal moments. Just your imagination taking hold of its surroundings and playing with it. 'Passionless Moments' takes these moments and plays them out deadpan, as if they were part of a documentary. It's decent concept which works out fairly well. It's a connecting film in that its nice to know that the inane thoughts that flitter through your brain probably flitter through everyone else's too.
Similar to 'Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory', this should be viewed as a piece of history rather than any sort of entertainment. The 50 second film just shows a train pulling into a station. That's it. Nothing spectacular. What is amazing is that it is one of the first motion pictures ever made, and the impact it had on the cinema world. It does have a bit over the Lumiere Factory short in that its a bit more crisp and there is the 'excitement' of the train pulling in. Not exactly edge-of-your-seat cinema, but groundbreaking for the time.
Well, there isn't much to say about a 47 second clip of people leaving a building. It has historical value being one of the first motion pictures ever made, and there is something to be said for being able to see video of people from this era. As anything other than a historical curiosity, it offers nothing.
A very bizarre, experimental, short. Showing everyday lie in Nice, France the film is a series of images of both the frivolities of the wealthy and the despair of the poor. There was an overuse of stylized camerawork that added nothing to the film. However, there were also some innovative progression shots, with the scene changing but the camera not moving. It was somewhat interesting to just see the shots of average people going about their lives in the early 30's. Unfortunately the complete lack of narrative and meandering shot sequence did not hold my interest and I was just waiting for it to end.
Comments 26 - 49 of 49
Movie comment on King-Size Canary
BlueVoid
Another clever short by Tex Avery. He takes the animal wars to a new level. Instead of cat vs mouse, he kicks it into high gear with dog vs. cat vs. bird vs mouse. To top it off you give them all a special solution which makes them grow, resulting in gigantic monster versions of the creatures chasing after one another. It's a cute short, but not quite as witty as some of Avery's other stuff.Movie comment on At Land
BlueVoid
Really a beautifully shot film, full of symbolism. The first shot is of a woman washing ashore on land. She climbs up a piece of drift wood, only to find herself crawling horizontally across a table at a house party, unnoticed by the guests. As she reaches the end she observes a chess game being played. She is transfixed as the pieces begin to move themselves, and a piece falls from the board, and gets lost. She desperately tries to find it journeying to find this missing piece. Eventually, she ends up back at the beach, where two woman are playing chess. This scene is very reminiscent of the game with death in 'The Seventh Seal'. It's a great film, which seems to want to say a lot. I can't say I understand every part of it, but it at least makes me think. On top of it, its a gorgeous film to look at.Movie comment on Mothlight
BlueVoid
Another experimental film that doesn't do anything for me except give me a headache. It's a decent concept, pasting insects and leaves on celluloid, but its too rapid and too chaotic. It turns into a mess rather than anything interesting.Movie comment on Manhatta
BlueVoid
This is a short dedicated to the filmmaker's love for New York City. It's essentially a bunch of shots of the city strung together. The problem is it's pretty grainy and lifeless. I love the idea of getting a glimpse of what the city was like in the early 1920's, but this really disappointed me.Movie comment on Blitz Wolf
BlueVoid
A brilliant propaganda piece made by Tex Avery during World War II. The story is a farce on the Three Little Pigs, with Adolf Wolf as the wolf coming to invade. Only one little pig was smart and loaded his stone house with weapons to fend off the wolf, and finally sends him to hell thanks to the aid of the powerful defense bond bombs. Yes, it's that thinly veiled. Its a fascinating look at history through the lens of cinema. Despite its motives, its still very sharp, and funny. It was a bizarre medium for conveying their message, given its animated like a saturday morning cartoon, but its effective. It definitely shows its age with many racist jabs, which fixes it firmly in the paranoid war time era. It may not be PC by todays standards, but its still a great piece of propaganda filmmaking.Movie comment on Thanatopsis
BlueVoid
The title roughly translates to "Meditation on Death". Knowing this before viewing the film helps, a lot. Taken at face value, its a grating, surreal, compilation of gloom and blurry dancing. The sound is star in this piece. Using a mix of a heartbeat and a buzz saw creates tension and impending doom, which is fitting given the title. While watching the film I had no idea what Emshwiller was going for, which I think is a pitfall. Once I understood what he was trying to convey I appreciated it a bit more, but its still not enough to save this bizarre short.Movie comment on Centuries of June
BlueVoid
There is so little to say about this short. The film is silent, grainy and completely lifeless. Perhaps director Joseph Cornell was attempting to capture the essence of summer, but it never comes across. It appears to be a normal home video. One taken by someone who is still learning how to use it, and pointing it randomly at uninteresting things. The film was made to remember a house that was to be demolished. Cornell cherished things from the past and tried to preserve this house he treasured before it was gone forever. However, I got no sense of emotion from the film. It was completely void of life which seems to be in complete contrast of what he was going for.Movie comment on Dream of a Rarebit Fiend
BlueVoid
Edwin Stanton Porter's adaptation of a popular comic from that era. We are introduced to the fiend shoveling down Welsh Rarebit from a giant vat. He becomes intoxicated and stumbles home and into bed where he has a bizarre, Rarebit induced dream which involves his bed flying away from him. It's a fantastic trick shot film. For its time, its astounding what Porter was able to do, from the flying bed, to the furniture running away from him. True, there isn't much of a narrative here, its just an excuse for special effects, but its effective. Porter was a true innovator and this as a fine example of his skill at trick photography. It had me smiling the entire time, and amazed at what he was able to accomplish.Movie comment on Dots
BlueVoid
This is the third Norman McLaren short I've seen, and each has been very different, ranging from stop motion photography to pastel drawing. 'Dots' is the the most traditional of the lot, and the most basic. It's a great demonstration of animation. Succinctly put, its just a bunch of dots moving around and exploding. It's worth the watch given its short run time, and its pretty cool what he does with such rudimentary animation. In the end though, its just a bunch of dots, its hard to get too excited.Movie comment on Adebar
BlueVoid
I'm always iffy on 'experimental' anything, and 'Adebar' is the perfect example of why. The video is essentially distorted silhouettes dancing around with incomprehensibly irritating music playing. The music can only be compared to a toddler violently blowing into a recorder. I have no idea what value this short has, cinematic or otherwise. I can only imagine this is the kind of stuff they run on repeat to torture people. Absolutely brutal.Movie comment on Rainbow Dance
BlueVoid
This experimental animation/live action short by Len Lye reminded me of the opening credit dance sequence in 'Superbad'. A live action dancer is drawn over and incorporated into a 2D animated world. The video is essential a man dancing around after it rains with music playing. At one point he picks up a tennis racket and starts playing with large drawn orbs, which is a neat effect, especially for 1937. The quality of the film is very poor and diminishes the effect of the animation, but even if it was pristine I don't think it would evoke anything more than a "that's kind of cool" from me. The concept is greater than the execution.Movie comment on Pleasures of War
BlueVoid
A powerful animated short about a woman's effort to avenge her besieged city. Using a primitive, cave drawing-like, animation style with live action archival footage mixed in, gives a raw feeling to the barebones film. The narrative is a bit chaotic, and with no dialog or narration it took a bit of effort to get my bearings on what exactly was happening. The primary motif is a violent mix of explicit sex and even more explicit gore. By the end the message is clear, culminating in a jarring resolution. When forced into a corner, people will do anything to seek revenge. The short is certainly dark, but the underlying message certainly leaves an impression.Movie comment on Der Lauf der Dinge
BlueVoid
This is short is essentially a very elaborate Rube Goldberg machine. There are some impressive aspects to the complex machine which heavily uses chemical reactions and fire in its triggers. Also astounding is it's length at just under 30 minutes of continuos work. This is both an incredible feat and ultimately the films biggest fault. Rube Goldberg machines are fun to watch for a short period, but with such a hefty running time it becomes redundant and tedious. Also lacking is the finale, which just kind of ends without a final task. It's certainly an amazing effort, but doesn't really earn its length.Movie comment on Neighbours
BlueVoid
Norman McLaren's best known short film for which he won an Oscar. He implements a film style called pixelation, which uses live actors in stop motion. Curiously it won the award for best documentary short, which is peculiar since it clearly is not a documentary. Its about two men who live happily right next to each other without any problem. One day, a beautiful flower blooms directly in the center of them. They both are intoxicated by its aroma and want it all for themselves. They fight over sole ownership of the flower and quickly devolve into raging monsters. It is basically a thinly veiled condemnation of war. It was a strange mix of what the film was going for. On one hand it felt light and slapstick-like, but on the other hand things turn fairly dark.One of the most memorable scenes however was really pretty impressive. Using stop-motion techniques, McLaren was able to make the men appear to levitate. This was accomplished by having the men jump and capturing them at their apex. The effect is unusual but it works. I'm not completely sold on the film effectiveness in its message, but it definitely does have a point, and it tells it in a very original way.
Movie comment on A Corner in Wheat
BlueVoid
A D. W. Griffith short about a greedy wheat tycoon who corners the market making life miserable for the average poor worker. The film does a good job contrasting the high life of the wealthy against the grueling, miserable life of the poor families just trying to survive. Its pretty transparent in its intent on being social commentary and condemning corporate greed which destroys the lives of the people that make up the foundation of the country. My biggest problem is that its too on the nose. It is almost painfully straightforward and it weakens the film. None the less its still a trill to watch a movie such as this. An early work by one of the great directors who helped form what cinema is today.Movie comment on La poulette grise
BlueVoid
An oddly conceived animated short which focuses on style over substance. The film is a continual morphing of an image which keeps changing from a chicken to an egg, and back again with outer space sometimes being shown. The painting was done using chalk and pastels, giving the entire short a surreal feel to it. The animation style is certainly very different from other work around the same time period, but I'm stuck pondering what the point of it was.Movie comment on The Mystery of the Leaping Fish
BlueVoid
A completely surreal, silent, stoner comedy. It is a direct spoof on Sherlock Holmes. Our hero is Coke Ennyday. He divides his day into eating, drinking, sleeping and doping. He's very wealthy, and has all the latest technologies and gadgets. The plot is a bit garbled, but essentially the CIA needs him to find a criminal. He does so while injecting cocaine, snorting cocaine out of a giant box and eating opium. Every time he is feeling a bit sluggish he takes a hit, gets jittery and goes on his crime fighting ways. He is like Popeye, only with drugs rather than spinach. At one point he fends off a mob of gangsters by injecting them with drugs and blowing cocaine in their face. I kid you not. Its completely ridiculous, taking a very lighthearted look on hard drugs. Its so out there that it almost works, if only the actual detective plot was better.Movie comment on Lapis
BlueVoid
Taken at face value this is nothing more than a screensaver with sitar music. For some it may be trance inducing, for me it was headache inducing. What can be said is the amazing amount of work James Whitney put into creating this short at the time, and the painstaking labor required to produce what can so easily be done by a computer in seconds now. Lets face it, it doesn't hold up, but it was remarkable at the time none the less.Movie comment on Le Petomane
BlueVoid
A crude comical biographical short about famed professional flatulist Joseph Pujol. The british film toes the line of satire and straight forward biopic. It was a well put together piece, and the life of Pujol is absolutely absurd, and yet intriguing. There was even a touch of sentiment thrown in by the end. It depicts a man who took his 'craft' very seriously. This was not my type of humor, and yet I can't fault the film too much as this was an actual person and they never went overboard with the material. It just felt a bit one note and went on far too long for my enjoyment.Movie comment on T.G.: Psychic Rally in Heaven
BlueVoid
Basically a music video for Throbbing Gristle which is comprised entirely of distorted footage of a T.G. live performance. At no point did I get anything out of this mess, except perhaps a headache. There were flashes of colors and every once and awhile you could make out a person, but that was about all there was too it. I just couldn't really see the point in it.Movie comment on Passionless Moments
BlueVoid
Life is full of random moments. Moments which are completely non-essential, but nonetheless intriguing to you at the moment. These are generally personal moments. Just your imagination taking hold of its surroundings and playing with it. 'Passionless Moments' takes these moments and plays them out deadpan, as if they were part of a documentary. It's decent concept which works out fairly well. It's a connecting film in that its nice to know that the inane thoughts that flitter through your brain probably flitter through everyone else's too.Movie comment on L'arrivée d'un train à La Ciotat
BlueVoid
Similar to 'Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory', this should be viewed as a piece of history rather than any sort of entertainment. The 50 second film just shows a train pulling into a station. That's it. Nothing spectacular. What is amazing is that it is one of the first motion pictures ever made, and the impact it had on the cinema world. It does have a bit over the Lumiere Factory short in that its a bit more crisp and there is the 'excitement' of the train pulling in. Not exactly edge-of-your-seat cinema, but groundbreaking for the time.Movie comment on La sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon
BlueVoid
Well, there isn't much to say about a 47 second clip of people leaving a building. It has historical value being one of the first motion pictures ever made, and there is something to be said for being able to see video of people from this era. As anything other than a historical curiosity, it offers nothing.Movie comment on À propos de Nice
BlueVoid
A very bizarre, experimental, short. Showing everyday lie in Nice, France the film is a series of images of both the frivolities of the wealthy and the despair of the poor. There was an overuse of stylized camerawork that added nothing to the film. However, there were also some innovative progression shots, with the scene changing but the camera not moving. It was somewhat interesting to just see the shots of average people going about their lives in the early 30's. Unfortunately the complete lack of narrative and meandering shot sequence did not hold my interest and I was just waiting for it to end.Showing items 26 – 49 of 49