MATURE CONTENT AND LANGUAGE
Aaron Kyle Brushart’s film is a glorious insult to good old American hick bigotry. The hand-drawn characters and the overall sketchy style of this perfectly timed film had me laughing pretty much throughout. It must have been fun to shoot that burger too! Just like in a commercial!
Here’s the filmmaker’s website, http://ahaltintransmission.com.
Paul Gallagher at Dangerous Minds posted this 1924 Russian propaganda masterpiece. It’s a wild, science fiction, abstract work of art that just keeps pumping out wondrous images, one after the other. I love the ragged edges and mix of photographs, hand-drawn animation and cutouts.
Sokak Savasakarsi made this anti-war stop-motion street art piece in several Turkish cities. Unidentified hooded street artists place newspapers with cutout soldiers around the city. Then the soldiers start moving.
Joseph Bennett made this film to show you what can happen to people who love books too much.
Lotte Reiniger, the animator who made the oldest surviving animated feature, The Adventures of Prince Achmed, created this version of Hansel and Gretel in 1955. It uses her cutout silhouette technique.
Ray Harryhausen, the great stop-motion animator of dinosaurs, sea creatures and dancing skeletons made this version of Hansel and Gretel in 1951. The dolls are a bit off-putting if I must be honest about it. But it’s got some great movement and settings. This is one of a series of films he made for children after World War II.
The National Film Preservation Board of The Library of Congress has added a film to its National Film Registry by Mary Ellen Bute called Tarantella (1940). Here’s a short documentary about this animator and her total dedication to her art. Cartoon Brew has more information about the recent additions to the Registry.
Czechoslovakian animator Karel Zeman made The Fabulous World of Jules Verne in 1958 and it is, without exception, the finest example of Verne on film that I have ever seen. It is an adaptation of Verne’s novel, Facing the Flag. The combination of live action and Mysti-Mation (sets and animation painted to look like illustrations) not only evokes the atmosphere of old book illustrations, but it evokes the visual act of imagination that happens when I read a Jules Verne book. This film is perfection. I’m somewhat distrustful of the ‘steampunk’ movement but I would certainly imagine that this film must be one of its holy grail objects of worship. It should be for sure. Disney could never come close to this, then or now, because they are focused solely upon happiness.
Parts 2 through 8 after the jump!
A 1913 stop-motion film produced by the Russian Khanzhonkov Company and directed by Vladislav Starevich. Gorgeous. Look at how expressive Father Christmas is. He begins the tale as an ornament on a tree. He climbs down and makes his way into the forest.
A Russian stop-motion animation from 1912. Directed by Ladislaw Starewicz. Angry, jealous, cheating beetles!
Here’s some more information about the filmmaker at Dangerous Minds.
From Apache Pictures
Filmmaker Evan Mather made this beautiful animation about the life and visions of St. Clare of Assisi. I had no idea that television was divinely protected.
Makes me miss that old cathode ray.
Evan Mather produces films for his Hand Crafted Films company.
This is a very sly and clever filmmaker who seems to enjoy thinking about what makes certain film genres tick. He works with language as easily as he works with images. There’s lots more to post from him but you can go and explore his work on his Vimeo page.
Animator John Butler’s new work about the systematic war conducted by the financial world against human beings everywhere in the world. There’s more about the animator at Dangerous Minds.