The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Project)

An ongoing project to survey the best films of individual decades, genres, and filmmakers.
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swo17
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#551 Post by swo17 » Wed Jun 26, 2013 10:40 pm

zedz wrote:I figured I only had room for two McLarens - and those are the two I chose.
Me too. Except I'm also choosing this.

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Steven H
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#552 Post by Steven H » Thu Jun 27, 2013 3:44 pm

I had my list all ready until I started investigating all of Priit Parn's works. They have almost all floored me and now I'm completely thrown off. In other words, glad we had the extension! And watch Parn's Breakfast on the Grass if you have a few minutes to spare.

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swo17
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#553 Post by swo17 » Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:15 pm

Does anyone have any recommendations from Image's Hubley Collection?

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knives
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#554 Post by knives » Thu Jun 27, 2013 9:37 pm

The Hole is my personal favorite taking his improvised scratchy style to its logical extreme that applies to its political aims rather interestingly.

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swo17
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#555 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 28, 2013 10:57 am

Is that one actually in one of Image's three volumes, perhaps under another name? I see it's on YouTube in any case.

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knives
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#556 Post by knives » Fri Jun 28, 2013 1:16 pm

It's on the Cosmic Eye set which collects a few of his films at least. It's going for insane bucks now though. As to the sets I think you are referring to People, People, People and Moonbird are excellent.

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Gregory
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#557 Post by Gregory » Fri Jun 28, 2013 2:28 pm

I wanted to comment on one of knives's spotlight films, Shooting Range, which I've owned on the Animated Soviet Propaganda set for years and years but didn't remember having seen upon watching it a couple days ago. Easily one of the oddest propaganda films because the message is so obscured by what a head trip it turns into. The artistic choices actually work against the message, such as having the vulnerable unemployed worker drive a vintage hand-cranking touring car! And, near the end of the film, the boss is so easily intimidated and weakened that the couple can simply walk away from the dangerous situation they've ended up in. Not a very systemic critique of capitalism if it's just that easy.
The oddest thing about it is the art being so hallucinogenic for a Soviet propaganda film. Again, the “Age of Aquarius” look is totally at odds with the ostensible critique of a capitalist system plagued by poverty, stagflation, and exploitation.
It’s surprising that this very trippy imagery was even permitted, but perhaps it was deemed harmless enough by 1979 to expose people to this Peter Max/Yellow Submarine-type stuff because it was such a throwback that it was tolerable as a little kitsch to make the film appealing.
The most striking thing for me, though, was the music by the Ganelin Trio, who I've been a fan of for the longest time. I can't believe this music was found in a propaganda film the very same year that the trio recorded their great live album Catalogue, the tapes of which had to be smuggled out by tourists and released in the UK with a disclaimer that the musicians bear no responsibility for the release of the recordings!

The other unbelievable thing for me was that I never gave the director’s name any thought, but it’s Vladimir Tarasov, same as the drummer of the Ganelin Trio, whose music makes this film special for me. So I figured it must be the same person and was amazed that this incredible drummer apparently had a parallel life as an animator and art director. Looking into it further, however, I found out that the director was born in 1939 and the drummer in 1947. Just a coincidence that they have the same name.

Also of some interest, I guess, is Tarasov's previous film Contact (Контакт), which isn't out there nearly as far as Shooting Range is, and is what introduced people behind the Iron Curtain to Rota's wonderful Godfather music, although it a fairly cheesy rendition. (Coppola gets a shout-out in the credits, though they misspelled his name.) It's on volume 2 of Masters of Russian Animation, which has been rare for some time. There are still inexpensive copies of vol. 3 available, so I hope that means lots of people have watched Norstein's Tale of Tales for this round.

karmajuice
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#558 Post by karmajuice » Sat Jun 29, 2013 1:31 pm

Last night I watched The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb, a '93 stop-motion feature from the British-based bolexbrothers group. Not sure if it's come up in this thread yet. It's a hard film to classify. In terms of technique and aesthetic, it resembles the work of Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers, but it lacks the formal rigor of Svankmajer and the moody abstraction of the Quays. Actually, I shouldn't say it lacks moody abstraction, it just feels like a very different brand of it. The film does have a story, of sorts: an unusually small child (Tom) is born, stolen away from his parents, and brought to a laboratory (for reasons unclear); it escapes and finds a hamlet of similarly-sized inhabitants, including a warrior named Jack; Jack and Tom infiltrate the city of giants in an attempt to reach some mysterious object (energy source?) kept in the aforementioned laboratory. It follows that archetypal quest structure, fusing the stories of Tom Thumb and Jack the Giant Killer, but does so for very oblique reasons. The film's narrative mostly serves to bear the film's distinct aesthetic, though it carries some metaphorical and psychological weight as well (Tom's relationship with his parents, his father in particular, is central to the film).

The film has possibly the most seamless use of pixellation I've ever seen, with puppets and human actors co-existing without the use of any optical tricks. The whole world is grimy and vaguely post-apocalyptic, but its strange asides and obscure approach prevent it from feeling like familiar territory. Sometimes the film is too in love with its own grotesquerie (the film abounds in insects and rodents, sewers, objects suspended in formaldehyde), but on the whole it earns that love. I'm especially fond of the role of the father and the ending, which I found both compelling and utterly baffling.

I suspect a kinship with Prometheus' Garden, especially in its underground feel, but I've only seen clips of that film.

I know this is a last minute recommendation, and I don't really expect anyone to get around to it, but I figured it was worth mentioning. I'm not even certain it will place on my list; if so, it will be ranked pretty low. I did enjoy the film, but I wasn't sure exactly what to make of it.

If anyone is interested, the UK disc is dirt cheap and also includes a short from the same company, The Saint Inspector, which is equally bizarre. I'd actually seen this before; it's what led me to the feature. It's only five minutes long, and worth a look. It will give you an idea what to expect of the feature.
The Saint Inspector

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#559 Post by matrixschmatrix » Sun Jun 30, 2013 1:56 am

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

I hadn't watched this in years- long enough that I don't think I got a huge amount of what was going on last time I saw it- so it felt like watching the movie for the first time, though occasional gags were familiar. It's one of those movies where the high points are pretty great and the low points are at worst just ok, so the whole comes out to very worthwhile for me, particularly since it feels like it was going for something that hadn't been done before in a couple of different ways, even while the actual storytelling feels very much like just a bunch of pastiche ideas mashed together.

I almost wish the movie were pure animation, with only the judge as a seemingly human character; Hoskins is fun (though moreso when he's a sourpuss) but the thing never reaches the heights of the pure cartoon moments, particularly the camerawork in the opening short as it accelerates towards its conclusion (and begins to look Thief and the Cobbler-esque and the Daffy and Donald piano-off, thrown away in the background; when it tries to run its human cast through similar beats, it feels sort of lame. Of course, the whole genius of the thing is the animation/live action hybrid, and I think the integration holds up really well overall, perhaps in part because the human characters don't seem a whole lot more believable than the toons. There's a lot of stuff that feels Zemeckis-y in the way of Forrest Gump or Back to the Future, leaning on nostalgia and familiarity while elbowing you in the ribs in hopes you'll feel smart for getting jokes about the LA highway system or whatever- which ultimately makes it more disposable than it should be. Still, there's enough in just the execution of the thing to be worth a vote, and it's not as if there's anything in there I actually dislike.

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knives
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#560 Post by knives » Sun Jun 30, 2013 2:02 am

I'm not sure if I'd count it as animation, and my Williams vote is going to his Christmas Carol, but it is certainly amongst the best things Zemeckis has put his name on with only Used Cars coming close. Amongst his animation I actually really like Beowulf though it feels like a great script in search of a director.


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Gregory
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#562 Post by Gregory » Sun Jun 30, 2013 8:19 pm

I would say both have become series of films (and, with Cars, TV) that are superstructure for inconceivably huge merchandising franchises. People have spent over $10 billion on Cars merchandise, and Fast & Furious is always upping the saturation of merchandising and marketing, including social media. It's approaching 38 million likes on Facebook. People seem to strongly identify with the image of the franchise as "lifestyle" of some sort, not unlike with the old "Marlboro Man" ad campaign, though I'm now far off the thread topic.
The Ratatouille chart is hilarious. The Wall-E one right below it is spot on, except that I would have made a few of those small wedges even smaller.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#563 Post by matrixschmatrix » Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:15 pm

Jesus, I hope we get a bit more conformist- I have four lists in right now, and the overlap is like 15 pieces. There already isn't a single thing showing up on everyone's list, and not much showing up on more than two.
Last edited by matrixschmatrix on Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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swo17
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#564 Post by swo17 » Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:30 pm

That's actually just kind of how the math tends to work out. For example, with the first four lists submitted for the '60s list, there were only 19 films in common. It took about 10 lists to get 100.

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domino harvey
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#565 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:47 pm

The greater question is probably "Will there be ten lists?"

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swo17
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#566 Post by swo17 » Mon Jul 01, 2013 11:19 pm

I can submit my list twice if it helps.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#567 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Jul 02, 2013 12:38 am

The Man Who Planted Trees is so gorgeous and wonderful that I'm literally ashamed of myself for not having watched it sooner, and for real anyone who has a list that they haven't submitted yet- watch it. It's a half hour long and on youtube and gives me a feeling that I rarely remember getting outside of The Passion of Joan of Arc or The Flowers of Saint Francis, just pure admiration and hope for humanity cracking through a normally impenetrable wall of dull cynicism. It's got the power of a myth, but the specificity of a story that is literal and believable, and it's the kind of thing that makes one stop wanting to make excuses for not doing anything to make the world a better place- not because it shames you, but because it makes you feel that there is hope in patience and decency and love and trees.

Also, I'm really upset with myself because the CBC shop that carries the Frederic Back set is down until September, as of a couple of weeks ago, and buying it on amazon would run like $500 or something absurd.

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knives
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#568 Post by knives » Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:00 am

Image released a very cheap identical version of it.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#569 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:15 am

Can you link it? I've found this, which is a reasonable price, but I haven't been able to see if it's the French version of everything or English or both or what.

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knives
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#570 Post by knives » Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:26 am

Hmm, seems to be OOP or I could just have misread my library's copy.

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Askew
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#571 Post by Askew » Tue Jul 02, 2013 8:32 am

matrixschmatrix wrote:Can you link it? I've found this, which is a reasonable price, but I haven't been able to see if it's the French version of everything or English or both or what.
I have that exact set and can confirm that it has everything in English and French. It's hard to tell from that small picture, but even everything on the cover is written in both languages.

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matrixschmatrix
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#572 Post by matrixschmatrix » Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:04 am

Oh, cool, thanks.

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barbarianeggplant
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#573 Post by barbarianeggplant » Tue Jul 02, 2013 9:57 am

Hey, been following the animation project since the beginning but haven't bothered speaking up until now, to put in a last minute plug for a longtime favorite I haven't seen mentioned, Roman Kachanov's Varezhka (Mitten) (1967). Kachanov was the director behind SoyuzMultfilm's puppet stop motion, including the beloved Cheburashka. Varezhka is one of those children's pieces that appeals to the memory of being a child as well as it captures any story. Told entirely without words, it manages to pick up on loneliness and boredom and the magical thinking they inspire.

Varezhka on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCOwl8Fv ... E6&index=2

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movielocke
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#574 Post by movielocke » Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:12 pm

I'll submit a very conformist list. :-p I'm no where near my goal of getting through all my conformist animation discs, but I'll submit a last minute list as I think I can plow through a lot this week while I'm off work.

Speaking of, I finished the Daffy/Porky disc on LTGC1

Yankee Doodle Daffy, Porky Chops, Wearing of the Grin, Deduce You Say, Boobs in the Woods and Golden Yeggs are all pretty average LT films, Wearing of the Grin is a bit below average, Golden Yeggs is a skosh above average.

They are then followed up by two of the best Looney Tunes made, Rabbit Fire (which has always been my favorite of the duck season, rabbit season trilogy) and Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century. Both are really brilliantly written, Rabbit Fire in particular doesn't have a single second that isn't funny, and duck Dodgers also benefits from having the amazing designs and layouts that give it such a fantastical look.

So out of the first two discs of LTGC1 I have the following four on my list: High Diving Hare, Duck Amuck, Rabbit Fire and Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century, Feed the Kitty will also be on the list, probably right after Duck Amuck, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the highlights from Disc 3 and 4 also make it in or push out Rabbit Fire or High Diving Hare.

From Mickey Mouse in Living Color v1 I have the following as candidates I'll wittle one from.
The Band Concert, Clockwork Cleaners, Alpine Climbers, and Brave Little Tailor
and Mickey's Trailer (my all time favorite mickey cartoon) will definitely be on the list with one of those four.

From the Tom and Jerry Golden Collection v 1 I'll be including Puttin on the Dog

I'll have to check the brakhage sets to see which ones seem like animation, but either Black Ice or Stellar will probably be on my list.

From Silly Symphonies vol 1, I'll be including The Old Mill and Who Killed Cock Robin

From the Complete Goofy I'll be including How to Ski, I may include Goofy's Glider.

The Donald cartoon that will be on the list is the one in which he bakes a plane.

and I'll include Pantry Panic for a woody woodpecker cartoon.

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Gregory
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Re: The Animation List Discussion & Suggestions (Genre Proje

#575 Post by Gregory » Tue Jul 02, 2013 1:17 pm

I feel bad for excluding Stan on this, but I need more than optical zooms to think of something as animated.
Last edited by Gregory on Tue Jul 02, 2013 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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