What is it with The Weinstein Company? Harvey Weinstein is perhaps the smartest and savviest of the current Hollywood moguls, but his taste in animated films leaves much to be desired. Last year he launched his new company with the low budget (but clever) Hoodwinked, then fumbled with the British import Doogal. Now this? Weinstein’s art house competitors, such as Sony Pictures Classics (Triplettes of Belleville, Paprika, Persepolis), Warner Independent (Scanner Darkly) and even his previous studio Miramax (Renaissance), have picked up challenging adult animated features that push the envelope. Weinstein has apparently bought into the stereotype that animated films are childrens films - not family films, children’s films. He leaves on the table over a dozen brand new, more sophisticated international animated features (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Princess and everything being shown next week at the Waterloo Festival for Animated Cinema) that are more deserving of U.S. distribution.Weinstein’s latest acquisition, Piccolo, Saxo and Company, is a French production, with animation produced in Romania and plot ripped from Paul Tripp’s Tubby The Tuba:

The film tells the story of a far away planet on which musical instruments live. Marco Villamizar’s tale follows Piccolo, Saxo and other brass and string instruments that band together to form a grand symphonic orchestra. The group goes on a quest to find musical notes and other instruments stolen by an evil doctor who dreams of building the perfect instrument.

Weinstein will no doubt dress Piccolo up with an all-star American voice cast and give it a token theatrical release en route to its permanent home on DVD racks at Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, etc. I have nothing against well made animated films for children (Curious George was a fine example), but animators need more visionary distributors who will expose U.S. audiences to the great work being produced around the world. Weinstein, Miramax, Lionsgate, Sony, Fox Searchlight and the others do a fine job with handling live action foreign films. Their animated siblings are waiting to be adopted.I’ve given this rant before. And I probably will again. Maybe one of these days I’ll end up doing something about it myself.

For most artists, paper is an expendable material that one creates their art on, but Megan Brain’s paper sculptures show that the paper itself can be transformed into a piece of art as well. While the art of paper sculpture is nothing new, Megan brings an appealing cartoon sensibility to the practice that I haven’t seen before. The closest thing that I can compare her work to are the characters from the early-60s Disney short A SYMPOSIUM ON POPULAR SONGS though that cartoon never pushed it quite as far design-wise. Brain recently contributed her distinctive paper sculpture skills to Henry Selick’s feature CORALINE, which is being produced at Laika. See more of her delightful work at MeganBrain.com (see if you can find the Craig Kellman piece) and meganbrain.blogspot.com.

USA TODAY has an article in which Jerry Seinfeld discusses why he decided to make a live-action trailer for DreamWorks’s next CG feature BEE MOVIE. Dare I say, the trailer is the most entertaining piece of filmmaking that DreamWorks Animation has produced to date.

This Friday, November 10, marks the opening of F*CK: A DOCUMENTARY, which examines the origin and uses of a certain word. Besides interviews with numerous celebrities, the film also features animated sequences by Bill Plympton. Additionally, Plympton’s animated short, GUIDE DOG, will screen in front of the film, though a more appropriate animated short would have perhaps been Fred Crippen’s IMPROVING COMMUNICATIONS (2004), which is a comedic look at the many ways to use this particular word. The film is opening in LA and NY before expanding to other cities. In NY, it’ll play at the Quad Cinema (34 West 13th St., New York NY) while LA folks can check it out at Landmark’s NuArt Theatre (11272 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles CA). Upcoming cities and additional details can be found at the film’s website FourLetterFilm.com.

It’s coming! The holiest day of the year for cartoon buffs - the arrival of the annual LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION. And I’m lucky enough to be holding the latest volume in my hand right now.Under the shiny gold-leaf cover (bundled differently this year, thus the package is a bit thinner looking) are four discs loaded with pure cartoon joy (okay, there are a couple of lame late Speedy Gonzales cartoons on disc three, but I survived and you will too). Sixty more Warner Bros. cartoons to add to our personal archives, beautifully restored, with entertaining, informative bonus materials that add to our knowledge of how these classics were made.Of course, as a consulting producer on the set, I’m intimately involved and biased. But I love the Golden Collection series - and I’m happy to do whatever I can to spread the gospel of Looney Tunes. Volume 4 goes on sale next Tuesday (Nov. 14th). I urge you to buy it right away! Here’s a few good reasons to do so:

Rare trailers (at left) and restored original titles (at right). Nuff said!

90 Day Wondering: Cartoon Modern fans will love this lavishly restored, rarely seen 1956 Chuck Jones Army reenlistment film. You’ll also see Ralph Phillips as an adult!

Great menus! Can you spot the un-P.C. picture of Bugs on this menu from Disc 1?

In celebration of the Channel Frederator podcast’s first anniversary, Frederator Studios has created FredEx, an experimental animation jam. Frederator has assembled an international group of filmmakers seeking to answer an age-old question: What is it like to be a robot?

The Secret Life of Robots is the first installment of the FredEx series. Kicking off production in July, executive producers (and contributing animators) Dan Meth and Lee Rubenstein selected fifteen Channel Frederator alumni to animate on the project, randomly matching each of them with a single word. The filmmakers were given two months to produce 10-20 seconds of original content, using their appointed subject to depict a specific aspect of robot existence.

Premiering today, the cartoon is available for free download at ChannelFrederator.com. It’s funny stuff and absolutely worth a look.

It’s Election Day here in the US so it’s only fitting to mention a new politically-oriented Flash Webcartoon. The series, BROCK & THROCK WITH ANOTHER CROCK, was created by Oscar and Emmy-winning director John Korty, whose animated feature TWICE UPON A TIME (1983) is the subject of a huge piece in ANIMATION BLAST #9. New episodes of BROCK AND THROCK are being posted on Revver, and currently, the first two episodes are available for viewing HERE and HERE. The production values on the Flash leave something to be desired, but considering that Korty hasn’t produced much animation since TWICE UPON A TIME, it’s simply fascinating to see him return to action on the Internet.

Here’s more about the series from its press release:

Although best-known for serious drama, Korty actually started as an animator. “This summer, I found some sketches from my very first experiments. One in particular was perfect for a dialogue between two characters - a single zigzag line that can function as the profile for either face. I had put it away, waiting for the right subject matter. The wait was fifty years.”

The online series, intended to run parallel to the fall election campaigns, skewers the Bush Administration on various topics, failed legislation, wire-tapping, religion in politics, foreign relations, even their favorite news channel.

Both fictional characters are staff members, but the conversations are not the type ever made public. Brock is a hardened veteran, while Throckie got an entry-level job because of his rich uncle. He is a less-than-bright neophyte. He can’t understand the furor about domestic wire-tapping, for instance. “Who cares what domestics are saying to each other anyway?”

For his voice talent, Korty drew upon the resources of San Francisco’s improv humor community. Bill Bonham and Jim Cranna, doing Brock and Throck respectively, have both performed for many years on radio spots and film soundtracks. Cranna, in fact, founded and taught at the Theatre of the Deranged, a hot house of zany improvisation.

(Thanks, Taylor Jessen)

Yesterday, Cartoon Network released the trailer for their first original live-action production RE-ANIMATED. We’ve already discussed this topic enough on the Brew so a simple link to the trailer should suffice. The movie premieres on CN in December.