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VIEW POSTS BY “amid”November 6, 2009 9:01 am
Robert Zemeckis’s A Christmas Carol opens today to a chorus of negative reviews and a rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A particularly harsh assessment comes from Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal:
And that’s just the first paragraph of his review. I watched this short clip from the film, and it is sufficiently inept enough to prevent me from wanting to see any more. What did it for me is the scene at about 1:15 in which a ghost floats rapidly towards Scrooge and knocks him backwards. Scrooge then does a backroll and pops up off the floor in a way that is so comically devoid of the laws of physics and inappropriate to the physical movement of a realistic human that all dramatic impact is instantly drained from the scene. This film may technically qualify as animation, but good animation it isn’t. Zemeckis’s desecration of this holiday classic comes at a reported cost of $180 million, and box office projections range between $35 to $45 million this weekend. November 6, 2009 5:39 am
My favorite site of the moment: Curious Pages, a newly launched blog about obscure but outstanding children’s books from the 1800s all the way up through today. The brief descriptions of the books are often quite funny, and the selection is eclectic, such as this Czech version of The Wizard of Oz painted in a Paul Klee style or the Art Deco-ish etching of A Head for Happy, which is about a headless doll. There are even a couple of animation-related items, like Mel Crawford’s adaptation of UPA’s Gerald McBoing Boing (picture above). The impeccable curation can be attributed to the blog owners, who are two talented children’s book authors and illustrators in their own right, Lane Smith and Bob Shea. November 6, 2009 2:19 am
As Jerry pointed out a few weeks ago, the big question for the animated feature Oscar category this year is whether they’ll reach the magic number of sixteen qualifying features, which triggers the five-nominee playing field. Fifteen qualifying features or less results in only three nominees. It will be close. One of the films that entered, Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone was recently disqualified on a technicality, and it’s unclear whether all of the other films that have been released this year have entered for qualification. The rules are confusing and just because a film is released theatrically in LA doesn’t automatically qualify it; last year, films like Space Chimps and Star Wars: The Clone Wars didn’t bother to enter, thus limiting the category to three nominees. A five-nominee field is beginning to look like a real possibility. Director Raul Garcia is currently in the process of qualifying his feature, The Missing Lynx: Paws on the Run, while Disney gave Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure a one-week LA run before its dvd release. Jerry reported yesterday that the French-Belgian co-production A Town Called Panic is moving through the qualification process, and Tomm Moore, director of The Secret of Kells, mentioned on his blog the other day that they’re trying to get the film qualified. In the eight-year history of the animated feature Oscar, there have been five nominees only once. There’s a good chance that 2009 could be the second time. November 5, 2009 4:17 pm
An article in National Geographic discusses the results of an “uncanny valley” test on monkeys. Researchers showed monkeys three versions of a monkey on a monitor—one video of a real monkey; one stylized CG model; and one realistic “uncanny valley” animated face. Guess what happened? The research suggests that “given the choice, monkeys prefer to look anywhere other than at a realistic fake monkey.”
The article goes on to say:
(Thanks, Arthur Metcalf) November 5, 2009 2:22 am
Here’s something the great Art Babbitt uttered in 1941.
One could say the exact same thing about today’s mainstream animation, and sadly, it would all still apply. (quote from Michael Barrier’s website) November 4, 2009 8:40 pm
A three-minute preview of Prep & Landing was released online today. It’s a TV special from Disney Feature Animation directed by Kevin Deters and Stevie Wermers-Skelton. It premieres on ABC next month. November 4, 2009 7:25 pm
November 4, 2009 6:55 pm
I was blown away earlier today when I discovered the work of Rebecca Dart. She has a fantastic sense for funny appealing shapes, and powerful cartoon drawing. It wasn’t surprising to learn that she works in animation, and again, no surprise to see her credits on her IMDB filled with some of the crassest TV trash imaginable. It’s hard to adequately put into words how depressing it is to know that talent of this caliber exists within our industry, and the rampant cluelessness that results in these artists producing shit like this. It’s like hiring Velázquez or Vermeer to paint the lines in a parking lot — an utter, total waste of skill and talent. Though the animation world has no appreciation or use for such skill, she’s at least able to utilize her artistic voice in the comic books she makes. (via Drawn)
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