Last night Asifa-Hollywood had a screening of Surf’s Up and I moderated an enjoyable Q&A with Ash Brannon and several key members of the production crew.

Don’t let this film pass you by. It’s excellent. It’s not just another “penguin movie”. It’s a surfing comedy with funny characters and, bottom line, it’s very entertaining. And you can tell the different penguin characters apart!

I never thought I’d be raving about effects animation, but the wave effects alone are worth the price of admission. The story is told in a semi-mock documentarty style, with hand-held camera moves I haven’t quite seen in an animated film before. I could go on and on about it; it’s superior in every way and I’d hate to see it get lost in the shuffle between the other summer heavyweights (Shrek The Third and Ratatouille). I don’t often do an out-and-out plug for a current release, but this film deserves a shot. It’s one of the best of the year.

It’s official… It’s officially bad!

The latest trailer for the live action Underdog movie confirms that the film will be a dog (no pun intended). Ya’know, if Warner Bros. did a Krypto film like this, I wouldn’t be so bummed. But this isn’t Underdog - this is.

As enthused as I am over the big budget, widescreen Hollywood animated blockbusters en route to the cineplex this summer, I’ve been keeping my eye on this little black & white hand-drawn film based on Iranian author Marjane Satrapi’s comic book autobiography.

We’ve posted about it before, Persepolis is a coming-of-age story of a young Iranian girl that begins during the Islamic Revolution and follows her to Austria as a teenager at school, where she struggles to overcome stereotypes and predjudices. What it lacks in Hollywood visual pyrotechnics, it more than makes up for it with an intelligent story and realistic characters. It looks to be one of the most refreshing films of the year.

Check out the blog with many behind-the-scenes podcasts, the trailer (embedded below) and these clips (in French): Clip 1, Clip 2, Clip 3.

Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud co-wrote and are co-directing the film, which is coproduced by 2.4.7. Films and the Kennedy/Marshall Company.

New trailer (with actual footage from the film) posted here.

Courtesy of Hollywood Elsewhere: direct from the Cannes Film Festival yesterday, audio of Jerry Seinfeld (with Jeffery K.) discussing the origin of the film and his take on the process of animation.

Oh, and the Art Of book is available for pre-order.

If this doesn’t get you excited about Ratatouille, then nothing will.

This is part of a new Ratatouille podcast series that can be subscribed to for free at iTunes.

(via Seward Street and FilmIck)

Michael Arias, director of Studio4°C’s Tekkon Kinkreet, recently commented on a Cartoon Brew post about upcoming theatrical screenings of his film in the United States. In addition to the previously mentioned NYC screenings, he mentions a couple theatrical screenings coming up in LA and Honolulu. I’ve posted complete screening details below.

I’m glad that these festival screenings make it available on the bigscreen, though it begs the question: why is a studio like 4°C, which is consistently producing some of the most innovative animation today, unable to secure stateside distribution for its films like Mind Game and Tekkon Kinkreet. I’m sure the reasons are complicated but it’s still a huge failure on the part of the US film distributors to not make quality foreign animation like this available to the public.

SCREENING INFO
NEW YORK
MoMA - The Museum of Modern Art
Roy and Nita Titus Theaters 1 & 2
Wed 4/25 (T1), Thurs 4/26 (T2), Fri 4/27 (T2) - 8:30 pm
Sat 4/28 (T2), Sun 4/29 (T2) - 2:00 pm
Mon 4/30 (T2) - 8:30 pm
Screening info here
Ticket info here

LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival
Laemmle’s Sunset 5
Sunday, May 6 - 5:00 pm
Tickets available here

HONOLULU
Hawaii International Film Festival
Dole Cannery
Thursday, April 26 - 8:45 pm
Tickets available here

In Gina Piccalo’s carefully worded puff piece in today’s LA Times Sunday Calendar section (”Aqua Teen Jumps to Big Screen”, April 8th, 2007), even the one die-hard Hunger Force fan they got to go on record, Chuck Warren of Long Beach, couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the so-called “colon movie”:

Aside from the band of drunk frat guys next to them, Warren said the crowd response was pretty tame. As far as the film itself, Warren considered it just another poke in the ribs from Maiellaro and Willis.

“It’s them saying it doesn’t matter,” he said. “As a fan, I kind of liked that. They threw it all in your face and you had to take what you wanted.”

The LA Times article is typical of the kind of publicity stories placed by the movie studios each week, prior to a film’s release, in hopes of generating some box office numbers on opening day. But even by puff piece standards (which are pretty low), this one has a hard time marshaling anything positive to say about the film. (It was reviewed on the Brew, March 17th)

The jist of the piece is that AQHF-C-MFFT is a feature film is based on a TV “cult” hit that, before the Boston bomb scare incident, most people never heard of. And that most viewers either love it or hate it.

Ms. Piccalo has seen the movie, and you don’t have to read between the lines to get the idea that she is warning you to stay away. She sums it all up in this one sentence: “To an outsider, this is either self-indulgent bad writing or fodder for bong hits and acid trips.”

An animated week at the movies.

Meet The Robinsons and TMNT are expected to be #2 and #4 at the nation’s box office this weekend. More than one animated film in the top five is always pleasant surprise - and a good sign for the industry.

Two other highly anticipated animated feature films, Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon and The Simpsons Movie, are nearing their release dates.

The readers at Ain’t It Cool News seem to generally agree with me about the qualities of the upcoming Aqua Teen movie.

Meanwhile, Nikki Finke has posted some details from a work-in-progress/test screening of The Simpsons Movie held in Portland last week. I’ll happily wait to see the finished film before jumping to conclusions, but that one sounds like a winner to me.