An impressive young talent who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting since moving out to NY is Arthur Metcalf. A self-taught animator, his first short, Fantaisie in Bubblewrap (2007) has become an audience favorite at the few festivals it has played at so far. Today, Metcalf released a new one-minute hand-drawn cartoon exclusively online, Badflavr.com, starring Kitteh and Puppeh. Watch it below. The humor derives from the seemingly indefatigable lolcatz, but even if you’re becoming worn out from that meme, the cute kitty really sells the piece. The cat’s typing skills and two-pawed mouse usage garnered a good laugh from me because it’s so skillfully and humorously animated. More about Arthur Metcalf at MetcalfLovesYou.com. His experimental “holiday card” on YouTube is also worth a view.

After being denied an Oscar nod for Best Animated Short, Aardman has posted Luis Cook’s award-winning short The Pearce Sisters onto AtomFilms. The fim’s official website is here and the site offers some interesting details about how the film’s unique look was achieved. Well worth a view.

Back in April, we posted to a YouTube link of Chuck Menville and Len Janson’s Oscar nominated live-action pixilation short, Stop, Look and Listen (1967). Warner Bros. keeps removing it from the ‘net (it was a MGM short), but you can capture it on video via TCM tomorrow night (actually early Saturday morning). It’s being broadcast Friday Feb 1 (really the wee hours of Feb 2) at approximately 4:13 AM, as part of their 31 Days of Oscar programming. So set your TiVo or DVR’s.

(Thanks, Kermyt Anderson)

Visions of Frank is a dvd that came out last year collecting eight animated shorts by Japanese animators, all based on Jim Woodring’s wondrous comic creation Frank. The 45-minute dvd, which sells for $25 on Woodring’s website, also comes with a 16-page booklet, and includes Woodring’s own animated short Whim-Grinder. More info from the website:

VISIONS OF FRANK collects 8 wild Frank animations made by some of Japan’s most innovative and idiosyncratic filmmakers: Taruto Fuyama, Eri Yoshimura, art unit COCOA, DROP INC., Masaki Naito, Kanako Kawaguchi, Naomi Nagata. Each piece is an interpretation of a classic Frank comic and is scored by musicians from Japan and the USA. The films run the gamut of animation techniques: 3D CG, paper craft, clay, iron sand and traditional cel 2D…For each animation, you are able to choose between the original music and the newly composed music by other musicians. Participating musicians include James McNew (from Yo La Tengo), The Coctails, Dame Darcy, Kicell, Milk Yabe, and others.

A number of the shorts, if not all, are viewable on YouTube including this fine one:

Congratulations to our friends Joost van der Bosch and Erik Verkerk of Ka-Ching Cartoons, who just finished a new 3D cartoon short which will premiere tomorrow at the International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The 3D Machine, an homage to classic horror movies, about a professor who invents a machine that can bring everything he draws to life, was produced using the old anaglyph (red and blue) 3-D process. Bosch and Verkerk’s previous film, The Shoebox will soon be featured on Cartoon Brew Films. The 3D Machine premieres at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam on January 29th at 5pm at the Stadsschouwburg of Rotterdam.

Minotauromaquia is an intriguing stop motion short I saw a few years back in Annecy. It’s directed by Spaniard Juan Pablo Etcheverry. The short will appeal most to those who are familiar with Picasso’s work, though the message should be clear to all. Jeff Hasulo’s blog Hydrocephalic Bunny also offers some nice thoughts about the film.

According to the website of Koji Yamamura, he has completed a new short entitled A Child’s Metaphysics. The film, which premiered last October, is just beginning to hit the festival circuit. The synopsis of the film is intriguing if slightly confusing:

A child whose head is numerals, a child who winds his own face and has it under his arm. What was left is his identity, a child whose eyes are provided by fishes, a child who lies down on the floor and head-butts his identity, a child who cannot say anything because of a zipper across his mouth. He undo the zipper but under it is another zipper…

Ecology and philosophy of children with sadness and humour.

Yamamura has emerged as perhaps the finest independent Japanese animation director of his generation. Though he’s been creating animated films since the late-’80s, he didn’t begin attracting worldwide attention until 2002 when his short Atama yama (Mt. Head) became a huge hit on the festival circuit and garnered an Oscar nomination. Since then, he’s turned out a couple of other winners—The Old Crocodile (2005) and last year’s Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor, which I’ve heard is nothing short of incredible. You can familiarize yourself with a couple of his best known works below.

The Old Crocodile

Atama yama

The nominees for the 80th annual Academy Awards were announced this morning:

Best Animated Feature
• Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
• Ratatouille (Brad Bird)
• Surf’s Up (Ash Brannon and Chris Buck)

Note: The Surf’s Up nomination surprised even Sony. Yair Landau, president of Sony Pictures Digital, told Animation Magazine this morning, “We really didn’t run any campaign here whatsoever.” Considering that both Persepolis and Surf’s Up are released by Sony, it’ll be interesting to see whether they choose to promote one film over the other in the run-up to the Oscars.

Best Animated Short Film
• I Met The Walrus (Josh Raskin) Link
• Madame Tutli-Putli (NFB, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) Link
• (Meme Les Pigeons Vont Au Paradis)Even Pigeons Go To Heaven (Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse) Link
• My Love (Moya Lyubov) (Alexander Petrov) Trailer
• Peter And The Wolf (Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman) Link

Note: This is the first time since 1999 that US filmmakers have been shut out of the animated short category. This year’s nominees are by Canadian, British, French and Russian filmmakers.

Ratatouille also received nominations for Best Original Screenplay (Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird), Best Original Score (Michael Giacchino), Best Sound Editing (Randy Thom and Michael Silvers) and Best Sound Mixing (Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane).

UPDATE: Four of the five animated short nominees can be viewed online in their entirety. Ticklebooth has the links.