Tom and Jerry have always represented chaos — but this Indian commercial is mind-numbing in its confusion. Here, Tom & Jerry join forces with Bollywood mega-star Kajol and Alpenliebe candy mascot, the crocodile Mr. Mach. The animation was produced by Black Magic Motion Pictures and directed by Abhijit Chaudhuri. The 3D crocodile animation was produced by R&H India.
(Thanks, Karl Cohen and Animation Express)
Did you know that Adventure Time creator Pen Ward drinks Shasta Cola in the bathtub? How about that Sony animator Kim Hazel wants a remote control airplane? Or that even Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane can’t get decent customer service from AT&T? If you love useless minutiae about the lives of other people, Twitter can fulfill those needs.
Animation artists are beginning to join the site in significant numbers, though at the moment the number of graphic designers and illustrators using the service seems to outweigh the number of animators. If you’re just getting started with Twitter, here’s our list of twenty-two animation Twitterers who are worth following, as well as three feeds that are related to Cartoon Brew and the Brewmasters. Feel free to share your suggestions for twittering animators in the comments.
…if you enjoy Tex Avery, Virgil Partch, Roy Williams, Billy Barty and Spike Jones. Mark Evanier has a must-read story that ties all these folks together.
This summer, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be running a film series on Monday nights showcasing the ten (yes, 10) Best Picture nominees of 1939. It’s the 70th Anniversary of what many consider the Hollywood’s greatest year. The celebration will include restored prints of such films as Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Stagecoach, Gone With the Wind and of course, The Wizard of Oz.
In addition to the feature films, each week will include a chapter of Universal’s Buck Rogers serial with Buster Crabbe (surely this must be the first time a serial is screened at the Academy!) and a 35mm print of a select 1939 cartoon. The cartoon line up hasn’t been announced, but it is sure to include Disney’s The Pointer (above), The Ugly Duckling, MGM’s Peace on Earth and Warner’s Detouring America. I believe the restored Popeye two reeler Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp will also be screened.
When I get the get the cartoon schedule I will post an update. In the meantime, mark your Monday’s from May 18th through August 3rd. The series ticket is $25. for all ten films – that’s $2.50 per screening! For more information check the Academy website. See you there!
The Social Side of Health and The Fight are a couple of oddball industrial films directed by Nine Old Man Les Clark at Disney in 1969. The films are rarities which I’d never seen, which is why I’m posting them here. There’s a reason though why these haven’t appeared on any of the “Disney Treasures” DVDs. Like every other major Hollywood animation studio, Disney was not immune to the restrained film budgets of the 1960s and the results are evident, if not unintentionally amusing as well.
The Social Side of Health
The Fight
Dreamworks had a very good weekend.
A $58 million dollar opening for Monsters Vs. Aliens was the biggest opening weekend gross this year and generating the third highest March gross on record. It also set a record opening for a 3-D film in digital and IMAX screens. Even more impressive was the debut of the new Dreamworks animated series, The Penguins of Madagascar which Nickelodeon is reporting as the most-watched series premiere in the network’s history, drawing 6.1 total million viewers.
I caught the Penguin show last night and, considering it’s aimed at kids, its better than most of the CG series that have come along lately. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it’s very entertaining. Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley, the executive producers, toiled on many of the better Disney television productions in the past ten years (including those wonderful Genie Great Minds Think For Themselves interstitials). The TV critic at the L.A. Times points out that the show…
“…doesn’t revolve around bratty/neurotic children and their pets. (May I take this moment to remind every parent of a cartoon-watching child that the iconic “Tom and Jerry” and “Roadrunner” were essentially silent — oh time, time, go back in thy flight.)”
Nickelodeon will feature two weeks of Penguins primetime premieres weeknights until April 10, at 8:00 — 8:30 PM (ET/PT). The series will move to its regular timeslot on Saturdays at 10:00—10:30 AM (ET/PT) beginning April 18.
The Secret of Kells is a largely hand-drawn 2-D animated feature that is garnering a lot of good buzz from people who have seen it, such as this Variety review that calls it “absolutely luscious to behold…UPA-studio-meets-the-Dark-Ages characters with intricate, Celtic design-inspired detailing.” The 6 million Euro feature originated out of the studio Cartoon Saloon in Ireland, but is a truly global co-production with studios from Brazil to Hungary working on the film.
A couple weeks ago, the film was screened privately for artists at Disney and Pixar. Below is a post-screening Q&A that took place at Pixar with the film’s director Tomm Moore and producer Paul Young, the duo who founded Cartoon Saloon in 1999. They get a lot of praise and positive feedback from the folks at Pixar. Tomm Moore also has a blog about the film here. No American release has been set, though Secret of Kells is playing at a lot of festivals, including Annecy in June.
Another week, another oddball adult-skewing Paramount cartoon from the 1960s. Unlike previous films I’ve posted recently, this one was indeed shown on theaters and on Saturday morning TV (hence the The New Casper Cartoon Show titles), but was left off the recent Complete Harveytoons dvd set.
Written by Irv Spector, Crumley Cogwheel features Paramount’s usual vocal team of Eddie Lawrence and Eddie Lawrence, using his two stock voice characterizations. If you enjoy his voices (and I do), you’ll like this picture. Once again, adult frustrations are at the core of the scenario: nebbish corporate employee Cogwheel hasn’t asked for a raise in 20 years and his boss challenges him to do so. Cogwheel eventually gets the nerve to ask, and becomes a man — but only after getting bombed at the local bar. It’s amazing this was considered suitable for Saturday morning. Note Casper in the end titles, shrugging his shoulders as if to communicate to the kids at home that he has no idea where this cartoon came from.
I’m still on the fence about whether I’ll subject myself to Monsters vs. Aliens, but I’ve been getting a kick from reading other people’s thoughts about the film on Twitter. The usefulness of a service like Twitter is in its aggregation of opinions, while its 140-character limit forces users to boil down their thoughts into a clear opinion. You can keep up with a steady stream of average moviegoer’s thoughts by looking at the following search results: “Monsters vs Aliens” and “MVA”.
Here is a random selection of Twitters about MvA:
gobzero Saw Monsters vs Aliens tonight. It was pretty damn funny!
jttiki MvA was better than I thought it would be, but it ain’t Pixar.
mattholley Went and saw Monsters vs Aliens…hilarious! I love a good animated flick
michaelkwan Just got back from Monsters vs. Aliens. The 3D made for a fun movie experience.
hownottowrite MvA: The real sad thing is that the jokes in the trailers are funnier than they are in the movie. Dang, and I thought I was a bad writer…
kmvassey Back from MvA. It was great, and the 3D was really good. Definitely the best 3D I’ve seen from any film or ride yet. Good stuff. :)
FyodorFish Glad I saw MvA at a advance screening then. Don’t know if I’d pay that much to see MvA.
linuxrebel MvA was so funny at so many levels kid and adult. You gotta go.
Ske7ch MvA was cute. Superb animation but character development was lacking. Oh well, it’s just a kids’ movie.
shdowchsr Monsters vs. Aliens was fun. I suspect that most people had no idea why what they were laughing at was funny.
KuraFire Monsters vs. Aliens is fun, but not very polished. Lip sync was mediocre; lot of missed opportunities for jokes; too high a Disney factor.
crossstreet monsters vs aliens. good movie. lots of geek reference, esp liked part with a missile saying “ET go Home” soundtrack at the time was from ET
dylanthunter MvA gets my seal of approval, very entertaining… the last 5 mins were sorta wtf but sshh… that’s just b/w me and the internet
jesusnerd4ever really enjoyed Monsters vs Aliens. I totally think everyone should see it!
fynesy Dreamworks latest movie (MvA): good fun. Seeing it on IMAX in 3D.. Amazing…
And, of course, our very own jerrybeck: Saw MvA. Here’s my first impression. The good news: The art direction is superb. The bad news: There are no laughs. A major disappointment.
The L.A. Times is reporting the passing of cartoon voice actor Bob Arbogast. Not exactly a household name, Arbogast nonetheless entertained me greatly as General Brassbottom on Roger Ramjet and as various characters on numerous Saturday morning cartoons. He was also a well known radio personality and one of the writers behind Jay Ward’s ill-fated live action pilot The Nut House (1963) – of which I’ve posted the opening and closing credits below:
This is Nic Cage as the Sorcerer in Jerry Bruckheimer’s live-action version of Disney’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.” More photos of Cage as the Sorcerer at FilmDrunk.com. This news has inspired me to start a new tag category on Cartoon Brew, and yes, I plan on using this tag often.
(via Topless Robot)
Can’t wait to check this one out! Tatia Rosenthal’s stop-motion drama $9.99 has its New York premiere this weekend. It’s playing at 7pm on Sunday, March 29, at the MoMA, followed by a screening next Wednesday, April 1, at the Walter Reade Theater in Lincoln Center. For additional info, including online ticket purchases for either screening, visit the Film Society of Lincoln Center website. The Film Society also has an article about the film on their blog.
Roger Ebert offers thoughts about 3-D after watching Monsters vs. Aliens:
I will say this first and get it out of the way: 3-D is a distraction and an annoyance. Younger moviegoers may think they like it because they’ve been told to, and picture quality is usually far from their minds. But for anyone who would just like to be left alone to see the darned thing, like me, it’s a constant nudge in the ribs saying never mind the story, just see how neat I look.
[I]f this is the future of movies for grownups and not just the kiddies, saints preserve us. Billions of people for a century have happily watched 2-D and imagined 3-D. Think of the desert in “Lawrence of Arabia.” The schools of fish in “Finding Nemo.” The great hall in “Citizen Kane.” Now that flawless screen surface is threatened with a gimmick, which, let’s face it, is intended primarily to raise ticket prices and make piracy more difficult. If its only purpose was artistic, do you think Hollywood would spend a dime on it?
Ebert also disliked Monsters vs. Aliens, although he suggests that kids might enjoy it, “especially those below the age of reason.” Ouch!
Something funny for Friday. Australian animator David Blumenstein made this spot for a local Melbourne comic event called Comic Book Funny. David tells me, “I animated it in a day (Wednesday, to be exact).”
