2003/2005 short animated film compilations Rating: 15/20
Plot: Various artists from a variety of countries and with a variety of animation styles showcase their goods. Some are humorous, some are artistic, some are action packed. The rating above is an average, bumped up a little after I checked Youtube to see a few shorts that were included in the theatrical run but for whatever reason were not part of the dvd's.
Those aforementioned missing shorts were good. Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected," a fake compilation of rejected commercials for The Family Learning Channel was pretty hilarious. His stuff included on the dvd's wasn't as strong. Tim Burton's stop-motion short "Vincent" about a boy who wants to be like Vincent Price (rhyming narration provided by none other than Vincent Price) looks as good (and is as delightfully askew) as Nightmare before Christmas. Another missing was "Ident" which is by those Wallace and Gromit guys. That one was good. From the dvd's, I really enjoyed a trio of claymation tributes to family members by animator Adam Elliot, a gloriously chaotic black-and-white piece called "Bathtime in Clerkenwell" that works as a electro-lounge music video for The Real Tuesday Weld, a surreal short apparently based on Madame Butterfly called "Aria" that featured some doll sex, a Japanese short called "Mt. Head" about a guy with a tree growing out the top of him, an innovative and uniquely wild short called "Pan With Us" that used a Robert Frost poem, and "Ward 13" which is full of action and humor but probably goes on too long. There are a couple Bill Plympton shorts, one which I actually almost liked. Normally, I don't care for him. There was one rotoscoped thing, and a few shorts (the one with rocks, the one with people with music-playing devices for heads, the French one textured like impressionist paintings, and a couple computer animated things) that needed to be more fully realized or just dazzled without really dazzling for a reason. Then there's Mike Judge stuff that is worthless, but not nearly as offensively idiotic as something called "The Adventures of Ricardo" which seems to be making fun of both the mentally challenged and Hispanics. I'm all for making fun of the mentally challenged and Hispanics, but at least be clever with it! My favorite of all, "Fallen Art," is by somebody called Tomek Baginski. Well-done computer animation with twisted humor that makes me giggle a little bit just thinking about it. Try Youtube-ing that one. I didn't like the other Tomek Baginski ("Cathedral") much at all. Pretty hit and miss as expected with a compilation like this, but when it hits, it hits hard.
Look! I am watching cartoons!
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