The man! Acquired taste for many, but still the man! 🙂
The fascinating contradictions of Bill Plympton
In an interview, the Oscar-nominated animator encourages artists to work the fringes and stay true to themselves
interview link (from Salon)
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I really want to see this. I don’t mind having to watch Initial D all over again (or alternatively, Wangan Midnight) – but we need MORE ‘driving anime’, people! 🙂
Scarecrow told me it’s not out on DVD yet but they will keep an eye out. It’s not on Amazon, either…..doh!
candybowl
One of the best things about Seattle is, simply stated, Scarecrow Video. The store is one of the best video stores in the history of the USA, and that’s no exaggeration. In a town that’s movie-crazy, it stands at the center of all that’s cool about the silver screen locally. It is safe to say that no matter what you are looking for, you will find it there (although possibly already rented by someone else :)).
So for me, besides the usual escapist anime and sci-fi, they have an amazing selection of animation and music videos. Being an animation junkie, one of my all-time faves is Bill Plympton. Most may remember him from MTV hand-drawn animation back in the 80’s and early 90s, but he’s still plugging away out there and still as wacked as ever. In the past couple years he’s come out with Santa: The Fascist Years (2008); the four shorts in the Guard Dog series; and one of the MOST recent – Idiots and Angels (still waiting to see this one).
But in visiting Scarecrow to get a specific anime pic, I looked at Bill’s section (there are many DVDs and even a few old VHS titles in there to rent) and in the Animation Show of Shows series, his short ‘Eat‘ (2001) was there (Volume 11), so I got it.
This one – like many Plympton shorts – starts off in one direction, and just when you think you’ve figured out where he’s going, veers off wildly in the complete opposite way and ends up nowhere near your expectations (not a bad thing – but the rubric ‘expect the unexpected’ should be your guide).
A lonely man comes into an empty restaurant, is waved to a table, and then orders for two – when it comes, he begins fantasizing about the other plate taking the form of a fantasy date and acts accordingly.
Meanwhile, another couple comes in the restaurant, takes their seat nearby, the man orders, and then things begin to get weird. Not terribly long after, a family of four comes in and takes another table, and things take another weird turn.
I won’t spoil things for you – it’s hard enough to get people to watch BP movies with me as it is, so I encourage you to seek it out for yourself 🙂 – suffice it to say, the chaos in the last few minutes will be both vaguely familar, yet completely disturbing at the same time.
You aren’t meant to understand his short films – he lets loose in most of them fairly quickly and you are simply along for the ride at that point. But that’s half the fun! And of course the fact that he’s from Portland, OR (like me) and that he hand-draws every frame of every short/movie himself – the last holdout on that for sure – makes him truly one of a kind, even beyond the unique content of his films.
It appears from his site BP now actually has a book out, with the foreword by Terry Gilliam (one of the few people likely close to Plympton’s vision when doing those wacked Python animations long ago). I will definitely have to keep an eye out for when he comes back to the PNW, and show up for my signed copy. 🙂
In the meantime – check out some Plymptoons!
candybowl
In
saw Up again a few nights ago. What a great movie – and somewhat different than the usual Pixar fare.
On the one hand, the animation keeps on getting better and better – the balloons above the house look almost real, and it’s interesting that they’d make a movie about an old man and his early child dreams of South American adventure (?). And the usual Pixar ‘warm & silly’ touches are there too (talking dogs with several recurring jokes, gentle slapstick humor throughout, a weird chocolate-loving bird named Kevin, etc.).
I also appreciate Pixar’s continued willingness to subtly slam the corporations (not that Hollywood doesn’t make a lot of income doing that anyway) but Pixar is more sublime than most, barring say, WALL-E (that movie is a more extreme position on the subject :)). Here the anti-corporate commentary largely takes the form of Carl’s house being ‘built around’ by skyscrapers (reminds me of the old lady’s San Francisco firehouse in Herbie Rides Again) but there’s also implications for both the two heroes (Carl and explorer scout Russell) and villain (Muntz) concerning the underlying theme of adventure and seeking the unknown. The ‘real world’ is never kind to that one, to be sure.
There are definitely varied movie and pop-culture influences at work here – at least in my mind. Muntz’ airship is right out of The Island at the Top of the World; kerewin noted the house + balloons as possibly inspired by James & the Giant Peach; and my own (i’m sure unintended) reference is the Alpha dog’s distorted voice (heard at two different times in the movie) being identical to Conan O’Brien’s Pimpbot 5000 – too funny. And the whole ‘travel adventure’ artwork seen early on by Carl and Ellie as kids is very reminiscent of the earlier Pixar movie The Incredibles (I’m thinking of Mr. Incredible in his office looking at all his old glory newspaper articles, and of the artwork in the closing credits, too – classic stuff!)
But what makes Up more than a bit different than other Pixar movies (and other family fare) is their willingness to inject a lot of sadness into the movie and plot. The early montage of Carl & Ellie’s life together by itself is enough to get out the hanky, but it doesn’t stop there. Although they balance it somewhat by the various triumph(s) in the movie, this is still a much sadder story than most – one of our friends is adamant he’d never bring kids to this movie, way too depressing! 🙂 But to his point, I think at least some of that sadness is aimed far more directly at adults and you have to be one to really appreciate WHY it is sad and not simply transition periods between the more action-oriented portions of the movie. Maybe it’s not sad per se, but rather, poignant and wistful? The writers obviously make strong points about ‘live life to the fullest’, ‘don’t forget to look around you for the adventure you already live’, and themes to that effect. Sage advice indeed – but rare in an animated family movie?
I guess that’s what continues to make Pixar special and their movies stand out from the crowd. While I think the next couple movies are going to be sequels (Cars 2, Monsters Inc. 2) hopefully they’ll continue with the original, unique stuff.
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watched the original TRON last night. Given how recently we saw the sequel, it was good to go back to the original for comparisons.
1) I missed the nuance of ‘clu’ in the original until this time. You may remember early on when Flynn is trying to hack the MCP (before he goes ‘into’ the computer himself) he has a tank running around with a program that looks like him – that’s Clu – seen far more prominently in the sequel of course. Sadly the ‘loose bit‘ seen here (and a bit later) didn’t make the sequel….
2) LIked the far more prevalent Recognizers here. In the sequel, they basically get one scene early on, and that’s kinda it. Here they are much more a part of the plot, including when Flynn steals one and flies it (not entirely successfully) to the I/O tower to meet Tron and Yori. The Recognizers for me are one of the definitive icons from TRON, and I wish they had done far more with them in the sequel , doh!
3) They make far more effort to tie together the computer world, the human world, and the relationship between the two here. Which of course ends up as background in the sequel, but if they hadn’t done it the sequel would be extremely confusing (rather than just sort of).
4) The plot holds together decently – there are some slow spots, yes – but on balance, it sets up the villain(s) well and then provides several good guys to battle them in various ways (although not really explaining what the MCP ultimately wanted to ‘do’ once it infiltrated all the computers in the human world – wait for the rise of/fight Skynet? :))
5) I am still amazed at the lameness of the critics slamming this movie in their reviews of the sequel. It is patently obvious most of them never watched it, or were too young for the original (and then never watched it priot to the new one), and/or simply don’t get it, period. Yes, many ideas from this movie have been done later and arguably better in other ways, but TRON showed the way and visually has a style all its own (doesn’t hurt having Syd Mead and other renowned artists/conceptual designers setting a pretty high bar, either).
This movie is not Citizen Kane – and perhaps by today’s standards it looks kind of dated – kerewin commented more than once on the ‘lame special effects’ – which I have to counter with ‘dated’ – they aren’t lame! And maybe you had to grow up at that time during the earlier ‘rise of the computer’ in our daily lives vs. now. But seen vs. much of what has come later – and especially how lame at least half of the vaunted Star Wars movies have been and the third Matrix movie, etc. – there’s certainly plenty of room out there for an alternate vision. Viva TRON!
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Watched the anime Vexille (note: major spoilers in the Wikipedia link!) tonight, post-skiing. Vexille, named after one of the main characters, tracks the story of a completely isolated (diplomatically, physically and technologically) Japan; a malevolent plot courtesy of the internationally known Daiwa Corporation (makers of all kinds of advanced androids and robot tech); and the US Navy S.W.O.R.D. commando team sent to infiltrate Japan to figure out what’s going on after breaking up a secret meeting in the Colorado mountains. This show is kind of a mixed bag, however, for the following reasons:
1) The animation, done by the same team that did Appleseed, is good. I still think, however, that Appleseed was considerably more dazzling overall in appearance than this movie. Sometimes the visuals are very stunning, and other times they seem like the animated intro’s to a PS2 game or something (the ones you always skip past by hitting ‘X’ repeatedly so you can get to playing the actual game?). Also, in some ways this movie’s look seems to directly mimic Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in a number of scenes also.
2) There are parallels in the plot between Vexille and Appleseed too – I won’t reveal them to avoid spoiling it, but on the bright side, this movie doesn’t have the heroine shouting ‘Briareos!’ over and over again like Appleseed does.
3) The Jags (metal-seeking ‘worm whirlwinds’ in the Japanese wastelands) are obviously a Dune sandworm ripoff, plain and simple.
4) The characters (excepting possibly Maria) aren’t really developed well, if at all – they are pretty flat and one-dimensional.
5) Finally, one of the last battles between Vexille and Kisaragi (Daiwa Corp’s resident mad scientist) is pretty unbelievable.
Wikipedia references other reviews that call out Vexille for going over ground already covered by Ghost in the Shell – I agree with that in some ways, but Vexille put a reverse twist on the whole ‘man vs. machine’ debate (central to many of these similar anime) which had potential but became fairly formulaic in the end, not unlike the recently reviewed Sky Crawlers. The quest for better anime goes on!
candybowl
Well, the day finally arrived, and we saw TRON: Legacy tonight. Given that there’s already quite a few reviews out there (here, here, here, here and here for starters), I will add my two cents as well.
First, the good:
1) Music and effects are great. The look and feel of ‘the grid’ is as unique as ever (just like it was the first time around in 1982) and Daft Punk provide a great soundtrack. They apparently even got a cameo as the DJ’s in the nightclub where Sam Flynn and Quorra go to meet the mysterious ‘Zeus’ (who turns out to be a semi-albino Willy Wonka sans top hat, but I still liked him anyway). The light-cycle scenes are very cool, again, just like last time, and it was great to see the Recognizers get their moments in the sun again too (although they aren’t really as ‘malevolent’ as in the last film).
2) Jeff Bridges generally is good, although they don’t really give him enough to do IMHO. Yes, he’s the central character (in more ways than one) but barring the opening narration, we don’t see near enough inside his head – and that’s a real missed opportunity. And Bruce Boxleitner is even more in the same boat, given that he’s a sideman as before, despite being the namesake of the two movies (Tron).
On to what didn’t work as well:
1) On the one hand, I give them props for not making the movie into one action scene after another (a la the second and third Matrix movies) at the expense of storyline and character development. Despite what some of the reviewers above may think – the original TRON really tried – if you are paying attention while watching it, and had the benefit of growing up back then – to really imagine what it would be like to ‘live inside a computer’, and came up with a unique vision of that, which has influenced a LOT of movies since, the most obvious being The Matrix but there are plenty others.
But in attempting to get inside the characters more, you have give the audience more to go on. There is a scene where Sam talks to Quorra about Flynn’s book collection – but they don’t explain why she likes the books or thinks they are important? By the same token, yes, Clu (Flynn’s self-created perfectionist computer doppelganger) is Flynn’s opposite number (in misdirected megalomania) but even so, he’s never ‘evil’ the way the MCP and Dillinger were in the original. In that movie the MCP ultimately is calling the shots in BOTH the digital and human worlds at one point? The villains here just don’t compare in that respect.
2) Flynn’s hideout brings back a lot of Blade Runner (an original TRON contemporary, it was two years later, flopped about as badly at the time and since has influenced everyone else to an equal if not greater degree) in its look and feel to me. And the scene where Flynn, Quorra and Sam are eating dinner is reminiscent of near the end of 2001 where Discovery astronaut Dave Bowman is eating dinner/rapidly aging in the Louis XIV dining room – all that white on white.
3) As discussed with fellow moviegoers after seeing it, the big ‘Clu rally’ scene where he reveals his plans is right out of Lord of the Rings, with Christopher Lee rallying the Orcs and monsters to attack as they stamp their weapons and yell (not like this type of scene doesn’t happen at least once or twice in each LOTR movie, for that matter :)).
And this brings up my continual point about supervillains – why? When General Zod and his buddies kicked everyone’s ass in short order in Superman II, they were then seen lounging around the White House with nothing to do? They had already beaten all the lame humans, taken over the US (and of course by implication the world – helps when you make the movies in Hollywood that you can imply that) and are bored out of their gourds until Superman shows up to give them something to do?
So what was Clu going to do if he managed to pull an ‘Agent Smith’ and get back to the ‘real world’? Smith was similar – what was he planning on doing? After killing Neo and turning everyone in The Matrix into duplicates of himself, then what? Here there is lip service paid to Clu/Flynn’s vision of ‘perfecting the system’ – but they don’t really explain what that means or why it ultimately ‘twisted’ Clu in the end?
4) The scene of Flynn talking to Clu (near the end) about where things went wrong – I hate to point this out, but it really smacks of Keanu confronting Patrick Swayze at the end of Point Break, with the speech and how ‘Bodie’ can’t be caged, etc. – that movie is cornball from the word go (despite otherwise being great entertainment) – but if you agree with my point (and you may not), it makes Flynn’s self-confrontation somewhat less effective.
5) The son of the original movie’s Dillinger/bad guy is wasted here – they have but one scene with him (played by an uncredited Cillian Murphy, making the waste DOUBLE because he’s always such a great bad guy) – I was half-expecting a weird twist where it is shown that Dillinger’s son is ultimately behind Clu’s betrayal, not Flynn’s vision of perfection. And then it might have made some weird attempt by a ‘revived’ MCP worth trying in turn? In any case, it could have been very cool.
6) In an earlier post, I noted an article where apparently the Pixar guys were brought in to discuss plot and character with the director and writers. Not sure if it did any good here, or whether they actually took the suggestions and used them? To me, if someone like Brad Bird is giving you free advice on a movie – you TAKE it! It would be like being a newbie actor and having Dustin Hoffman, De Niro or similar in a bit part but on the set for a week or two – I’d be hitting them up or trying to learn by osmosis, hello? Just sayin’.
7) Yet another movie where the 3D is largely ‘meh’. I really don’t think it adds much of anything – you’re already in a huge screen, big sounds, special effects. etc. – it’s not like this is the Star Trek holodeck where you’re ‘in’ the action directly or something – I think the whole 3D thing is eventually going to go the way of the original Cinerama process, if more slowly.
8 ) It’s weird how much of the last 20 minutes or so of this movie are nearly identical to the first one. They have a big getaway on the Solar Sailor; the Recognizers and bad guys chase them; they get to the portal and have a big shootout. Here there is a bit of speeching at the expense of action (in the first one, Sark turns into a ‘giant’ (with the help of the MCP) and is about to crush Tron permanently when Flynn hacks the portal and ‘ends’ the MCP for good). If only the speech had told us more…..
Ultimately for a sequel like TRON, this is a good question to ask – how much of the original movie do you pay homage to while (trying, anyway) to craft a new story? Or do you? The recent Incredible Hulk movies (having seen none of them) were all but back to back remakes (notwithstanding the 70s TV series) within 5 years of one another?
All in all, I’m glad I saw it, but like so many movies (e.g. parts of Matrix 2 and most of Matrix 3, among others) – there’s a lot of missed opportunities here. It was definitely better than Avatar though, although it may have cost even more to make ($237M for Avatar vs. an est. $300M for TL)?
candybowl
Haven’t caught any anime recently, but with the vacation – woo ho! – saw 2008’s The Sky Crawlers this afternoon. This was directed by Mamoru Oshii, the same director as Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence.
The main characters are ‘Kildren’ – they are permanently young children, used to pilot/fight air battles in planes that look a lot like WWII-era fighters, but at closer range they are an amalgam of various fighters put together – One looks like a P-51 Mustang with Stuka wings, others like a love child from a LIghtning + a British Mosquito, the others are similar amalgams. The battles are apparently a ‘violence outlet’ for an otherwise peaceful society (this theme has been done before, think Rollerball), companies are the employers and stage the battles (which do in fact kill the pilots/etc.). The plot concerns the struggles of the Kildren in and around their lives and ultimate, inevitable fate (likely death in a dogfight).
While this is a beautifully animated movie – i’d put it up there close to Appleseed and others that seamlessly combine CGI (the planes, most of the backdrops and scenery) with animation (the people, some of the dogfighting when people are shown) – the plot is kinda lacking. There are a lot of slow background sequences which again – while very pretty – don’t really add much. Some of it you figure out later is implied and key to the mental state of the main characters – but a lot of it is kinda ‘surplus’ screentime.
It also reminded me of early episodes of Witch Hunter Robin – where the camera plays over the scene, people sit there, atmospheric or trippy music in the background, but some minutes drag by before anything happens. Hm.
If you already watch some/a lot of anime, you may like this movie – if you are looking for a ‘first anime’ to watch – this definitely isn’t it. Either of the Ghost in the Shell movies (or the two TV series) are better, Appleseed, etc. are all better intro’s to anime.
candybowl
Saw these tonight, makes the wait until December even harder!!!!
Tron: Legacy Is Officially Going To Be Really, Really Good
‘Tron: Legacy’ exclusive: Disney looks to Pixar for help; hires screenwriters Michael Arndt and Brad Bird to beef up script
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