The eagerly-awaited American debut of Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Parannaud’s Persepolis reminds us that Europe is not a casual producer of animated movies. (I will save my comments on the film until after it opens in Atlanta in February.) In fact, Europe has long been very active in this area for many years, though only [...]
Entries from December 29th, 2007
European Animated Movies
December 29th, 2007 · No Comments · Europe, Feature films, Germany, Italy, Spain
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Of Christmas Cards Past
December 25th, 2007 · No Comments · Animation Christmas cards, Animation studios
While in the midst of unpacking files left over from my last big move, I came across a batch of Christmas cards I got in the 1990s and thought this would be a good time to share them. I was then a freelance animation journalist and these cards were among the perks. Christmas cards can, [...]
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Streetcar Named Perspire
December 20th, 2007 · No Comments · Independent animators
Independent animator Joanna Priestley just sent me her most recent film, Streetcar Named Perspire, a whimsical “instructional” film about the roller-coaster ride that is menopause. Ever since her autobiographical Voices (1984), her CalArts thesis film which became her signature piece, every 10 years or so Priestley has attempted to keep viewers up-to-date on what’s going [...]
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Jack Zander
December 20th, 2007 · No Comments · Directors, Producers
Jack Zander, the veteran New York producer who began his career during Hollywood’s Golden Age of Animation, died on Monday at age 99. Among his accomplishments as an animator was animating Jerry in Puss Gets the Boot (1940), the first Tom and Jerry cartoon. However, after the war he established and ran two of New [...]
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Roadside Romeo
December 16th, 2007 · No Comments · Feature films, India
India’s Yash Raj Films, a producer of live-action films, has teamed up with Walt Disney Pictures to produce Roadside Romeo, a computer animated feature due out next year. This story of a dog lost in the streets of Mumbai is being written directed by actor Jugal Hansraj. Yash Raj Films is subcontracting out the actual [...]
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Enchanted & Bee Movie
December 16th, 2007 · No Comments · Animation and live action, Feature films
Enchanted, the new Disney live action/animated musical is the latest post-modern pastiche that depends too much on inside jokes rather than genuine emotion. It’s the type of film one wants to work, but despite some delightful moments, soon becomes tiresome. The story begins in Andalasia, an ersatz 1950s cel animated, fairytale country, where the handsome [...]
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Writers’ Strike
December 11th, 2007 · No Comments · Film industry, TV industry, Unions
It’s been five weeks since the Writers Guild of America West and East went on strike against the TV networks and the movie studios. The walkout has been hitting much of film and TV community pretty hard, though it has not affected animation that much. (Most animation writers, including those working on feature films, are [...]
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Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
December 7th, 2007 · No Comments · Directors, Feature films, Television and movies
Sidney Lumet has not been a director whose films I usually rush out to see, though this is something that I need to correct. For it is films like his Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead that serve to remind me of how good movies can be. And here, as with Dog Day Afternoon, Lumet [...]
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Beowulf
December 5th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Feature films, Motion capture, Stereoscopic films
Seeing Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf, I was reminded of the time when director John Frankenheimer came down to the University of Southern California in 1962 to show All Fall Down. During the Q&A session which followed, a student asked why he had used an elaborate tracking shot in the opening sequence. Frankenheimer replied simply that he [...]
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I’m Back
December 3rd, 2007 · No Comments · Harvey Deneroff
It’s been almost 3 years since took what I thought would be a brief hiatus from my Animation Consultants International website when I took up teaching duties at the Savannah College of Art and Design. A lot has happened in the interim, most obviously the growth of the animation blogosphere, the widespread hysteria surrounding motion [...]
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