ASIFA-Atlanta is celebrating 10 years of Roll Yer Own, perhaps its signature event, on July 16th, at the Plaza Theatre. A festival of locally-produced animated shorts this year also joining forces for the decade celebration of Roll Yer Own, an independent “includes ASIFA-Atlanta’s favorites from the 2012 Atlanta Film Festival.” The screening will be followed [...]
Entries Tagged as 'American cinema'
ASIFA-Atlanta’s 10th Annual Roll Yer Own
June 30th, 2012 · No Comments · American cinema, Animation Festivals, Screenings
Tags: ASIFA-Atlanta·Roll Yer Own
Adam Abraham’s “When Magoo Flew”
April 2nd, 2012 · No Comments · American cinema, Animation history and criticism, Animation studios, Books
Adam Abraham’s new book, which has just been published by Wesleyan University Press, is an easy book to recommend to anyone interested in film or animation history. I was one of the anonymous readers Wesleyan engaged to evaluate it. A brief excerpt from my confidential evaluation is used on the back cover as an endorsement; [...]
Tags: Adam Abraham·UPA·When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA
The Artist
December 31st, 2011 · No Comments · American cinema, French cinema, Silent cinema
I finally got to see Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist, his delightful romantic comedy about the end of the transition between the silent and sound era, and it is every bit as good as its reputation. The film’s conceit is that it is shot as a silent film in black-and-white; this sort of thing could easily [...]
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo
November 25th, 2011 · 4 Comments · American cinema, Film history and criticism, Filmmakers, French cinema, Special effects
Martin Scorcese makes a cameo appearance in Hugo. Right off the bat, let me say that Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is a wonderful film which I cannot recommend too highly. In a sense,it’s one of those generic, loving homages to the movies that come along every so often; though Hugo is in a class all by [...]
UPA News: Two DVDs and a Book
November 22nd, 2011 · 1 Comment · American cinema, Animation history and criticism, Animation studios, Books, DVDs
Jerry Beck at Cartoon Brew breaks the news that two DVD sets devoted to UPA’s theatrical cartoons are coming out soon: UPA Jolly Frolics due out on March 5th from Turner Classic Movies and The Mr. Magoo Theatrical Collection 1949-1959 which s due out June 19th from Shout! Factory (both are available for preorder). Until now, the [...]
Tags: Adam Abraham·The Mr. Magoo Theatrical Collection 1949-1959·UPA·UPA Jolly Frolics·When Magoo Flew: The Rise and Fall of Animation Studio UPA
“It’s Not Cricket to Pass a Picket”– The Disney Strike 70 Years Later
June 22nd, 2011 · No Comments · American cinema, Politics, Unions
May 28th marked the 70th anniversary of the start of the Disney strike by members of the Screen Cartoon Guild (later the Screen Cartoonist Guild). The nine-week walkout, precipitated by the firing of Art Babbitt, the head of the Guild’s Disney’s unit, is a legendary event whose full story has yet to be told. Though [...]
Tags: Art Babbitt·Conference of Studio Unions·Dan Noonan·Disney Studios·Herb Sorrell·Screen Cartoonists Guild·UPA·Willie Bioff
Tangled
December 8th, 2010 · 1 Comment · American cinema, Cinematography, Computer animation, Feature films, Stereoscopic films
Despite the unexpected critical admiration Byron Howard and Nathan Greno’s Tangled seems to have gained, I was somewhat neutral in approaching the film. In the end, though, I found much to admire in it, especially its use of lighting. The film, which is inspired by the Brothers Grimm version of Rapunzel, is not without its [...]
Tags: Byron Howard·David Goetz·Mohit Kallianpur·Nathan Greno·Tangled (2010)
Max Fleischer Teaching Student Officers to Read Maps
September 22nd, 2010 · No Comments · American cinema, Animation history and criticism, Documentary films, Filmmakers
The above article from the December 1918 issue of Popular Science is about how a training film produced by “the Training Division of the War College, Mr. Max Fleischer, a former member of the Popular Science Monthly staff, devised for the General Staff the system that we illustrate.” During World War I Max Fleischer was [...]
Tags: Bray Studios·Max Fleischer·Popular Science Monthly·U.S. Army War College·World War I