For those who did not enjoy watching ABC’s new version of The Ten Commandments the past two nights, here is something to make up for it: Who Let the Jews Out.
Is this from the same folks who gave us My Humps last Christmas?
Just had a thought: will we ever see something similar done for the third monotheistic religion? Somehow I doubt it.
via felix hominum
John Kricfalusi starts his own blog according to boingboing. I became familiar with his work through the Spike and Mike’s animation festivals that I used to attend every chance I got in the early ’90s. His Ren and Stimpy cartoons were featured shorts at the festivals, before Nickelodeon picked them up.
Magician Penn Jillette gives his reasons why he believes “There is No God” on NPR’s “This I Believe” series. Animator Doug TenNapel offers a response on his blog.
TenNapel is the creator of Earthworm Jim and the new Catscratch show on Nickelodeon. He and Jillette are both six and a half feet tall.
(via STR.org)
Maritess vs. the Superfriends is now out on DVD. It’s available for $20 $15 at the website of its creator Dino Ignacio. The DVD also contains some of Dino’s other animated shorts. Oh and yeah, here’s Maritess in 3D.
Don’t mind the title. It’s an empty play of words. I actually enjoyed The Triplets of Belleville, the French animated feature that was twice-nominated in this year’s Oscars. The city of Belleville, a fictional amalgam of New York City, Vancouver and Paris, was not, however, cast exactly in a favorable light. Its inhabitants are fat, grotesque caricatures of city dwellers. Even the Statue of Liberty is depicted this way. Come to think of it, the country folk don’t fare any better. But the rich ensemble of strange characters is part of the charm of the film. Some of the characters, in my opinion, are drawn much like in the style of Peter Chung, Korean director of Aeon Flux, whose main influence is European artist Egon Schiele.
By director Sylvain Chomet’s admission, the look of Belleville borrows heavily from Disney movies such as 101 Dalmatians and Aristocats. The film can’t be any farther from the standard Disney fare, however. Belleville avoids any sort of anthropomorphism seen in Disney films. It is less grounded in reality, however, in that it is not constrained by a commitment to the laws of physics, appearing more like a Warner Brothers feature sans the talking animals. The animators had fun with this one and it shows.
The Triplets of Belleville is a delightful film. The frenetic pacing of its trailer, though not giving anything away, does not do the movie justice. This is a good thing. Watching the story unfold and the unusual animation play out was a constant source of surprise. The whole ocean scene was astounding technically. A Stomp-like number where music was produced using household items, evoked a sound reminiscent of kulintang or gamelan gongs (to me, at least). By the end of the film, the entire family* was dancing in the living room like fools to the Oscar-nominated song “Belleville Rendez-vous” as the credits rolled.
*some scenes are inappropriate for children. A cartoon Josephine Baker dances half-naked in the beginning of the film.