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Here's a fantastic DVD collection containing 60 of the original Popeye cartoons produced by the Fleischer Studio in the 1930s. The cartoons are fully restored to their full black & white glory and placed on the discs in the order of their original theatrical release dates. There is also a huge amount of extra documentary material and some other short films that will fascinate anyone interested in animation. These cartoons have never been available in such pristine condition before. This is an incredible box of DVDs.
Popeye the Sailor: 1933-1938, Vol. 1
This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com
Windows, Masks & Doors is an animated short by Sarah Orenstein. It was made as her senior thesis project at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2006. The film takes the viewer on a train ride in a sort of magic box environment where the scenery is constructed like a miniature stage set. It is one of those little movies you will want to watch more than once so that you can see all the clever details.
Go watch Windows, Masks & Doors
Thanks to Drawn! for posting this.
This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com
Deanna Molinaro writes very sly, dark, funny children's stories. Several of her works are available on her web site. Lonely Sea Monster shows what happens when a little girl meets up with a perfectly ordinary sea monster. These stories are sort of in the general area of A Series of Unfortunate Events as far as concerns their morbid approach to entertaining young readers. Make sure you are comfortable with the stories before reading them to very young children. The drawings are simple but absolutely top-notch. Thank you to editor John Brownlee over at the Table Of Malcontents blog on Wired.com for pointing this out.
Go read Lonely Sea Monster
This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com
Yet another magnificent Russian animation! This is a 1988 feature animation adapted from Rudyard Kipling's story, The Cat Who Walked by Himself. It was directed by Ideya Garanina and made at the Soyusmultfilm studio. It mixes stop-motion and hand-drawn animation with an exuberant freedom that is quite something to watch. The film is beautiful. The more I see of great Russian animation the more I am convinced that many of their animators somehow avoided the great mistakes of the Disney-influenced animation of the West. The greatest of these mistakes as I see them are the assumption that clarity of line and color are important, and the principal of squash and stretch which states that motion is somehow more pleasing and humorous if everything behaves as if made of rubber. The Russian animators are more interested in beauty and feeling than in being understood or getting laughs. This is a full feature available on Google Video because a user made his own English subtitles and uploaded the entire film.
Go watch The Cat Who Walked by Herself
Click here for more info about the film at Wikipedia
This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com
Zhil byle pyos is a 1981 Russian animation from the Soyuzmultfilm company. It was written and directed by Eduard Nazarov. The movie is just wonderful. It is simple and gorgeous to look at. The characters are expressive without that absurd exaggeration that's so popular in Western animation. The story comes from an old Ukrainian folk tale about a dog that is thrown out of his home. His unlikely friendship with a wolf leads to a plan for getting the dog back home and saving the wolf from hunger. The film's soundtrack is all ambient natural sounds and helps create an unusual atmosphere. There are no silly sound effects here. Just a really good, moving story with living characters and a landscape that is stunning. It is just this kind of film that animation studios seem to have so little inclination to make. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because most animation studios are so busy making commercials.
Go watch Zhil byle pyos
This blog entry comes from CandlelightStories.com
