The 3rd Short Film Hall of Fame

I think plenty of these comic strips have more substance than some of the overly dramatic Japanese cartoons you love to pimp.

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It's time for me to get started on these. I have a little bit time tonight, so i'll probably watch a few right now.

SEEN:

A Trip to the Moon (1902) - I nominated this one in the first edition of the HoF, so it's needless to say that I love it. George Méliès was a true magician.

Tale of Tales (1979) - I saw this a few weeks ago (two times actually) and I absolutely adored it. I'm definitely going to rewatch it for this HoF, as it's highly rewatchable. I watched it a second time (the same night) after I read a little about the meaning of everything that goes on in this short and it's really a wonderful achievement. A cultural piece of art.

Guard Dog (2004) - My own nomination. I'm glad to see a few of you enjoyed it already. If you're not convinced of Plympton's genius yet (which would be understandable after only having seen this), I highly recommend seeing Idiots and Angels. I would be especially interested in Guap's opinion about that one (animation-wise).


NOT SEEN:

Night & Fog (1955)
Pas de Deux (1968)
Magnetic Rose (1995)
Interior Design (2008)
I Don't Want to Go Back Alone (2010)
Elefante (2011)
Two & Two (2011)
Ashes (2012)

Sorry Daniel, but I really didn't like Ashes. I think any chance of it capturing the beauty of Thailand was ruined by the cinematography in means to be more artistic. Even then I don't think I'd appreciate it, I wouldn't be annoyed by it though.

Here's a serious question/some thoughts that I'd be interesting in discussing - Why does it matter if these American animations appear "crude and lazy", it's a film, it's not meant to represent real life. I understand that animation can be beautiful and moving if its detailed and captures real life in its drawing, but that doesn't mean it has to be photo realistic or highly detailed for the film to be good. For me this is like people who go to films now and say "wow the effects are so real, they look great", but the film is poor. I think as long as the art style matches the content then there's not much to complain about. I don't watch movies for realism, give me the old formal movies where sets are constructed perfectly, lighting is all set up, and there are actors doing a job because they're paid to, they are playing a role and no its not meant to be entirely realistic. Why is the quality (the level of detail, how artistic it looks) of animation such an important factor in rating it as a film?

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I don't think the animation has to represent reality at all but for me it's an important fact of rating the movie! I think it's important I connect it somehow with the content of the film... In the case of Guard Dog I did, so I liked it! Animation can tell a lot about the concept!

Of course not.

However, there are art styles that I dislike, as a fan of animation I don't need to like EVERY single art style. Everybody has preferences regarding art. I prefer more refined looking style, not realistic, because my favorite anime are never realistic, but different from this.

Such as this:


I also like more simple styled animation, in fact, in my top 10, Kaiba and PMMM, for instance, features very simple character designs and background art:



Those two are among my top 10 anime series.

While I found Monster, which features highly realistic art, to be quite boring:



Although I am reading the manga right now and it is quite fantastic. Indeed, the genius of Urasawa in creating very immersive and entertaining stories is at it's finest in Monster, the manga.

One of the advantages of comics over animation is that comics allow for much more detailed art since you don't need to drawn 12 frames a second, just several panels in a page. That's why there are American comics with highly detailed art, one problem they have, however, is that they are too realistic! They should learn with manga how to make highly detailed art that is still stylized.

Now talked the highly experienced anime critic. Don't take it personal when I criticize murican animation just because you are a murican.

While it's true Japanese are very emotional people compared to Americans*, hence their fiction tends to feature stronger emotions but it's also true that there is plenty of very light comedic anime/animation that I love as well.

Sadly, guard dog wasn't one of them. And it wasn't because it lacked depth (although I didn't see any) but because I disliked the art style. Most people who are into animation have problems with the art in American cartoons. The style is just too crude, usually because it aims at small children or because it is crude comedy (Family Guy). I enjoyed these cartoons more before I watched huge amounts of high quality animation, which made it harder for me to enjoy cartoons characterized by more simple art.

*Americans are, on average, less passionate than Japanese, Germans or Brazilians, for instance. So that they are mostly unable to enjoy any art featuring strong sense of theatricality, which also partly explains why Heavy Metal is not popular in North America. Of course, there are plenty of people who enjoy metal in north america as there are many who enjoy animation as well, but they are still small minorities in the population.

Nobody here was suggesting that animation needs to have realistic art. If I restricted my favorite animation to realistic art about 90% of the stuff I have in my top 100 animations would be written off.

I guess if I had watched Guard Dog 15 years ago I would have liked more than now. Now my taste in animation has become too specific. Which is expected: the more someone knows about an artistic medium the more likely that person is to dislike a random work in the medium and enjoy the specific works which appeal more to his/her tastes.

From screenshots at the IMDB it appears that the art is also in his crude style as well. I just don't enjoy that particular type of art style. Thanks for the recommendation but I pass: like a live action film fan doesn't like every single type of live action film an animation fan also doesn't like every type of animation.

Aww,
I wouldn't go that far but thanks

I'll try not too. I myself have never criticized any American film because I'm American, and find it hard to handle any criticism of it. Of course of us two I'm the one who gets overly emotional and defensive about films I love.

It's only because he's passionate. You know, like those crazily passionate Japanese people.

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

Interior Design
I was disappointed with this one because I really love Michel Gondry. I thought that the movie was way too slow and boring for my taste. The ending 5 minutes was good, but most of the 30 minutes before that was painful. I really wanted to like this one.
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Just watched Interior Design, I'm opposite of you Nope. I thought the first half hour was better than the last five minutes. I found it well acted and edited pretty well, making it entertaining for what it was. The surrealistic part seemed to sudden and kinda pointless. I Would Like to watch the main actors film though, looked like something of a Japanese Fassbinder.



I think I'll watch the rest of Tokyo! today

Ashes
I can understand what people enjoy about this short, but it just isn't for me. I thought that the editing style of flashing pictures was cool for a few minutes, but then it got repetitive and headache inducing. I respect the effort that went in, and understand how people can enjoy it, but it's not my type of short.

Night and Fog is a very powerful film. It’s easy to say that, I suppose, given its subject matter, but I think it was more than just some archive footage, it was well written, well constructed and effective. It could have been eleven hours long, detailing all the historical context but that wouldn’t be necessary. This is the story of the camps, and 32 minutes is enough to effectively convey the horror. Knowing what not to include is important.

I liked the way it built up from the construction of the camps to the liberation. Many countries have had prisoner of war camps, many prisoners of war have been badly treated, but the horrors increase from experiments to gas chambers built for the systematic extermination of nine million people. Then narration, written by concentration camp survivor Jean Cayrol is very effective, more subjective than a news report, but not a personal story either.

I especially liked the ending of the film, the insistence that this was not a one-off, not a unique event perpetrated by a unique evil, but another in a continuing line of examples of inhumanity and brutality that persist to this day.

“With our sincere gaze we survey these ruins, as if the old monster lay crushed forever beneath the rubble. We pretend to take up hope again as the image recedes into the past, as if we were cured once and for all of the scourge of the camps. We pretend it happened all at once, at a given time and place. We turn a blind eye to what surrounds us and a deaf ear to humanity's never-ending cry.”

Director Alain Resnais said he wanted to use Jean Cayrol's narration to subtly attack France's war and tactics in Algeria.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Yes, I had read that. But in attacking the war in Algeria without overtly saying it, it managed to say something more universal. Because as much as people say 'never again' about the Holocaust, we've had genocide happen in Rwanda, it's happening now in Iraq and Syria. And broadening that to cruelty and inhumanity against groups of people, it could apply many times over.

This.

The beauty of Night & Fog, IMO, is that it doesn't let forget that if it happened once it can and it will happen again!

Kubrick used to say there was no fiction film about the Holocaust. Holocaust was about 6 million people that got murdered, Hollywood made films about success, about few people that managed to survive. Night & Fog is probably a few of its kind.

I finally finished these, though I can't seem to decide on an order.

Some thoughts:

A Trip to the Moon - I had seen the b&w version before, so this time I watched the colorized version. It makes for a very "trippy" experience. This is an amazing classic.

Night and Fog - There's nothing I can say about this. It's poetic and brutal.

Pas de Deux - The effort they must have gone through at the time to achieve these effects is stunning to think about. It's like a poem of movement and light.

Tale of Tales - I loved the animation! Unfortunately I have no idea what it's about. I can read what it's supposed to be about, but it basically goes over my head. Still, I really liked it.

Magnetic Rose - I liked this one. The animation is impressive and the story is intriguing. From what I can tell the dialogue and characterization is a bit crude, but it has a lot to recommend.

Guard Dog - Not a fan of Bill Plympton and I'm not a fan of the animation here, but I give it points for the cool ending.

Interior Design - My pick. I guess nobody "gets" it, but that's okay. What I get out of it is she becomes one of the ghosts living between the buildings, someone with no ambition except to exist. Or whatever. I think it's a sweet little film which uses magic realism in a clever way.

I Don't Want To Go Back Alone - Boy meets boy...happy ending. A little too simple for me, though the addition of the character being blind was done well.

Elefante - I like it, but it really felt too short. Too bad the makeup couldn't have been a little more interesting. I liked the ending.

Two and Two - It's a little heavy-handed and obvious. But I feel like that may have been the intention of the filmmaker, that he wants his film to be more of a warning than an artistic achievement.

Ashes - It didn't start off promising, but it becomes rather compelling in its own way. I liked the use of the bird sound loop in the middle, and I would have liked it if they'd done more of that playing with sound.

Heinz!!! Miguel!!!!! Heinz!!! Miguel!!!!!!!!!

I liked Magnetic Rose a bit more than I expected, I thought the dialogue was pretty bad honestly but the animation was really cool, especially considering how complicated animating outer space is. It never really had me grasped, but kept my interest more than I expected. kind of hard to rate this one. Sending in a list now