settima

animation

You the Better (Ericka Beckman, 1983)

May

8

VE-Day

You the Better (1983)

One of the players, an handsome young white man, celebrates a score. He wears blue pants with a yellow string, a blue shirt with a blue T-shirt underneath. On his head a red and white hat. The bill hides part of his face. He's got his right arm raised in victory. Behind him other players in identical kits. On the back of shirts a a symbol that looks like a surprised smiley, or a bowling ball.

They say, the house always wins. In You the Better, the House is an unseen character. The other character – a constantly changing team of athletes wearing blue uniforms and caps and coached by artist Ashley Bickerton – play a baffling hybrid of craps, dodgeball, and roulette while arcade game noises and Brooke Halpin's catchy chants accompany the players. While You the Better suggests repetitiveness, a theme of winning, losing, and competitiveness reveals itself.

“HANDS UP PUT YOUR HANDS UP GIMME MORE GIMME GIMME MORE BETTER GIMME MORE”

– recurring chant

You the Better is part of Beckman's The Super-8 Trilogy, a multimedia art project that explores play in Western society.

Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, 1968)

Apr

28

Clean Comedy Day

Yellow Submarine (1968)

A Blue Meanie pirouetting on a blossoming flower that pushes itself up into the sky. The sky is white while the flower and clouds are multicoloured.

A Gen X-er, I grew up in a completely different world where so many films and TV that kids watched – if watched with today's eyes — were not particularly kid-oriented at all. I fondly remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and reenacting the Black Knight scene in the school grounds. Yul Brynner as a faceless, rampaging cyber cowboy in Westworld (1973)? Sure, bring it on! Not that the official kid's movies were “clean”. Did you spot the chicken decapitation in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)? Well, you will now.

“Once upon a time, or maybe twice, there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland. 80,000 leagues beneath the sea it lay, or lie. I'm not too sure.”

– narrator

Alright, I'll keep it clean and suggest a dose of Yellow Submarine. A fantastic adventure starring The #Beatles (well, their likeness mostly) who are summoned to save utopian, music-loving #Pepperland from the music-hating Blue Meanies. Trippy fun, and lots to discover the older you get.

Mighty Joe Young (Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1949)

Apr

12

National Only Child Day

Mighty Joe Young (1949)

Jill playing the grand piano in a ballgown while suspended high up in the air by Joe. DP: J. Roy Hunt.

Young Jill – played by the tragically doomed Lora Lee Michel – grows up on a ranch in an undisclosed African country (aka “Africa”) with her father. One day, two porters pass her house carrying an orphaned baby #gorilla. Smitten, she wants and gets the ape, names it Joe, and raises it until the simian reaches exceptional size. That's when a couple of showman collecting exotic menagerie for a Hollywood nightclub come across the odd couple. After long consideration and desperate for money, Jill decides to take Joe to the States where the two become an overnight cabaret sensation. But like Kong before him, Joe is not made for the concrete jungle.

“Am I dreamin', or did I just see a gorilla? And a beautiful dame!”

– Max O'Hara

One decade and a Hays Code later, the people who brought the world King Kong (1933) present Mighty Joe Young: more drama, more spectacle, and superior special effects by Marcel Delgado, Ray #Harryhausen and Willis O'Brien et al. A box-office dud ánd Academy Award for Special Effects winner, Mighty Joe Young is now recognised as an #animation classic. In particular the nightclub scenes (keep your eyes peeled for Phil “The Swedish Angel” Olafsson!) are a wonderful display of the magic of #StopMotion.

Vynález zkázy (1958)

Vynález zkázy (1958)

April 11: ride a #submarine on #NationalSubmarineDav

Vynález zkázy [A Deadly Invention] (Karel Zeman, 1958)

“Jules Verne was a dreamer. He was a dedicated follower of technology, but he saw it through his own eyes, and the eyes of his time. But with his vast imagination, he created a whole world of magical things imbued with a delightful naiveté, which charms us even today.” —Karel Zeman

Karel Zeman was a Czech film maker who seemingly magically combined live action with stop motion animation. In his Vynález zkázy, loosely based on Jules Verne's Face au Drapeau [Facing the Flag aka For the Flag] (1896), a fiendish count kidnaps a professor to get his hands on a terrible super-weapon. Underwater pursuits commence!

Vynález zkázy (1958)

Based on the engravings that accompany the Verne story, Zeman came up with fantastic, highly stylised in-camera effects that make the sets, actors and props resemble cross-hatched etchings.

That's more than enough words for such a spectacle. Watch the trailer

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #KarelZeman #JulesVerne #LuborTokos #StopMotion #animation #fantasy #adventure #SciFi #BookAdaptation #trailer #Czechoslovakia #1950s ★★★½

#ToDo