Every child comes equipped with
(Whether it's a boy or girl)
A big serving of explosives
Might be up to half a pound
They must be in constant motion
Push, and kick, and flail, and shout
If they can't, they just explode
Bang! Kaboom!
Your luck's run out. [includes Soviet animation and baby monkeys] [more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on May 26, 2012 -
9 comments
Peasant culture and Russian folklore in Soviet animation (~400 minutes whereof): Soviet animation abounds in
fantasies about the natural,
wholesome lives of
honorable, strong-willed
Russian peasants and folk
heroes and their
struggles against villainy and
adversity.
Decorated with splendid folk art motifs that verge on
horror vacui, these cel-animated cartoons are excellent aids for learning about (popular conceptions of) Russian folk material culture: decoration, architecture,
dress, weaponry,
textiles, domestic culture, manners, and so on.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on May 4, 2012 -
13 comments
This one time in Edo Japan,
Bashō got together with a bunch of his rich friends from Nagoya to make up a set of interlocking poems (
renku) — 36 of them, to be exact (a format called
kasen). Then, 320 years later, the complete cycle was
animated by a diverse international team of artists.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Nov 14, 2011 -
26 comments
EXT. STREET -- TWILIGHT. A dreary day in 1971. Wearing a trilby hat and a hideous overcoat, a LONE CROCODILE stands on the rain-slicked sidewalk.
Singing in tune with the plangent sounds of the concertina he clutches in his claws, he tells the viewers that today, of all days, is his birthday. This scene presages the appearance of
one of the most emblematic characters in Soviet animation.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on May 7, 2011 -
24 comments
Film Film Film (1968), an award-winning Soviet animated short (
1,
2), depicts the many unalloyed joys of filmmaking, from writer's block to studio censorship, working with children, unforeseen script revisions, delays, running over budget, technical difficulties, and uncertain audience reception.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Mar 9, 2011 -
4 comments
A hapless painter is endowed with the ability to understand the speech of forest creatures. Little does he know that the evil King Cactus is planning to destroy the forest using his monstrous grinding machine and an army of magically animated polearms, or that he will play an instrumental role in thwarting the scheming xerophyte. Released in 1986,
Čudesna šuma ("The Magical Forest") is Yugoslavia's first feature-length animated film. Created in collaboration with a US production company, it's available in English as (hold on to your hats, folks) "
The Elm-Chanted Forest."
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Mar 7, 2011 -
7 comments
In a world much like our own, mouse society is imperiled by a wave of organized cat crime. A top special agent is coaxed out of retirement to transport the blueprints for a top secret weapon that is the last hope of the civilized mouse nations.
Macskafogó ("Cat Trap") is a feature-length Hungarian animated film. Released in 1986, it's also available in a dubbed English version titled
Cat City.
[more inside]
posted by Nomyte
on Feb 27, 2011 -
4 comments
