This Is for Betsy Hall (Sundance 2000)

A daughter's personal story recounting her mother's lifelong battle with Bulimia.



An impressionistic montage of stills, projected video, underwater footage and an intimate phone conversation, this deeply personal film was crafted as a gift for the Hope Hall's mother.

Geek And Poke


by Oliver Widder. You can read other Geek and Poke stories on their website.

Agricultural Report (2004)

A new strain of a disease that could be dangerous to livestock herds is being discussed on the radio. A cow listening to the show naturally gets a bit worried about the topic.
This is why cows shouldn't listen to the radio. What's a cow to do? Why, freak out, of course.




Barley Films was founded in Ireland in 2002 to produce entertaining animated films. This is its second short and it has gone on to win ten international awards and has screened in over one hundred festivals.
Melina Sydney Padua makes a great work!

Beef


Ed Piskor has collaborated with Harvey Pekar on American Splendor. He and Mr. Pekar are currently wrapping up a graphic novel called "MACEDONIA" for Random House.

The Corporation (Sundance 2004)

The Corporation features interviews with prominent corporate critics such as Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Michael Moore, Vandana Shiva and Howard Zinn as well as opinions from company CEOs such as Ray Anderson (from the Interface carpet & fabric company), the conservative viewpoints of Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman, and think tanks advocating free markets such as the Fraser Institute.



150 years ago, the business corporation was a relatively insignificant institution. Today, it is all-pervasive. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today's dominant institution. This documentary examines the nature, evolution, impacts, and possible futures of the modern business corporation.
You can buy The Corporation.

Subnormality


You can read other Winston Rowntree's comics on Virus Comix.

Metropopular (Sundance 2001)

Metropopular is an animated short film about what the cities of America would say to one another if they could talk. Jonah Hall use a unique animation style. The characters are great and the plot is fun.




Frantic about a popularity contest in which these cities are competing, they jockey for top position while arguing between themselves. Highlighting their separate personalities, each city had his or her own reason why they should be America's favorite city.
A really entertaining film.

Details


By Ye Rin Mok.

Born Into Brothels (2005 Accademy Award)

Amidst the apparent growing prosperity of India, there is a dark underbelly of poverty of another side of the nation that is little known. This film is a chronicle of filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's efforts to show that world of Calcutta's red light district.
Briski, a documentary photographer, went to Kolkata to photograph prostitutes. While there, she befriended their children and offered to teach the children photography to reciprocate being allowed to photograph their mothers. The children were given cameras so they could learn photography and possibly improve their lives. Much of their work was used in the film, and the filmmakers recorded the classes as well as daily life in the red light district.




The red light district has existed for centuries and will exist for centuries more, but now we know the tortured lives of children in the shadows of Calcutta. The fate of the children is not resolved, but their dreams resonate in our world and lives.
The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee has criticized Briski for using hidden camera work to incorrectly present the children's parents as uncaring, for ignoring the prostitutes' substantial efforts to unite, and for harming the global movement for sex worker rights and dignity.
You can buy Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids.

The Bureaucrats


by Robert Renaud. You can read other The Bureaucrats' strips on their website.

Tenshi no Tamago (天使のたまご, 1984)

Angel's Egg incorporates surrealistic and existentialist qualities but very little dialogue, making it a commonly cited example of progressive anime.
The whole film is beautifully animated and designed. The atmosphere is dark: empty streets creates a dreamlike, slightly sinister atmosphere reminiscent of proto-surrealist painters Giorgio deChirico and Dalì. And there is plenty of symbolic Christian imagery: almost the story of Noah's ark takes up a good portion of the sparse dialogue. There are also references to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.



In a desolate and dark world full of shadows, lives one little girl: she is the sole protector of a very precious, large egg. A mysterious man enters her life and when he wins her trust, they begin to discuss about the world around them.
Each metaphor spoken and piece of symbolism shown only helps to further deepen the mystery behind the film.
You can read this article about its simbolism.

Children no more


Rocco Lombardi is the founder of some punk bands (I.A.S., Waika, R.aM.A., 'Sti Cazzi). He issued illustrations on Kerosene, Blu, Stripburger, Frigidaire and Lamette. He also issued L'albero Sfregiato.

Titler (Sundance 2000)

Filmed with effective black-and-white visuals and disintegrating locations of abandoned Met State hospital which evoke a bombed-out post-war Berlin, Gregory Roman energizes the screen with a performance of brilliant comedic nuances and mannerisms that evoke the lonesome glamour of Marlene Dietrich.
It's an entertaining, hilarious and shocking film.



This short performs eight numbers as Titler, a cross-dressing man with a woman's figure and the hair and mustache of the Fuhrer's. An absurd superimposition of two brands of charisma featuring Adolf Hitler!
What wonderful portrait of the Führer in drag belting out sexually reassigned show tunes!
Greg Roman has also created Titler web site that further evolves the character and tone established in the film.

Guest Comic From Adam Holwerda!


You can read A Slice of Life by Noel Graham.

Plasticland (Future Film Festival 2004)

The Setting:Night. Metropolis. Future?
A pocket full of money. When a tramp asks him for some money, a cat has to struggle with his many internal consciences to come up with a decision.



Simon Bogojevic-Narath has created a surprising and rich world in 3-D computer generated animation.

Batcha


Dice Tsutsumi worked for Blue Sky Studios as a visual development/color key artist on their blockbuster film projects such as Ice Age, Robots and upcoming Horton Hears A Who. Now he works as art director at Pixar Animation Studios.

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam (Accademy Award 1989)

Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam is a documentary based on the book which printed letters from the soldiers and nurses who served in Vietnam.
This movie is so powerful precisely because it is so simple. Using real letters written by US soldiers and archive footage, the film creates a highly personal experience of the Vietnam War.



An intensely moving and disturbing experience. It shows a more humane story of the war than we see in most media outlets and reveal real people in real situations trying to explain or understand the war.
It has no plot except of thousands of young men who went to a faraway country and had unspeakable experiences there; many of them died or were wounded for life in body or soul.
You can buy Dear America - Letters Home from Vietnam.

Making Biscuits (A Slice of Life 3)


You can read A Slice of Life by Noel Graham.

One Man Band (Annecy 2006)

Like many Pixar shorts, this film is completely free of dialogue, instead using music (played by the characters) and pantomime to tell the story.
Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews show us what Pixar can do with four minutes and the simplest of story lines. This short is fun because it's funny and imaginative.



With one coin to make a wish at the piazza fountain, One Man Band tells the humorously captivating tale of a peasant girl who encounters two competing street performers who'd prefer the coin find its way into their tip jars. As the two one-man bands' rivalry crescendos, the two overly eager musicians vie to win the little girl's attention.
You can buy Pixar Short Films Collection: Volume 1.

Key Lime Pie


By Trevor Jimenez

Visas and virtue (Academy Award 1998)

Inspired by the true story of a Holocaust rescuer, Visas and Virtue is a dramatic rencostruction that explores the moral and professional dilemmas that Japanese Consul General Chiune Sempo Sugihara faced in making a life or death decision: defy his own government's direct orders and risk his career by issuing lifesaving transit visas or obey orders and turn his back on humanity.



Although he is not as well known as Schindler, his heroic efforts resulted in one of the largest rescues of Jews during the Holocaust.
Chris Tashima shows us that it's possible narrate a true story without making a documentary.

Omlette Food (A Slice of Life 2)


You can read A Slice of Life by Noel Graham.

Ersatz (Academy Award 1961)

This short traces evidence of American cartoons, specifically from the UPA studios. Dusan Vukotic takes cues from modern art and graphic design. The animated figures consist of simple geometric shapes and most of their movements are either parallel to one of their edges or else curvilinear. Despite this minimalism, the characters are identifiable as characters, and within the boundaries of fable the story works just fine.



The Substitute was the first film produced outside the USA to win an Oscar for best animated short.
It's a simple story about the man who comes to the beach and uses inflatable objects for all of his needs.
You can buy The Best of Zagreb Film: Be Careful What You Wish For/The Classic Collection.

Transformationen


By Andrea Ren.

Dark Days (Sundance 2000)

This film follows a group of people living in an abandoned section of the New York City underground railway system, more precisely the area of the so called Freedom Tunnel. After living with them for a number of months, Marc Singer decided to create a documentary.
This is a noble film worthy of our attention.
He just started hanging out and making friends in his neighbourhood. He met one guy who mentioned the tunnels. He heard that you could build a house down there and live somewhat normally but still be homeless. And that just fascinated him so Singer went exploring.
There is some crime, but it’s not total anarchy. Boundaries are almost always respected, and there is a sense of uneasy camaraderie among these people.
Dark Days is an eye-opening experience that shatters the myths of homelessness by revealing a thriving community living in tunnels beneath New York City and honestly capturing their resilience and strength in their struggle to survive.




This documentary helps to change negative perceptions of the homeless. But Singer doesn't want the film to make us feel guilty that we are living comfortably while somebody else is on the street. Singer focuses on the positive things people try to do for themselves. And most importantly he gave every homeless person involved in its making a percentage. The only thing that stood in the way of Singer's idea and its execution was that he knew absolutely nothing about filmmaking, or even still photography
He assembled a group of the tunnel homeless to be his camera loaders, sound recorders, electricians and equipment manufacturers. Such a crew would add to the authentically personal feel of the film and solve the problem of finding a professional crew willing to endure tunnel conditions for that long.
Dark Days's urban wasteland aesthetic is sort of Lynchian in its ironic beauty.
This is unique among documentaries because of Singer's sensitive treatment. There are shots in Dark Days that rank with the best black-and-white photojournalism pieces of the '30s and '40s. Singer's attention to detail rightly deserved the Cinematography Award at Sundance
You can buy Dark Days.

Alien Weekend (A Slice of Life)


You can read A Slice of Life by Noel Graham.

Munro (Oscar 1961)

Tiny Munro, a four year old boy, is drafted into the army. Then his life profoundly changed.
Jules Feiffer's parable about the dangers of a mindless military mentality is accurately presented in this funny little film. Howard Morris narrates and voices the various grown-ups.



You can buy Rembrandt Films Greatest Hits.
You can visit Rembrandt Studio.

Don Carrascas


by Camilo Macheca.

Trevor (Oscar 1994)

This short is a tender and humorous tale of a gay teenager’s struggle with his sexual orientation and his attempted suicide.



Set as a sequence of diary entries, the film tells the story of bright, funny, and exuberant thirteen year old Trevor, who learns to deal with the fact that he is gay. He falls for another young boy, his friend, and his true feelings are revealed. He attempts suicide, but in the end his strong will and determination help him get through this tough time.



Peggy Rajski and Randy Stone created The Trevor Project, too.
You can buy Trevor.

Jane's World


In 2002 Paige Baddrock launched her own publishing company, Girl Twirl Comics, so that she could finally make her comic feature, Jane's World, available to comic shops and bookstores. Jane's World started as an online feature in the late 1990s, but was soon picked up for online distribution by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
In 2006 Jane's World received an Eisner Award nomination for best humor book. There are currently 8 Volumes of Jane's World in print.

Now Hear This (1962 Oscar nominee)

Now Hear This is without a doubt one of the weirder shorts that Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble ever made. This short is one of the Looney Tunes series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc.
Looney Tunes is a variation on Silly Symphonies, the name of Walt Disney's concurrent series of music-based cartoon shorts. Looney Tunes originally showcased Warner-owned musical compositions through the adventures of cartoon characters.
This was the first Warner Bros cartoon to use the "modern" Looney Tunes opening and closing sequence featuring stylized animation.



An old man finds a red horn and uses it as a megaphone, unaware that it is really a lost horn from the Devil's forehead. The Britisher finds that the horn has the effect of amplifying every sound psychedelically and causing him serious bodily harm.
It's impressive how economically Chuck Jones packed in so much expression and character into so little. You'll enjoy his artistic style and abstract design!
You can buy Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection.

Arachne Elrafo


Raphael Lacoste did this painting for a project he has with Pascal Blanché: they are planning a remake of Time Masters, the 1979 French animation movie by René Laloux and Moebius. He has drawn the picture after the introduction shots of the movie where a rescue vehicle runs into the desert of Perdide, a lost planet colonized by the Time Masters...

Moving Still (2007)

This stereoscopic short film was made with an experimental tecnique: Santiago Caicedo de Roux created all the images in a single camera take and mixed them with CG images which build and destroy the city.



The routine of the daily train, with the same point of departure, same point of arrival, same route without surprise. You can feel feel the monotony of a recurring journey made too many times.
The images pass by outside and you follow the rhythm. Which rhythm do you choose? Are you free to change your life?

Not From Concetrate 5


Not From Concentrate runs daily in The Diamondback, the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland, College Park.
It is created by Thomas Dobrosielski.

Precious Image (1986 Academy Award for Live Action Short Film)

Precious Images features approximately 470 half-second-long splices of classic movies and movie moments through the history of American film, chronologically arranged from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Rocky IV (1985).



The scenes are organized by genre, which is matched to appropriate music. Chuck Workman chooses only about a second from each movie to push the audience into a kind of trance and take them on a journey into their individual memories of great films of three quarters of a century.
Workman wanted to evoke hundreds of fleeting memories in the viewers to look back on all the great films they have seen.

Making A Map


Wakaba Noda issued Making A Map and was awarded with a honorable mention award at Canon New Cosmos of Photography.

The Meatrix (Annecy 2004 Netsurfers Award for Short Films)

With this short, Free Range Studios wants to criticize the methods of industrial agriculture and to encourage consumers to purchase organic food products and free-range meats.
In early 2003, Free Range Graphics invited nonprofit groups around the country to submit proposals for their first-ever Free Range Flash Activism Grant. After reviewing 50 proposals, Free Range awarded the grant to the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE), an organization committed to halting factory farms and promoting sustainable agriculture. Their decision to spoof The Matrix was based on the similarities between the film and today’s corporate system of agriculture.



Leo, a pig on a seemingly bucolic family farm, is approached by Moopheus, an anthropomorphic bull. Moopheus shows Leo that the farm he has known is an illusion, and that he is really trapped in a horrific factory farm. Leo and Moopheus then work to break out of the Meatrix and help others do the same, with some help from a third character, Chickity..
In 2006, Free Range studios also released two sequels: The Meatrix II: Revolting and The Meatrix: II and 1/2.
The Meatrix will be the best parody flash animation with a political message you've ever watched!

Not From Concentrate 4


Not From Concentrate runs daily in The Diamondback, the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland, College Park.
It is created by Thomas Dobrosielski.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

Meshes of the Afternoon is full of bizarre and creepy surrealist images. It's very poetic and disturbing. It reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an individual will develop, interpret and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience.
Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid wanted to put on film the feeling which a human being experiences about an incident, rather than to record the incident accurately.
This short is still one of the most popular of all American experimental films and is a landmark film that has provided an important model, setting the tone and style for other individual efforts over the next decade.
The entire film is seen through the eyes of a woman. You cannot tell when Maya's character is awake or dreaming. She carries a flower with her, which she holds upside down. She sees death, who wears a black hood and has a mirror for a face. She sees herself dreaming. In her dream she seems to foresee her own death. She seems to have a subconscious fear of knives, or being killed by a knife.



The film's narrative is circular and repeats a number of psychologically symbolic images, including a flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a mysterious Grim Reaper-like cloaked figure with a mirror for a face, a phone off the hook and an ocean.
The film was produced in an environment of wartime volatility and this is reflected symbolically as throughout its mise-en-scène: the atmosphere is saturated in paranoia.
The beauty of this films is in its rhythmus: an innovative style of cutting on action, repetition and variation: a series of subtle structural, temporal, and logical mutations, creating a sublimely recursive, mind-bending meditation on the interaction between experience and memory, domestic banality and violence, imagination and causation.
You can buy Maya Deren: Experimental Films.

Cold Breath Finalsm



by Alec Senwald.

Sub (2000)

Sub is an exquisitely-timed, hysterically funny, stunningly expressive story of one sunny afternoon in a cool Italian plaza.
It's a strange short: a spare dialogue, a striking illustrative style and a decidedly red aesthetic. Someone will see in the short the decline of the Soviet Empire or a treatise on the vulgarization of mass culture and the decline of religiosity.



I'm not sure if it's simply a surreal short about the crew of a miniature submarine attempting to save their captain from being splattered about the ground of a European plaza but I'm sure this film will fascinate you for its inventiveness, its dynamic editing, its continual narrative surprises but most of all for its subversive humor.

Not From Concetrate 3


Not From Concentrate runs daily in The Diamondback, the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland, College Park.
It is created by Thomas Dobrosielski.

Le Vieil Homme et la Mer (1999)

The old man and the sea, based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway, won many awards, including the Academy Award for Animated Short Film.



Aleksandr Petrov and his son Dmitri Petrov painted each of the 29,000+ frames. They took more than two years of painting on glass sheets. The project was initiated in 1995 after Petrov (who had made his first films in Russia) had his first meeting with Pascal Blais Studio, a Canadian animation studio. The film was partially funded by and was made at their studio. After photographing each frame painted on the glass sheets, which was four times larger than the usual A4-sized canvas, he had to slightly modify the painting for the next frame and so on.



The style is analogous to that used in Petrov's other films and can be characterized as a type of Romantic realism. People, animals and landscapes are painted and animated in a very realistic fashion but there are sections where Petrov attempts to visually show a character's inner thoughts and dreams.
You will be overwhelmed by its beauty and depth, and the admiration for what human imagination, creativity, and talent are capable of producing.
An astonishingly gorgeous example of a modern classic!

Garden



By Maki Fujimoto.

Kiwi (2006)

Kiwi was created by Dony Permedi, a student in the New York City School of Visual Arts, as his Master's Thesis Animation, with music composed and performed by Tim Cassell.
Originally the main character wad going to be a chicken but Permedi found it an obvious choice. So he created Kiwi.



The animator's story is that of a kiwi bird who has a dream (he aspires to fly) and is willing to do anything to see it become a reality.
This charming short is simple yet so powerful that it sticks in your subconscious.
A great example of a dialogue free narrative, which reminds me of the first shorts of Pixar!

Not From Concentrate 2


Not From Concentrate runs daily in The Diamondback, the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland, College Park.
It is created by Thomas Dobrosielski.

Intolerance (1916)

This is one of the milestones and landmarks in cinematic history.
The film consists of four distinct but parallel stories that demonstrate mankind's intolerance during four different ages in world history. It was made in response to critics who protested against Griffith's previous film, The Birth of a Nation, for its overt racist content, characterizing racism as people's "intolerance" of other people's views.
Films were poised between an emphasis upon visual pleasure, 'the cinema of attractions', and story-telling, 'the cinema of narrative integration' but conventions for constructing internally coherent narratives had not yet been established. In the transitional years, between 1907-8 and 1917, the formal elements of film-making all became subsidiary to the narrative, as lighting, composition, editing were all increasingly designed to help the audience follow a story. Integral to these stories are psychologically credible characters, created through performance style, editing, and dialogue intertitles, whose motivations and actions seem realistic and help to link together the film's disparate shots and scenes.



The increased use of editing and the decreased distance between camera and actors most obviously distinguish the films of the transitional period from their predecessors.
Intollerance displays a more consistent construction of internally coherent narratives and credible individualized characters through editing, acting, and intertitles than do any of the other genres.
However, the basic elements of the earlier films remained unchanged- credible individual characters still served to link together the disparate scenes and shots, the difference being that character motivation and plausibility became yet more important as the films grew longer and the number of important characters increased.
You can buy Intolerance.

Gently Elephant


Adrian Johnson issued Designed to Help, The Fundamentals of Illustration, 300% Cotton, Pictoplasma : The Character Encyclopaedia, If You Could Do Anything Tomorrow, What Would It Be?, Hand Job, Graphic 11 : Graphic Ha Ha, The Secrets of Digital Illustration : Rotovision.

Scurtă Istorie (Palme d'Or 1957)

Short History has a dual philosophical content. It's full of ideas and poetry, in a funny short story full of rhythm and imagination.
Ian Popescu-Gopo admitted that he tried to start an "anti-Disney rebellion" with his animated films. He knew he would be unable to surpass Disney's animation characters in color and beauty, so he tried to be more profound in message and substance: he simplified the form and techniques used. Gopo is, in fact, designed in simple lines.



The main character is Gopo, a Homo Sapiens, featured in most of his films, and he is a reflection of himself, almost a self-portrait. He appears to be a lost creature, an innocent party, not knowing how and why he came about. But as the plot develops he adjusts his outlook and attains the upperhand. He goes through all the evolutionary stages of history until he reaches space and discovers a new life.

Not From Concentrate



Not From Concentrate runs daily in The Diamondback, the independent student newspaper of the University of Maryland, College Park.
It is created by Thomas Dobrosielski.

Le Voyage Dans la Lune (1902)

This early silent film is repeatedly declared to be the first science fiction film and is revered as the greatest achievement of stage magician and film pioneer Georges Méliès. Lubin Manufacturing Company released another take on A Trip to the Moon in 1914, written e directed by Vincent Whitman, a work of silent animation which alas did not survive.
With a mix of stage tricks, camera tricks and several types of animation, Méliès crafts a surreal fantastic vision of the Moon with great artistic sensibility and the care of a painter. It's almost as though a painting comes to life.
Georges Méliès aimed in the film to "invert the hierarchal values of modern French society and hold them up to ridicule in a riot of the carnivalesque." (Alison McMahan).





"A Trip to the Moon" is loosely based on the books "From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne and "The First Men in the Moon" by H. G. Wells, as if this whimsical fantasy really focuses on an astronomer' s dream. A group of men travel to the moon by being shot in a capsule from a giant cannon. They are captured by moon-men, escape and return to the earth.
The plot is very well-written and still captures the imagination with its wonderfully crafted visuals and its charming comedy, although it still displays a primitive understanding of narrative film technique. The editing is purely functional: the concept of showing an action twice in different ways was experimented again by Porter in his film, Life of an American Fireman, released roughly a year after A Trip to the Moon.
He used overlapping action, as a result of his desire to preserve the pro-filmic space and to emphasize important action by essentially showing it twice.
You can buy the dvds Georges Melies: First Wizard of Cinema (1896-1913) and Melies the Magician and the book Georges Melies.

Pink



By
Naho Kubota.

Tie shan gong zhu (铁扇公主, 1941)

Princess Iron Fan is the first feature length animation made in China, just four years after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
It resembles the early 30s Fleischer cartoons because of its strange mix of primitive drawing and imaginative metamorphosis.
This film is freely adapted from a classic 16th-century Chinese novel, Journey to the West and it's set during the Tang Dynasty. Wan Brother chose to adapt a popular national legend to renew China’s rich heritage and traditions by extending them into the new world of animation.



The novel concerns the hardship and adventures of Buddhist monk Xuanzang and his four disciples. We follow the Monkey King and his friends on their journey to the west. The tale of Princess Iron Fan is one such episode.
As they reach Fire Mountain they are unable to pass because of the fire but learn that a special iron fan can quench the flames. However, the fan belongs to Princess Iron Fan and she will not willingly lend it to them...
Wan Brothers resorted to rotoscoping, a tecnique invented by Max Fleischer, to create certain human movements.
You can buy Princess Iron Fan.

Missile Mouse


Jake Parker is an employer at the Blu Sky Studios. He has published Missile Mouse Adventures, Agent 44 Art Digest amd in various anthologies.

L'Etoile de mer (1928)

This film is based on a script by Robert Desnos and depicts a couple (Alice Prin and André de la Rivière) acting through scenes that are shot out of focus.



Originally a silent film, recent copies have been dubbed using music taken from Man Ray's personal record collection of the time. The musical reconstruction was by Jacques Guillot and it fitted this film perfectly - haunting and hypnotic.



With these loose images, sometimes seen distorted through a glass, Man Ray refuses the authority of the look. We can recognize this choicee also in the editing, which draw out the disjunction between shots, rather than their continuity.
You can buy You can buy Photographs by Man Ray: 105 Works, 1920-1934 and Man Ray (Artists of the 20th Century).

Sax


Simone Pieralli. He worked as an illustrator, graphic director and colorist. He was the editor of Funnies and Hangar.

Stanley (2000)

Suzie Templeton will intrigue audiences with her darkly comic film Stanley. While his wife wreaks violence and death in the kitchen, Stanley finds life and love in a cabbage he is growing in his barren back yard.
This short features just two human puppets and shows deep feeling and melancholy.



It's her first work and every element is already perfect. The background is delivered so well it's amazing. The final punch line is a bit subtle but up till then it's all sublime. Little details, little expressions, little movements tell so much about the inner feelings.

The Adventures of Ashley 2



You can read Faith Erin Hick 's other comics on his website.

The Gay Shoe Clerk (1903)

This film is significant as a precursor to Porter's groundbreaking classic The Great Train Robbery, which combined state of the art editing techniques to tell a 12 minute narrative story and is notable for its early use of matched shot editing, with a close-up of a female customer's ankle and a longer establishing shot used in combination with each other. This close-up insert is an example not only of the visual pleasure afforded by the 'cinema of attractions' but of the early cinema's voyeuristic treatment of the female body. Despite the fact that their primary purpose is not to emphasize narrative developments, these shots' attribution to a character in the film distinguishes them from the totally unmotivated close-up we viewed in The Great Train Robbery.



The pre- 1907 'cinema of attractions' were primarily designed to enhance visual pleasure rather than to tell a coherent, linear narrative. But many of these films did tell simple stories and audiences undoubtedly derived narrative, as well as visual, pleasure: a shoeshop assistant flirts with his female customer.
You can buy Treasures from American Film Archives.

Mushroom


By Jennifer Tong.