ABP editorial

Juno.

Let me start by saying that this particular blog has nothing to do with animation, but instead pop-culture and entertainment, specifically the new emerging genre of the Hollywoodized mistaken pregnancy love story.

retired.

Seriously, what's the point of having a "Blog?"

Cause if it's to become a fake gossip pop-star like Perez Hilton, then we got problems.

Platform?

The Platform Festival is the biggest lie since George Bush, except no one is getting killed except the independent animator.

Art Snobs.

I would use the word hate, but I don’t hate anyone other than my ex-roommate, so I’ll just say dislike – and what do I dislike? I truly dislike art snobs.

This snobbery can be applied to all arts, especially animation, where certain people will look down on a film or television series just because it was created with Flash MX and not drawn by hand. Art doesn’t always have to be serious. if you don’t like something - someone else might, so just relax and let the 18-35 year old demographic enjoy Adult Swim for what it is. An episode of Aqua Teen Force might not get into some stuck-up programmer’s film festival, but it does entertain the masses better than 75 percent of the stuff at your average animation festival.

In 1997, I worked at an ad agency where a girl with big hoop earrings and revolting cold sores used to always kiss up to creative director, telling him how great he was and how fantastic his ideas were. The guy was emotionless and never cracked a smile despite her sycophantic flirting. Everything the creative director lectured us about was “brilliant” to the girl with tacky jewelry. His board meeting commentary on political illustration, concept art, surrealist magazine collage, whatever, it went on for hours – all to get across the point of how he wanted his art staff to design pitch boards for Nestle Crunch.

It’s like buddy… this is NESTLE CRUNCH. I mean, this is not modern art - this is a candy bar print advertisement, what is so damn serious about it that you need to evoke images of Salvador Dali. Making the pretentiousness even worse was this girl and her doe eyed expression as he lectured the art staff on proper cubism technique and how it related to the text spacing of the word “Nestle.” Needless to say, I was fired from that job later in the summer and collected unemployment while working at a comic book store.

And all I want to know is, why couldn’t the creative director just say, “space out the text and inch and a half” and leave it at that.

But then, he probably doesn’t watch Aqua Teen Force.

whatever.

I was having daiquiris in Cabo with Martina and thinking of retiring. It was December, the boat drinks and tanned Martina made me consider giving up on my literary career - but after reading Bernie’s last article on this ABP Editorial site, I realized if I can’t make it as a writer in the demanding world of blogs, then why don’t I just go hate on some film festival that rejected my last stop motion film starring Star Wars action figures.

It’s like okay to blog about nothing, and be ridiculous in doing so simultaneously, cause worst case scenario – whoever is reading this article doesn’t read it and they can just click to another blog where someone else is hating on Chewbacca, who is basically the most loveable creature on earth.

For this, I would like to thank Bernie for showing me the light and giving me the courage to make this exclusive top five all-time list of Hollywood animated feature films.

5. South Park: The Movie
4. Bambi
3. Heavy Traffic.
2. Beavis and Butthead Do America.
1. The Incredibles.

That’s all.

a.j.

Corporate Indies.

Five years ago I had never heard of Don Hertzfeld. Somehow I had missed the Academy Award nominated coming out party known as Rejected and was too busy laughing at Butthead’s stuttering to know Mike Judge’s name. Then these two guys started a traveling show together, much in the vain of Spike and Mike, except minus the sick and twisted and full of world class animation.

Am I going to Ottawa?

Well, no, why would I go there when I could drive to my Aunt’s house in Albany and watch DVD compilations of Porky the Pig all day? At least that would be free and Aunt Sandra would make some spiked brownies with a side of peach lemonade. I could even get a taste of Bob Clampett on the extras of Porky in Wackyland…

AMEX NYC.

It’s not SXSW but it might pretend to be. I believe in Robert DeNiro and everything he’s done with his career, but his Tribeca Film Festival is nothing more than a shameless American Express advertisement. Animation is vaguely promoted, yet confused in the mix of a careless corporate cluster-fuck of movies like "Poseidon."

Plympton versus Gondry?

There has been lots of talk on the internet about who made a better Kayne video?

I heard ‘em say (sorry) that this video was better because of this or that or what the fridge ever.

But the Animation Janitor has the winner to all the debates right here.

Kayne won.

Mr. West got two videos on television/internet/etc, tons of press, downloads and two of the world’s most distinct filmmakers created different visions of Kayne's pop music…

And the song is a bit less lame because of it.

No really, I love Kayne. It’s just the solo with the white guy that freaks me out. Who is this white dude? What happened to the chorus from Jay-Z? Sheesh.

And now you can decide thanks to random quicktime links:

Bill Plympton...

or Michel Gondry?

-A.J.

Not curious.

It’s cool to see people on this ABP board writing about the studio process, because this past weekend showcased the potential evil of studios in the mega-release of beloved children’s book, Curious George, as an animated feature. This same weekend (Feb 10-12) Steve Martin was being rehashed as Peter Sellers in a remake of the Pink Panther, so you tell me if the fix was on? I’m tired of obvious Hollywood kids films, even if the intentions are to tell a good story while selling tickets. And everybody wants to do to both, independent, studio or otherwise - tell a story, people see it, you get paid, goodnight.

But the problem with mass theatrical distribution is that the consumer only has certain choices of what they can and cannot see. What happens when the only art theater in town isn’t showing Triplets of Belleville? When all you have is Shark’s Tale, which had me interested in the Scorsese voice over, but then I remembered, it would cost me 11 dollars to listen to it… so you only give your cash to the Hollywood films that deserve it like the Incredibles.

Even the worst “player hater” has to put aside whatever jealously they employ and admit Brad Bird’s flick is a Hollywood Classic to go down with the old school Walt Disney shit that didn’t sell out like the Lion King Broadway musical. If you look really hard, you can find something wrong with anything, but saying that the “cape” in the “dungeon scene” didn’t work for you is lame. Don’t search for reasons to dislike something when it’s as good as it gets by the standards that luck and distribution allow.

They don’t make them like the used to because the system has changed. Too few corporations have the money that makes the same decisions about the same media. They try to even give you the opportunity to hate their product because they pre-decide for you. And then occasionally, good things break through, but one person’s genius thing is always someone else’s bullshit. So the cycle of people saying bad things about good movies continues. Like me saying that Curious George sucks even though I haven’t seen it.

This will continue...