You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘★★½’ category.
Director: Ben Sharpsteen
Release Date: August 1, 1936
Stars: Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, the Orphan Mice, the Little Seal
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Mickey’s Circus’ we watch Mickey and Donald perform in a circus for a pack of orphan mice.
Most of the time goes to Donald and his trained seals. Only after six minutes Mickey joins in again, struggling with Donald on the slack-rope, while being troubled by the orphan mice.
‘Mickey’s Circus’ was the last cartoon to feature the Orphan Mice (apart from the remake of ‘Orphan’s Benefit from 1941), until their unexpected return in ‘Pluto’s party‘ from 1952. It’s also the first Disney short featuring a cute little seal. Similar seals would reappear in ‘Pluto’s Playmate‘ (1941), ‘Rescue Dog‘ (1947) and ‘Mickey and the Seal‘ (1948).
Watch ‘Mickey’s Circus’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 87
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Alpine Climbers
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Donald and Pluto
Director: Peter Lord
Release Date: 1989
Rating: ★★½
Review:
With ‘War Story’ the Aardman studio returned to their original lip-synch experiments with real dialogue.
This time they use an interview with one Bill Perry, an old man who tells his memories of his life in Bristol during World War II. Unlike the ‘Animated conversations’ series, however, there is room for goofy images exaggerating the tall tales of the voice over, which involve a slant house and lots of coal. The film’s images are very tongue-in-cheek, yet this film once again suffers from a bad soundtrack, and the old man’s mumblings are at times very difficult to follow, indeed.
The blending of real interviews with original and humorous images would be perfected in ‘Creature Comforts’ by Nick Park, who also animated on this film. In this sense ‘War Story’ is an important step towards Aardman’s mature style, which was to become less serious, and more cartoony, and consequently, more commercially successful.
Watch ‘War Story’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘War Story’ is available on the DVD ‘Aardman Classics’
Director: Ivan Ivanov-Vano
Release Date: 1972
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Ave Maria’ is a very grim anti-Vietnam film, made in the Soviet Union.
It combines paintings of the Virgin Mary with images of war. Its darkest moment is when a soldier in a gas mask kills a Vietnamese child. The film ends with live action footage of people protesting against the Vietnam war. Clever montage suggests that the protesters are being repressed.
Despite its disturbing character the film is too blatantly propagandastic and too directionless to be a classic. It also uses little animation.
Watch ‘Ave Maria’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Ave Maria’ is available on the DVD box set ‘Animated Soviet Propaganda’
Director: Ivan Aksenchuk
Release Date: 1972
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Plus Electrification’ is a commissioned film for the State Commission for the Electrification.The film propagates the electrification of the Soviet Union.
Accompanied by a folky song glorifying electricity, we watch electricity pylons march through the countryside and Soviet electricity pylons shaking hands with Czech and Polish electricity pylons.
Its use of old-fashioned communist imagery, black-and white live action footage and ridiculously heroic music makes the film extremely dated. Despite the colorful images and even a look into the future, one can hardly comprehend that this film was made in the 1970s, not the 1940s.
Watch ‘Plus Electrification’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Plus Electrification’ is available on the DVD box set ‘Animated Soviet Propaganda’
Director: Jan Švankmajer
Release Date: 1971
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Animated sketches of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci are alternated with excerpts from stock live action films.
Atypically for Jan Švankmajer, this film uses pencil animation only (except for a short stop motion segment of a pencil drawing a hand). The animation of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings is both stunning and very convincing. Unfortunately, the nonsensical interruptions with stock film wear the film down, rendering a boring film with an unclear message.
Nevertheless, the Czech communist authorities responded negatively to Švankmajer’s unauthorized post-production of this film, with the incorporation of images related to daily life – presuming a hidden political message. So after ‘Leonardo’s Diary’ Švankmajer was forced to lay down his work for seven years. Only in 1979 he would make the start of a second career, in which he would produce his best films. However, Švankmajer would never return to drawn animation, and ‘Leonardo’s Diary’ remains the only testimony of his skills in this form of art.
Watch ‘Leonardo’s Diary’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Leonardo’s Diary’ is available on the DVD ‘Jan Svankmajer – The Complete Short Films’
Director: Paul Driessen
Release Date: 1970
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Paul Driessen’s very first film is a charming little short for children.
Made largely in Spain with help of small subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Culture, the film tells about a small boy who accidentally sets a forest on fire, but repays his deed by extinguishing another one with help of an elephant with two trunks.
The simple story is hampered by the childish voice over (the English version is much more enjoyable than the original in that respect), and the film certainly doesn’t belong to Driessen’s best works, but its imaginative colors and weird perspectives are still thrilling. It already shows the film maker’s very distinctive animation style, which he would expand and improve over the years, creating such masterpieces as ‘On Land, at Sea and in the Air‘ (1980) and ‘The Writer‘ (1988).
Watch ‘Het verhaal van Kleine Yoghurt’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNzQ1MTE2NTI=.html
‘Het verhaal van Kleine Yoghurt’ is available on the DVD ‘The Dutch Films of Paul Driessen’
Director: Raoul Servais
Release Date: 1971
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Operation X-70 is a half silly, half scary short by Belgian film maker Raoul Servais.
It tells about a poisonous gas, which turns people into spiritual beings. The gas is advertised as a ‘clean weapon’, because it doesn’t kill people. When the gas is accidentally bombed on the Benelux (Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg), it turns people into angels.
The film impresses with its weird idea, its dark and gloomy atmosphere, and its anti-war message. However, like Raoul Servais’s earlier film ‘Goldframe’ (1968), the film suffers from an all too present dialogue. In the end the short’s images are more lasting than the film itself is.
Watch ‘Operation X-70’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Jack Hannah
Release Date: February 8, 1952
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Disney’s favorite voice, Sterling Holloway, returns for the first time since ‘Peter and the Wolf’ (‘Make Mine Music’, 1946), to lend his voice to a child-delivering stork like he did in ‘Dombo’ (1942).
Holloway tells the story of Lambert, a lion cub who’s accidentally delivered to a mother sheep. Because he’s different, he’s bullied by the other lambs, and he grows into a cowardly lion, until he rescues his mother from the clutches of an evil wolf.
Like the similar ‘Morris, the Midget Moose‘ from two years earlier, the story of ‘Lambert, the Sheepish Lion’ is slow, sickeningly sweet and terribly unfunny. What Lambert eats during his stay among the sheep remains a puzzling mystery. The cartoon’s only delight are the facial expressions on the adult Lambert.
Watch ‘Lambert, the Sheepish Lion’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Lambert, the Sheepish Lion’ is available on the DVDs ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities’ and ‘Melody Time’
Director: Charles Nichols
Release Date: February 10, 1950
Stars: Pluto, Minnie Mouse
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Pluto encounters a gopher in Minnie’s garden.
Minnie accidentally brings the gopher inside, where the chase continues, until the gopher is literally launched outside. It’s inside the house where the cartoon blossoms. However, the cartoon remains a little slow, and it is uncertain with whom we have to sympathize, for neither Pluto nor the Gopher is particularly endearing. The best scene is the one in which the gopher discovers that he’s trapped inside a foreign environment. His panic is both funny and heartfelt.
Watch ‘Pluto and the Gopher’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Pluto cartoon No. 34
To the previous Pluto cartoon: Pluto’s Heart Throb
To the next Pluto cartoon: Wonder Dog
Directors: William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Release Date: January 7, 1950
Stars: Tom & Jerry, Little Quacker
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Tom steals an egg from a duck’s nest. When he tries to fry it, it appears to contain a little duck, who seeks shelter at Jerry’s place.
‘Little Quacker’ introduces the talkative little duckling, whose voice resembles that of Donald Duck. It would be the most frequent character of the Jerry-befriends-another-animal-cartoons, starring seven other shorts. The character even survived Tom & Jerry to reincarnate as Yakky Doodle in Hanna-Barbera’s television series ‘Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy’ in 1960.
Despite the character’s apparent popularity, ‘Little Quacker’ is no different from any other Jerry-befriends-another-animal-cartoon. Like all the others, ‘Little Quacker’ is more cute than funny, in spite of some fine gags, and a great long chase scene.
Watch ‘Little Quacker’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2g3dts
This is Tom & Jerry cartoon No. 47
To the previous Tom & Jerry cartoon: Tennis Chumps
To the next Tom & Jerry cartoon: Saturday Evening Puss
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: July 8, 1950
Stars: Bugs Bunny, Humphrey Bogart
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Bugs re-encounters the little penguin form ‘Frigid Hare‘ (1949), complete with the top hat and bow tie he gave him in that cartoon.
He promises the tacit little fellow to bring him home, which Bugs thinks is on the South Pole. This leads to a long voyage across the Americas, including Martinique, Panama and the Amazon. At several places they meet Humphrey Bogart begging for some money, a reference to his role in ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ (1948). This running gag may be the highlight of an otherwise tiresome and unfunny cartoon.
Watch ‘8 Ball Bunny’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 73
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: What’s Up, Doc?
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hillbilly Hare
Director: Robert McKimson
Release Date: January 21, 1950
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In this cartoon Bugs Bunny apparently lives in Central Park, New York.
He buys a hurdy-gurdy with a monkey in order to become rich. But when the monkey betrays Bugs, Bugs fires him and goes fetching the money at the apartment block himself. The monkey then fetches his big brother (a gorilla) to fix Bugs. But in the end it’s the gorilla who collects money for Bugs.
‘Hurdy-gurdy Hare’ is an inconsistent and rather weak cartoon, which nevertheless contains a great ladder gag, in which Bugs quotes Groucho Marx. At the end, Bugs makes a reference to James Petrillo, leader of the American Federation of Musicians at the time.
Watch ‘Hurdy-gurdy Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.ulozto.net/live/xPiUKTr/bugs-bunny-hurdy-gurdy-hare-1950-avi
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 68
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: Rabbit Hood
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Mutiny on the Bunny
Director: Art Davis
Release Date: June 4, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In the opening scene of ‘Bowery Bugs’ Bugs Bunny is a tour guide talking about Brooklyn Bridge and why Steve Brody (a historical character) jumped from it in 1886.
A flashback shows Steve Brody, pictured as a typical bully, being out of luck and looking for a rabbit foot as a lucky charm. He encounters Bugs who then drives Brody mad, making him jump from Brooklyn Bridge in the end.
‘Bowery Bugs’ was the only Bugs Bunny cartoon directed by Art Davis. He does a fair job, although the cartoon suffers from erratic timing. His designs on Bugs Bunny are very reminiscent of those by Robert McKimson.
Watch a clip from ‘Bowery Bugs’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 60
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: High Diving Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Long-Haired Hare
Director: Art Davis
Release Date: February 12, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
In ‘Porky Chops’ a squirrel from Brooklyn is having a holiday in a forest where Porky is working as a lumberjack.
This outlandish idea creates a rather routinely conflict with loads of dialogue. The result is one of Art Davis’s weaker cartoons, particularly because of the squirrel’s rather unpleasant character. This makes it difficult to sympathize with either protagonist.
The cartoon shows an interesting mixture of styles: the squirrel looks vaguely like a Robert McKimson-character, while Porky is designed and animated in a toned-down Clampettian style.
Watch ‘Porky Chops’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/650/porky-chops.html#.URQKvKU9R8E
‘Porky Chops’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 123
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Awful Orphan
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Paying the Piper
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: January 29, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig, Charlie Dog
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Awful Orphan’ is the second cartoon of five starring that delightfully annoying mutt, Charlie Dog.
In this short Charlie Dog sneaks into Porky’s apartment ‘disguised’ as a canary. He then tries to persuade an unwilling Porky Pig to let him stay as a pet. In the end Porky even forces him to stay, as a master with Porky being his dog.
‘Awful Orphan’ is hampered by Porky’s untypical behavior, being rather nasty at several points. The animation, however, is top notch, and full of excellent poses and smears. On Porky’s wall we can see a rather fauvist painting of two naked ladies, one of the smaller signs of Jones’ interest in more classical arts.
Watch ‘Awful Orphan’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ecxen
‘Awful Orphan’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 122
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Scaredy Cat
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Porky Chops
Director: Art Davis
Release Date: October 21, 1949
Stars: Porky Pig
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Porky tries to get rid of an annoying mouse.
When it’s announced on the radio that brutal killer Bluebeard is in town, the mouse disguises as the criminal. Porky quickly discovers his disguise however, but then the real killer shows up, too. Porky faints on the spot, and is tight to a rocket and put under a guillotine. It’s the little mouse who saves the day by blowing up the killer, and in the end he’s allowed to stay in Porky’s house.
This story is not presented very logically, nor is it very well executed. Therefore, one doesn’t care for the characters, nor is it very funny. Art Davis definitely could do better, but unfortunately this was his last cartoon at Warner Brothers. He would not direct again until 1962, when he directed the Daffy Duck short ‘Quackodile Tears’. In the meantime Davis returned to animating, joining Friz Freleng’s unit.
Watch ‘Bye, Bye Bluebeard’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.220.ro/desene-animate/10-Bye-Bye-Bluebeard/2Z9yE6bPnU/
This is Porky Pig cartoon no. 129
To the previous Porky Pig cartoon: Dough for the Do-Do
To the next Porky Pig cartoon: Boobs in the Woods
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: October 7, 1949
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
On the way to Miami Beach Bugs misses a left turn at Albuquerque again and reaches the South Pole, where’s confronted with a little penguin chased by an Eskimo, who is as mean as he is out of place. Although Bugs wants to go to the beach, he saves the little fellow.
This is one of the weaker Bugs Bunny cartoons, mainly because of the rather inactive penguin, whose cuteness softens Bugs’s character and because of the large amount of dialogue, provided by Bugs alone. The short’s best scene is when Bugs dresses as a female Eskimo to rescue his waddling little friend. Jones would reuse the little penguin the next year in ‘8 Ball Bunny‘ with moderately better results.
Watch ‘Frigid Hare’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.supercartoons.net/cartoon/663/bugs-bunny-frigid-hare.html
‘Frigid Hare’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 65
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: The Windblown Hare
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Which is Witch?
Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: December 14, 1948
Stars: Bugs Bunny
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Bugs misses a turn at Albuquerque and ends up in Scotland.
When he mistakes a Scotchman’s bagpipes for a monster attacking an old lady, he ends up playing golf against the angered Scotchman. Of course, Bugs wins the game, which consists of several blackout gags, and he even manages to defeat the kilted guy at playing the pipes.
The Scotchman looks like a cross between Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam, but who hasn’t got anything near the personality of either of the two. Therefore the interplay between our hero and the villain never really come to live, despite some nice facial expressions on Bugs’ adversary.
Peter Alvarado’s backgrounds do not help: they are too vivid to ignore, but have none of the beauty of either Jones early 1940s cartoons or his cartoons from the 1950s. Instead they express a strange mix of realistic and more stylized patterns. The result is a rather mediocre entry in the Bugs Bunny catalog.
Watch ‘My Bunny Lies over the Sea’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘My Bunny Lies over the Sea’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 1’
This is Bugs Bunny cartoon No. 55
To the previous Bugs Bunny cartoon: A Lad in his Lamp
To the next Bugs Bunny cartoon: Hare Do
Director: Jack Hannah
Release Date: November 1, 1946
Stars: Donald Duck, Goofy
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive’ is the fourth of five cartoons starring both Donald and Goofy. The coupling never was really successful, and ‘Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive’ is no exception.
In this short Goofy is staged as some Tarzan-like wild man wearing sneakers. Donald Duck is himself as hunter ‘Frank Duck’, trying to capture the wild man. Their endless chase ends when they encounter a lion. The wild man escapes with Donald’s boat, leaving Donald leaping from tree to tree, followed by the lion. Iris out.
The comedy of ‘Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive’ does not work well, because Goofy is not really himself here. Maybe director Jack Hannah was inspired by the anonymous Goofies that crowded the Goofy films of the era, including some he directed himself. In any case, when the anonymous Goofy suddenly is reduced to one, something apparently goes wrong. Then we probably expect to watch the real Goofy again, something which does not happen in this cartoon. Instead, we watch a Goofy acting silly, but also outsmarting his hunter, just like Daffy Duck does at Warner Brothers. It just doesn’t feel right. It’s so out of character, it ruins the comedy.
‘Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive’ contains a very late occasion of Donald’s typical dance of anger, made famous by animator Dick Lundy in Donald’s second screen appearance, ‘Orphan’s Benefit‘ (1934). Donald showed this behavior often in his early career, but it had become rare by the 1940s.
Watch ‘Frank Duck Brings ‘Em Back Alive’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Director: Isadore Sparber
Release Date: February 19, 1943
Stars: Superman
Rating: ★★½
Review:
With ‘The Mummy Strikes’ the Superman series entered the realm of the adventure movie, albeit with rather unsuccessful results.
One doctor Jordan is mysteriously killed in the museum and Clark Kent is invited to investigate the murder. Lois follows him secretly. After a very lengthy explanation, four gigantic mummies come to life, but Superman defeats them in an all too short battle. This finale is not in proportion to the boring explanation scene preceding it.
In all, ‘The Mummy Strikes’ is one of the weaker entries in the Superman series, because of this ill-constructed story. Luckily, Superman’s next adventure, ‘Jungle Drums‘, would be much better.
Watch ‘The Mummy Strikes’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Superman film No. 14
To the previous Superman film: Destruction, Inc.
To the next Superman film: Jungle Drums
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 