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Directors: John & Faith Hubley
Release date: 1972
Rating: ★
Review:
‘Dig’ is a children’s film about geology and paleontology.
A New York boy called Adam is taking his bike and dog Bones to fetch some milk, but ends up with a Rock called Rocko, who talks with a New York accent, and who takes Adam and Bones into the earth’s crust to tell about e.g. stalactites, volcanoes, earthquakes and types of rocks. In the end the trio journeys through time, from the Precambrian through the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras.
‘Dig’ boasts charming animation and a funky score by Quincy Jones, but the four songs are rather tiresome, the pacing is very slow, and the educational value negligible. The information misses context, and the images are often too vague to illustrate the message well enough. In all, ‘Dig’ certainly is not one of John and Faith Hubley’s best.
Watch ‘Dig: A Journey into the Earth’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Dig: A Journey into the Earth’ was released on the DVD ‘Art and Jazz in Animation’, which has been long out of print
Directors: Max Fleischer & F. Lyle Goldman
Production Date: June 21, 1929
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Well, here’s a real treat: an educational/promotional film directed by Max Fleischer & F. Lyle Goldman to explain sound film, right from the era in which this new feat. was introduced.
The film starts with a sound film role changing into a cartoon figure. The sound film takes a silent film to a professor, who explains how sound film works. The film is most interesting, for it clearly shows the tremendous amount of changes that had to be made to make sound film work.
For example, in live action films the camera was now placed inside a box to prevent the primitive sound recording microphone from catching up the sound of the camera itself. And theaters, too, had to invest in the change. The screen had to be porous to let the sound through produced by giant loudspeakers behind the screen.
The designs and animation of this little film is still firmly rooted in the 1920s, and the animation is remarkably stiff, especially when compared to contemporary Disney cartoons. And although the characters talk a lot, lip synchronization is only suggested, but not really there. In fact, Fleischer would mostly neglect lip synchronization way until the end of the 1930s, only using it minimally. The voice over, too, is a little bit dull and hesitating in explaining the processes, but in the end this film is too unique a document of its time not to enjoy.
Watch ‘Finding his Voice’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Finding his Voice’ is available on the DVD ‘Cultoons! Rare, Lost and Strange Cartoons! Volume 2: Animated Education’ and on the DVD box set ‘Popeye the Sailor 1941-1943’
Director: Jiří Trnka
Release Date: 1954
Rating: ★★★
Review:
A young man on a motorcycle is on his way to his girl.
Along the way he stops at a bar, where a wedding is taking place. There he’s offered a drink, which he reluctantly accepts. However, one leads to another and he is quite intoxicated when leaving the bar. Driving at night he tries to speed against a car, a train and even a plane, but he finally crashes, never to see his girl.
This educational film warns us not to combine drinking with driving. In this respect the film is very dull and predictable, but Trnka’s illusion of speed and drunkenness is astonishing.
Watch ‘A Drop Too Much’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://en.channel.pandora.tv/channel/video.ptv?ch_userid=noisypig&prgid=46485008&ref=rss
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 