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Director: Zofia Oraczewska
Release date: 1976
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In ‘Banquet’ a bunch of waiters and chefs are preparing a huge banquet for a large number of guests. But when the guests arrive, the banquet turns out to be very different than expected.
‘Banquet’ has a mixed design: the waiters and chefs are rather classic cartoony figures, while the meals and the guests are collages partly made out of photo material.
Jan Skorża’s cut-out animation is fair, if not outstanding, and the whole film is a little too empty to be memorable. I guess the Polish film makers were less in their game when trying an attempt at humor.
Watch ‘Banquet’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Banquet’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Anthology of Polish Animated Film’
Director: Jeroen Jaspaert
Airing date: December 25, 2017
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘The Highway Rat’ is the sixth animated Christmas special by Magic Light Pictures. Like all the others (save ‘Revolting Rhymes’ from 2016) the film is based on a children’s book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, and like all, narrated in rhyme.
The film boasts the same charming stop-motion-like computer animation and elaborate real sets as the others, and features excellent music by René Aubry, but frankly, the film’s source material is less engrossing than for example ‘The Gruffalo’ (2009) or ‘Room on the Broom‘ (2012). The first half consists of the highway rat taking away food from passing animals only, and the creature’s punishment and reform feel rather obligate and uninspired.
Nevertheless, the film remains a wonderful thing to look at, as neither the animation nor the visuals cease to charm. Especially entertaining is the silent comedy, mostly provided by the Highway Rat’s horse. Done with great subtlety and excellent use of eye expressions this is animation at its very best.
Watch an excerpt from ‘The Highway Rat’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Highway Rat’ is available on DVD
Director: Jack King
Release Date: May 19, 1939
Stars: Donald Duck, Cousin Gus
Rating: ★★★
Review:
In the rare occasion that Donald’s relatives visited our hero, this quickly turned into disaster: in ‘Donald’s Nephews‘ (1938) the nephews managed to wreck Donald’s house within seconds, in ‘Donald’s Cousin Gus’ Gus makes Donald’s food disappear almost instantly.
Cousin Gus had first appeared in Al Taliaferro’s daily comic strip, from May 9 to 24, 1938, and from November 7 to 19, and the May comics clearly inspired this cartoon. He was less obnoxious during the November run, letting Donald Duck visit him at the farm. Both in the comic strip as in the film Cousin Gus is a silent character- in the short the only sound he makes is a honk when he squeezes his own behind.
Gus is introduced as being rather dumb, but his ways of eating are ingenious, eating corn-on-the-cob like a typewriter, knitting a sock out of spaghetti, eating a ridiculously large sandwich like a pack of cards, and peas by playing an Indian tune while sucking them in one by one. Soon Donald is left without any food and no wonder he tries to get rid of his gluttonous relative. He does so with a ‘barking hot dog’, a bizarre gadget that must only exist in the cartoon world.
‘Donald’s Cousin Gus’ is a genuine gag cartoon, almost fit for more modern times, if it were quicker paced. The cartoon is entertaining, but never reaches classic status. More cartoons with cousin Gus were conceived, but they never materialized, and this cartoon remained Gus’s only screen appearance. However, he would embark on a comic career as Grandma Duck’s lazy farmhand.
Watch ‘Donald’s Cousin Gus’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E44dPKflvI
This is Donald Duck cartoon no. 9
To the previous Donald Duck cartoon: The Hockey Champ
To the next Donald Duck cartoon: Beach Picnic
‘Donald’s Cousin Gus’ is available on the DVD set ‘The Chronological Donald Volume 1’
Director: Walter Lantz
Release Date: October 29, 1951
Stars: Woody Woodpecker, Wally Walrus
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘The Woody Woodpecker Polka’ is one of several cartoons in which Woody Woodpecker tries to get some food.
In this cartoon Woody Woodpecker tries to enter a barn dance, but only for the food that is served there. The usher, Wally Walrus, doesn’t let him in however, for Woody can’t pay the one dollar entrance fee. Luckily, ladies are free of admission, so Woody dresses like one and makes Wally accompany him to the dance floor. What follows is a dancing scene in which Woody tries to eat as much food as he can, a story idea the studio borrowed from Walt Disney’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow‘ (1949).
The dancing scene is enhanced by the intoxicating title song, sung by the Starlighters, and for a change Clarence Wheeler’s music is inspired during this sequence.
Watch ‘The Woody Woodpecker Polka’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Woody Woodpecker cartoon No. 37
To Woody Woodpecker’s debut film: Redwood Sap
To the next Woody Woodpecker cartoon: Destination Meatball
‘The Woody Woodpecker Polka’ is available on the DVS-set ‘The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection’
Director: Raoul Servais
Release Date: 1979
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
A man rescues a harpy from a man who strangles her. He takes her home, but with disastrous results, because he soon discovers that the harpy eats all his food…
‘Harpya’ is a fantastic surreal film, which makes great use of a mixture of animation, live action and pixillation to create a totally unique atmosphere. The film is both funny and uncanny, and its story is Servais’s best since ‘Sirene’ (1968).
With ‘Harpya’ Raoul Servais made his most enduring work. It’s his all-time masterpiece, and a central film in his oeuvre, defining his mature style.
Watch ‘Harpya’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 