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Director: Rob Gibbs
Release date: November 1, 2011
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Air Mater’ is a late addition to ‘Mater’s Tall Tales’, being aired a year (minus a day) after the ninth episode. In this episode Mater visits a town of planes and takes the air.
Mater’s tall tale is amusing, if very shallow and completely forgettable. Worse, the whole film seems an exercise for the ‘Planes’ feature, released by Disney (not Pixar) in 2013, and feels like an advertisement.
Watch an excerpt from ‘Air Mater’ and tell me what you think:
‘Air Mater’ is available on the Blu-Ray/DVD of ‘Cars 2’ and on the Blu-Ray/DVD ‘Pixar Short Films Collection Volume 2’
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Release Date: July 1, 1992
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Porco Rosso’ is the strangest movie in Hayao Miyazaki’s filmography. The film eschews most laws of animated film story telling, seemingly just starting and ending in the middle of a bigger story.
Like ‘Laputa: island in the sky’ (1986) and the later ‘The Wind Rises’ (2013) the film is clearly born out of Miyazaki’s love for planes. Like ‘Laputa’ ‘Porco Rosso’ is set in an alternative history Europe (this time the Adriatic sea ca. 1930), and features flying pirates.
The title character is an ex-war pilot with the face of a pig (why this is so is never really revealed). Porco Rosso now is a bounty hunter, battling a federation of air pirates, and their leader, the American Curtis in particular, and secretly loving Gina, the owner of a hotel on an island.
Halfway the movie Porco has to take his injured plane to Milano to get it fixed. There he meets Fio, the young granddaughter of his old mecanic. There’s a vague sense of a Nazi threat, but this is hardly played out. The story evolves around Porco’s return to the Adriatic and final battle with Curtis.
The overal atmosphere is light and comical, but there are a few touching moments, especially between Porco and Fio. Typically for Miyazaki, the film features strong women, and women and children working (Porco’s plane is set together by a crew of women, only).
The animation is outstanding throughout, although it seems the animators didn’t do their best to lip-synch. Most interesting are the scenes of Porco’s take off and flight back to the Adriatic, which feature some spectacular animated backgrounds.
Watch the trailer for ‘Porco Rosso’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Porco Rosso’ is available on DVD
Director: Unknown
Release Date: November 14, 1927
Stars: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Peg Leg Pete
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
Oswald joins a plane race from New York to Paris (inspired by Charles Lindbergh’s flight on May 20-21 that year).
Oswald is introduced as the dark horse and enters the race disguised as a pantomime horse. One of his competitors is an early version of Peg Leg Pete. Pete is the obvious villain, gluing Oswald’s plane to the ground with chewing gum. Luckily, Oswald manages to make a new, rather improbable plane out of a dachshund and two balloons.
Meanwhile, Pete misleads all the other competitors by turning an absurdly high direction indicator. Somehow, Oswald isn’t misled and he and Pete compete to be the first. Pete shoots Oswald out of the air, but it’s Oswald who wins the day. What became of the falling dachshund, however, we’ll never know… [UPDATE: Thanks to David Gerstein we do know: see his comment for the cartoon’s lost end gag]
‘The Ocean Hop’ is a clear forerunner of ‘Plane Crazy‘ (1928), Mickey Mouse’s debut cartoon. Both were inspired by Charles Lindbergh’s historical transatlantic flight. Oswald’s cartoon is not as consistent as Mickey’s, however, and features less spectacular scenes. In one way the differences between the two cartoons show that Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks were constantly improving themselves even at this early stage of their careers.
Watch ‘The Ocean Hop’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon No. 6
To the previous Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon: All Wet
To the next surviving Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon: Empty Socks
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 