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Last night I attended the 6th Tom Stathes’ Cartoon Carnival, a periodic cartoon festival with a 1930s theme and a penchant for naughty old animation.  Skipping the god awful commute to Queens (I wrote out all the directions for the M train but stupidly decided to take the 7 instead and got lost) the location, Attic Studios, was gorgeous.  A vast white loft with two full walls of windows showing a view of the bridge (ONE of them anyway) and the Manhattan skyline.  Many white plastic chairs and a big screen for the 16mm film projector.  And a small roped off area where you can buy drinks, get free popcorn, and flirt with the cigarette girls who offer raffle tickets, ciggs for $1 and candy ciggs for a $1.  I was super excited for the raffle and they wouldn’t tell me in advance what the grand prize was.  It turned out to be a 16mm print of an Oswald the Rabbit cartoon, and I was sad I didn’t win it because I would have digitally scanned it and attempted to restore it.  The runner up prize, in case you didn’t know what to do with a print, was a kiss on the cheek from the cigarette girl.  I raise my eyebrow.

Down to the cartoons themselves.  Out of the collection of Terrytoons, Felix, Mickey Mouse, and various old-men-visit-savages, my favorite was “Felix in Two-Lip Time.”  Many people have told me that exclamation points and question marks are cop outs, but Felix wrangles punctuation and ties it up with his flawless acting.  Imagine Charlie Chaplin meets After-Effects puppet tool.  Two intermissions gave me a great chance to wander, socialize, and explore, and the whole thing was wrapped up by a raucous sing-a-long of “Minnie’s Yoo-Hoo.”  HEEEEE HAAAAW!  I noticed a new story genre in animation that I think should be revived: a conscious interaction between animator and his creations.  Usually the cartoons give the artist some lip but he gets them back by animating them in outrageous circumstances.

The festivals float around on notorious email-lists and semi-private Facebook events, but you can just Google it and sign up.  Cartoonsonfilm.com

I love anything Watchmen. Watchmen bedsheets. Watchmen cupcakes. Watchmen babies. That movie. I guess I’m obligated to own this book:

Minutes to Midnight: Twelve Essays on Watchmen examines Watchmen from a variety of perspectives to uncover surprising answers to many questions. What does it reveal about the history of scientific theory? How is the atom bombing of Hiroshima refracted through its pages? Does Watchmen’s murder mystery measure up to the standards of Raymond Chandler? Is the depiction of Rorschach an unfair caricature of the philosophy of Steve Ditko? Where are the secrets of Captain Metropolis and the Minutemen revealed? Was the Comedian right all along? Who shouldn’t read Watchmen? What are the limits of Watchmen and do they extend beyond a major motion picture?

The essays:

• Reassembling the Components in the Correct Sequence: Why You Shouldn’t Read Watchmen First, by Walter Hudsick
• Bringing Light to the World: Watchmen from Hiroshima to Manhattan, by Peter Sanderson
• The End Is Nigh: The Limits of Watchmen, by Geoff Klock
• The Smartest Man in the Morgue: Watchmen and “Twelve Notes on the Mystery Story,” by Chad Nevett
• Somebody Has to Save the World: Captain Metropolis and Role Playing Watchmen, by Tim Callahan
• 58 Varieties: Watchmen and Revisionism, Julian Darius
• Some Different Sort of Time: Watchmen as Cinema, by Patrick Meaney
• At Play Amidst the Strangeness and Charm: Watchmen and the Philosophy of Science, by William Ritchie
• The Last Laugh: Understanding Watchmen’s Big Joke, by John Loyd
• How the Ghost of You Clings: Watchmen and Music, by Mary Borsellino
• Blotting Out Reality: Questioning Rorschach, by Gene Phillips
• Nothing Ever Ends: Structural Symmetries in Watchmen, by Jon Cormier

(To answer the question posed in the official description: there are no limits to Watchmen. Like I said, cupcakes.)

Sources:
Sequart page
Press release at Comic Book Resources

Here’s an interesting article on how Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz characterizes the changes from film to film in both the original trilogy and the prequels. Doesn’t tell us too much more than we already know, but it’s interesting to hear him talk about it.

Did ‘Star Wars’ become a toy story? Producer Gary Kurtz looks back | Hero Complex | Los Angeles Times.

The minute the opening credits started, I thought about what I was dealing with.  Was this a return to scratch film animation, or was this some how closely reproduced in a computer, with some heartfelt scratches and paint added in some new way.  Did that matter?  Then the movie started.  What is up with Canada, I thought?  It seemed like The Discrete Charm of the Hipster Bourgeoisie.  But that quickly passed when the music animation began.  Ghostly blended comic book stars and stripes representing one medium in another.  The basic shapes were an interesting change from the usual abstract Apple visualizer or hippie trance that one often sees as “music art.”

And then came the first evil ex-boyfriend.  What an effin awesome adventure.  I haven’t read the books I had no idea what was going to happen.  Poor guy doesn’t know how to read emails, crashes at his gay best friends bachelor pad, and gets stalked by a Catholic Asian school girl who looks like she walked straight of your nearest EGL web comic.

Each increasingly awesome battle was separated by the introduction of the characters who dain to orbit about Micahel Cera and his Punk chic girlfriend.  Like *SPOILER* the crazy goth lesbian, the angry girl drummer, and my favorite, Aubrey Plaza from “Parks & Recreations.”  Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a computer game, with a nod to ATARIs.

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mp3 link

Show Notes:

Enter the Dragon
Rumble in the Bronx
Police story
Kill Bill
Ashes of Time
Fist of Legend
36th Chamber of Shaolin
Zaitoichi

Upcoming films:

The Green Hornet
Sucker Punch
Scott Pilgrim vs. the world

“You’re the Best”  Song by Joe Esposito from the album The Karate Kid Soundtrack