Jolly Thoughts on Recently Experienced Festive Media!

Happy Night Before the Night Before Christmas!  I know this holiday season is probably very different, but as if to make up for the whole... everything else, 2020 brought us a wealth of reasonably good to excellent new holiday movies and specials.  And I caught up on a few specials that are new to me.  And so, some (mostly) jolly thoughts:

"Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas" - Whatever you're imagining from a Mariah Carey Christmas Special, I can assure you this isn't going to have any shocking surprises. 
But I liked it!  The Peanuts animation in the middle is so cute and the songs are, of course, terrific.  I'm just surprised that this didn't happen back in the 90's.

"My Gift: A Christmas Special from Carrie Underwood" - Carrie sings a bunch of Christmas songs and, well, that's about it.  Singing kids, sparkles, and a general "We're trying to make the best of what we can control" feeling.  It's nice.

"A Holly Dolly Christmas" - Dolly Parton sings and tells stories and generally is awesome both here and in real life.  We respect a Queen.

"Jingle Jangle" - I love this so much!  The colorful steampunk aesthetic, the music, the magic; so far this is my favorite live-action Netflix Christmas movie.
It's also a movie where a guy creates a self-aware A.I. and immediately starts planning on making more to sell as toys for children.  For some reason, they don't really dwell on that part.

"Happiest Season" - I know there is a lot of Discourse over this one but I'm not going to go too crazy here.  It is a romantic comedy -a Christmas romantic comedy no less- and I enjoyed it!  If you know me at all, you know this is huge.

"It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" - "Oh hey," I thought, "I haven't seen this Muppet holiday special!  I wonder why Freeform aired it only two times very early in the morning in between their mandated '700 Club' broadcasts?"
And then, dear readers, I watched it.
"Oh.  Oh no... 😰
"This is, at least the second-strangest movie I've ever seen where a supernatural being played by Woopie Goldberg helps a little guy get their life in order.  That club scene though, yiiiiikes..."

"Anna and the Apocalypse" - Like many zombie comedies, this is a lot of fun until it isn't.  It's also a holiday musical, and I kind of want to add some of the songs to my Weird Christmas Playlist.  Kind of.  Seems a little on the nose for this year.

"Hilda" - The brand new second season has an episode about the Yule Lads, so it counts.  Plus the whole series is basically Weird And/Or Obscure Nordic Folklore and is so beautiful and lovely and cozy!  I don't think we've had a good cozy animated series since "David the Gnome" back in the day.  It is, I believe the term is, Hygge as heck.
(But darn the cliffhanger ending... )

"Ziggy's Gift" - You can find this in the good old Thief Archive, which is appropriate because it is very obviously a Richard Williams joint.  It's nice; worth watching for the scene with the turkeys.

"Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special" - Maybe this is a bold proclamation but this is, I think, the best live-action Christmas special of my generation that does not contain Fraggles or John Legend.  Halfway through this rewatch I was ten times happier than I was when I started it.  (Not sure why Netflix is dropping it right before Christmas though.)

"Twelve-Hundred Ghosts" - You ever notice how many "Christmas Carol" parodies and straight adaptations there are?  It was almost inevitable that some mad genius would edit every one they could find into one coherent "megamix".  That genius is Heath Waterman and if you only have time for one Christmas movie off this list, make it this one.  On the one hand, it's genuinely moving.  On the other, it's hilarious (I'll never get over Mystical Buffalo Marley).  

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Art of the Day!  Happy Holidays everyone!

"Roger Rabbit and the Secrets of Toontown"

Goodness, I don't even know where to begin with Richard Williams.

I, like many, first learned of the man thanks to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", a film that simply does not exist without Williams.  This awesome television special, which I remember watching during its premier, is an astounding look behind the scenes.  And it feels like it's from a completely different planet now: animators, voice actors, and effects technicians are all given as much attention as the human stars.  More in fact!  Imagine!



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Art of the Day!

Drop Everything and Watch "The Thief and the Cobbler: Recobbled Cut"

If you have any interest in animation, you've probably heard the long, sad, strange story of Richard Williams' "The Thief and the Cobbler".

If you are somehow unaware of the film and of what happened to it, these articles recount the story quite well.  It was a butchered movie, but we'll skip to the happy part of the story.  Some years ago, a filmmaker and Richard Williams fan named Garrett Gilchrist gave himself the task of editing together a version of "The Thief and the Cobbler" that, while we will sadly never be able to see the movie that was in Richard Williams' head, would at least be much, much closer to Williams' original vision.

If you're only familiar with the version of "Thief and the Cobbler" that is available on home video (and currently on Netflix streaming as of writing; very convenient for those of us who like to compare and contrast), you probably know that any fan-edit of the film would basically have to be closer to what Williams intended compared to that thing.  But Gilchrist's edit is so excellent, culled from extremely rare materials donated from people involved in the picture, that it is as profound an alternate cut as those for "Blade Runner" and "Brazil".  Now, you can tell that this is edited together from wildly diverse material, I'll admit.  The action, while gorgeous to look at, is also very random.  Approach this as you would "Fantasia" or "Yellow Submarine"; we're here to gawk at the gorgeous artwork.

And the art and animation is a wonder to behold.  It's downright astonishing to consider that everything on screen was hand-drawn, and supervised by essentially one person.  (I was trying not to blink during the final half-hour or so.  Hand-drawn, b*tches!  One ONES from the look of it!  I'm getting a hand-cramp just thinking about it.)  If you care about art at all, you owe it to yourself to give this a look.  Seriously, just drop whatever you're doing right now and watch:



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Art of the Day!  I'll never be as awesome as Richard Williams on one of his "off days".  But I try.



 

Thoughts on Recently Experienced Media

Other than the Disney Sequels, obviously.

The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams - I was looking forward to reading this massive tome by the great Richard Williams.  It's very informative, filled with excellent artwork, and a good reference -- if you do not already have one that covers the same subjects.  Because unfortunately, for me, this book didn't really contain any information that was new to me (my copies of Preston Blair's instructional books for Walter Foster have long ago been loved to death.  Don't worry, I have the very nice omnibus edition as well.)  Williams also does not talk much about his experiences in the animation world, and because he has had one of the most interesting careers imaginable as an animation artist, it was a huge letdown to find the book nearly half-filled with walk-cycles instead.

Color and Light, by James Gurney - Some time ago, on his excellent blog, James Gurney wrote a long and extensive series of posts about color theory, lighting effects, and different painting media and their lightfastness and whether "Cadmium Red", for example, will be exactly the same no matter what paint brand you buy.  All of that information, ALL of it and plenty more, is collected in this book.  It is definitely worth a read for all artists, but is probably especially useful for painters.  For the rest of us, at least it is a very nice compilation of Gurney's beautiful art.

Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrated by Marc Davis - Speaking of beautiful art, this picture book is illustrated with the wonderful concept art Marc Davis created for the shelved Disney film based off the tales of Reynard the Fox and Chanticleer the Rooster.  The character designs are wonderful, even if the story is a little mediocre.  As it happens, this little book is more informative and interesting than some of the longer collections of never-produced Disney animation.  Speaking of...

Disney Lost and Found, by Charles Solomon - Full disclosure: I read this a while ago and I don't even remember if I reviewed it here.  It has, as you might expect, a lot of art in it.  It also has very little explanation as to what you are looking at.  Like, one of the particularly strange paintings in the first third of the book will simply have subtext that says, "This was going to be a scene in 'Rescuers Down Under'."  The two chapters that contain art from two features that were never made have *just* a bit more information.  "My Peoples" probably would have been charming, but "Wild Life" would have been fascinating.  Funny thing is, there's more information about one of the lost films in this incredible, and very sad, blog post then there is in the book.

"The Butterfly Ball" -  Three years ago(!?!) I wrote a post about a strange animated music video that turned out to be part of a larger concert film.  That film quickly went into my Netflix "saved" queue and now it's finally here and I have watched it. 
Welp. 
Turns out "Love is All" may be the ultimate case of "Context will not help you in any way at all, sorry."  That animated video is actually the least strange part of the show.  I'm at a loss to describe the concert film, but there's a part of me who wants to rent it again next time I have a party and have it running in the background, just to see how long it takes for guests to wonder WTF they are looking at.

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Sketch of the Day!

Hey, finally a current sketch! Here is my incredibly appropriate contribution to a stunningly significant recent historical event:

Project Feederwatch -and- A Very Richard Williams Christmas Carol

Project Feederwatch begins this weekend!!! Oh frabjous day! Instructions here! Please join this year; they need your data!.

These three books were how I got into the world of amateur ornithology (I am not a Birdwatcher; I don't gotta catch 'em all). Truthfully, the battered copy of How to Know the Birds (you can't even believe how out of print this one is) was the real gateway drug. I found it in a pile of very old, hilariously outdated science books that were just going to be thrown away from a school library. I found it, read it, stuffed it in my purse and carried it around with me (most of my field guides shared that fate; I was twelve), colored the pictures in, wrote notes in the margin, and basically loved the book to death - though it's still holding together and still readable.
As far as other amusing bird feeding things I saw over the past year...

I spotted this on the back of an older bag of bird seed. Let's face it, a lot of people think bird feeding is the most square hobby ever (in other news, normal people think that placating flight-capable mutated Velociraptors is square.) This isn't helping.

I saw this in a Big Box store and I *almost* saw myself buying it. Then I remembered that I had long ago dedicated myself to standing up for unpopular animals (I had helped launch this trope for crying out loud) and above all else did not want to give people who advocate only feeding the pretty birds my ten dollars. Even for the sake of an experiment. (How would this even work anyway? Blackbirds eat anything!)

After doing some research and comparing prices online, I came to realize that you can't beat Ocean State Job Lot. I stocked up last week and scored 100 pounds in total for about fifty dollars. (The aforementioned eight pound "I Only Want to Feed the Pretty Birds" mix retails for $14.00.) I keep my seed in two big storage tubs.
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"Fantastic Mr. Fox" opens soon and it'll be interesting to see how this does against "A Christmas Carol". Speaking of, I've a special treat for those of you who dislike the idea of a 3D film based upon a Charles Dickens book.*
This 1971 animated short film adaptation was produced by Chuck Jones and directed by Richard Williams. It is the only film version of the story thus far to ever win an Oscar, and deservedly so as it is not only accurate to the letter of Dickens' book but also perfectly captures the eerie mood. (Tellingly, this is the one version of A Christmas Carol that is barely ever shown on television.) Hit the Fullscreen option to get the most out of this:

* - And aside from the linked CHUD review, I also like FARK poster Steve Zodiac's comment:
"I don't think I want Zemeckis anywhere near anything animated, especially Roger Rabbit. Hollywood has decided that:
1) Only 3D (I think he means CGI here) is worthwhile.
2) Capture Motion or whatever they are calling roto-scoping these days is good because it's cheaper.
3) We don't consider animated movies to be real movies anyway.
4) Only well-known actors should be used as voices. Has-beens are ok.
5) Is RIGHT OUT. (It took me a minute to get this one too; think Monty Python)
6) People who have never directed a successful animation feature are not only ok for the project, they are almost required.
7) Plot? Continuity? A good reason to make the Film beyond the fact that even a crummy sequel makes money? This is Hollywood! We don't have those things for real movies either!"
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Have I got any readers in the Pittsburgh, PA area? If so, the oddly-named IlluXCon is starting today and a large number of awesome artists are attending.

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And I hope it isn't too late to share my "Sesame Street" tribute. Click for large.