Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

I saw Miyazaki’s last film again last night. The Rising Wind is a quiet movie. A film full of desperate change, man doing his worst in the name of good. An Earthquake takes a train and a town, illness covers even the film’s heroine (not unlike Camille’ Scarlet Fever – but here the romanticism is kept to a quiet dignity. Planes are sent out to War chock-c-block full of bombs to rape even the most quiet village. It’s a film that keeps its torment below the tears, and an animated movie deals with serious adult subject matter. One would think the animator would go for the roiling climax, but that just what this film does not do. It’s a tempest in a teapot, indeed. This time the tea is naught but background for many character decisions. It’s an unorthodox movie, and I don’t want to give it ALL away, so I’ll stay there.

I loved the film. The opposite of Ponjo. No hysterics or comedy out of misery. I’d recommend it highly. Not Frozen or Crood or Despicable. Just humanity and reality.

The principal problem with the film’s lead character is that actions of his cause problems, they don’t resolve them. He should be using his brilliance to correct problems. Instead, it might be said that he is the problem. He’s a genius but for the wrong side.

Tonight I see Nebraska and am looking forward to the after party. There was one at this location last year for David Chase’s movie. All the Sopranos hung together. James Gandolfini left an impression of being healthy despite the girth. It didn’t work that wau. This should be more proof that Harvey Weistein throws some of the best parties. … I hope.

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I know that we had a stupendous couple of days on the Mad Tea Party and I think they were just excited, and I was very clear that when any of the directors are speaking, we need everyone’s respect.
Soon Coming to the Splog

I’ve just spent a lot of time transcribing a lengthy interview I did with the wonderful Jacques Drouin talking about the Pin Screen device; after all he is now the world’s foremost authority on the device and it felt good to record some of his comments. His, following the work of Alexander Alexeïeff (1901-1982) and Claire Parker (1906-1981), is the foremost spokesman for the utensil which allows people to draw with more than a million pins, utilizing the shadow of t he pins as the medium of the drawings. Ever since reading about this device in Halas and Manville’s book, “Animation“, I have been intrigued and I remain fascinated.

The interview, as I said, is extensive – Mr. Drouin is a natural spokesperson for the pin screen, and it didn’t take much to get him to talk so intelligently and at length about it. The principal problem is that I am a poor reporter, and it’ll take me a bit of time to accurately and properly report what he had to say. I’ll have that ready sometime this week. For some reason I’ve taken to Mr. Droin despite the fact that this was our first meeting. I did look forward to it for quite some time. We were to have met via phone a couple of years back, but it didn’t happen. My fault entirely. I was glad to have met him here in person. He’s a gentleman.

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Oscar Toons

Yes it’s Oscar time. I’ve already commented a bit about the short films seen and how I missed half of them after getting quite ill midway through the lot of them. Sorry I can’t properly report but not sorry I missed most of them.

One of the more interesting of the batch in contention that I’d seen comes from Disney. Get A Horse is a short which does little more than play on 3D. It has the 2930′s Mickey drawn from that era and brought to life in 3D when Peg Leg Pete tries to hold things up. He and his horse pop out of the B&W world into 3D with color and there’s some gamesman’sship as the duo go back and forth competing with Pete for the fair damsel, Minnie. The short falls too clever for its own good and has nothing really to say except that movies exist on their own level whether 3D color or 2D B&W.
I know a lot of the younger voters were more captivated by the tricks of the trade exhibited in this short. If one there was something for the film to say. It felt that it had more ot offer thn FROZEN, but that still isn’t saying much.

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