Somebody came up with an answer to my question about a brilliant piece of animation found on YouTube. No one less than Amid Amidi, the animation Oracle writing for the consistently eye-opening blog Cartoon Brew, found out about the people behind the scenes of Minuscule.

Amid writes:

Turns out that MINUSCULE is a TV pilot co-created by Hélène Giraud (production design) and Thomas Szabo (direction). The show has been picked up and they’re currently creating 78 dialogue-less 6-minute shorts chronicling the adventures of the entire insect kingdom. The production company is France’s Futurikon and the series is slated to air in the US on Disney Channel.

There is justice in the world after all! Can’t wait to see the other 77 shorts. Thank you, Amid!

The anticipation over the September 15 release of The Black Dahlia has sparked a wave of online interest in Brian De Palma. Apart from Slant’s much-welcome Auteur Fatale symposium, inspiring De Palma posts have popped up on the blogs of Zach Campbell, Jim Emerson, Peter Nellhaus, Girish Shambu, Eric, That Little Round-Headed Boy and Dennis Cozzalio. Consider this my contribution to what seems to have become another unofficial Blog-a-Thon.

If you look at Brian De Palma’s erratic filmography, shifting as it does between hit and flop, cult, mainstream and avant-garde, a returning stylistic pattern becomes evident. Not only do his films frequently contradict with each other, they each contain a multitude of antagonisms of their own. They’re at once moral and manipulative, compassionate and calculating, gorgeous and repellent, spellbinding and unsettling, sardonic and rhapsodic, gloomy and sublime. Looking at a De Palma film is entering a land of paradox. No wonder the man has always inspired controversy: De Palma’s entire oeuvre is the pinnacle of conflict.

His substance has always been in the form. Right there in that recurring paradox motif. De Palma has explained himself as an artist who works on moral outrage. Another typical De Palma axiom: no matter how immoral his movies may appear (his talent for infusing all things nasty with poetry is legendary), at the heart they are intricate tales of morality. From the revenge fantasies that make up Carrie and The Fury to the cathartic moment of forgiveness in Casualties of War; from the fruitless run for redemption at the close of Blow Out to the divine second chance given in Femme Fatale; from the sleazy adventures of an all-American housewife to the hooker with a heart of gold in Dressed to Kill–they’re all vivid representations of the dualism between the righteous and the crooked, the vulnerable and the obscene, of predestination versus willpower, of crime and punishment.

De Palma’s characteristic use of discordant style elements like the double, parallel action sequences, split screen and split-diopter shots, rear projection, reverse angles, clashing archetypes and symbolic inversions serve not to show off his directing skills, but are there to help the viewer see both sides of the moral coin and explore the effect of contrarian choices during similar opportunities. What better way to lay bare the mechanisms of fate, choice, power, obsession and betrayal than to let your audience experience the subjectivity of truth firsthand through multiple points of view, or to follow two people who are either polar opposites or a close match within the same storyline? If the similarity is obvious, the difference will be easier to detect. And it’s the difference that matters in a morality tale; the difference between fortune and tragedy, life and death, innocence and guilt, failure and success. Knowing that nuance is to know right from wrong, or to realize how hard it is to make that difference.

Despite the archetypes and schematic structures, De Palma never arrives at a black and white conclusion. He deceives expectation to reveal there is no such thing as a single truth, or that our perception of it is incomplete. Even when his doubles expose a yin/yang dynamic right from the beginning, he complicates matters by reversing roles halfway through the film (Rick Santoro and Kevin Dunne in Snake Eyes), juggling around with false identities (Gloria Revelle and Holly Body in Body Double, the face swapping in Mission: Impossible) or fusing his antagonists (Dr. Robert Elliott and Bobbi in Dressed to Kill, Carter and Cain in Raising Cain). This eloquent masquerade and constant shifting of perspective is what makes De Palma’s oeuvre so fascinatingly ambiguous. Ultimately, all his works share a uniquely personal vision on the duality of Man.

Most of the above was taken from my essay The Shape of Substance: Brian De Palma and the Function of Form, which can be described as a passionate defense of cinematic visual style, culminating in a fictional trial of Style vs. Substance, with Brian De Palma as the defendant and the late Stanley Kubrick as a surprise witness. You can read it at 24LiesASecond.

While you’re there, check out these other De Palma related articles:
Objects of Appalling Beauty: An Appreciation of Brian De Palma by Mike Crowley
Casualties of Genre, Difference, and Vision: Casualties of War by Jim Moran
The Plausibles: The Problems of Make-Believe in the Age of Reason by yours truly

It has become something of a family habit lately to watch YouTube cartoons before bedtime. On my vacation address in Denmark, after a little browsing under the key words “Tex Avery” (yes, I raise my children well), I bumped against this absolutely brilliant 3D-animated short. It’s splendid to look at, laugh-out-loud funny and my boys and me got a huge kick out of it when we played it with the volume cranked all the way up… but what is it? Can anyone tell me who made this? The YouTube title is Minuscule – The Ladybug, but it lacks any kind of credit.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwJcHsedXqw]

While Dennis Cozzalio is taking a much deserved break from the blogosphere (eventhough the time stamps below his most recent posts remind us we should take such a statement with a grain of salt), I thought I’d steal his idea and show you some faces I love.

Johanna ter Steege

She would have played the lead character in Stanley Kubrick’s Holocaust drama The Aryan Papers, if that project hadn’t been abandoned just weeks before production. Ter Steege’s fragile Dutch beauty last graced the screen in Nanouk Leopold’s mesmerizing Guernsey (2005). Which A-list director will give this actress the role of her lifetime?

Ian Holm

He gave life to a Hobbit, but something tells me Ian Holm may not be the nicest guy in the world. And yet, there’s a beautiful sadness to his gentle face that makes me want to hug him and tell him everything’s going to be all right.

Elena Anaya

I was struck by lightning when I first layed eyes on this Spanish knockout in Julio Medem’s Lucía y el Sexo / Sex and Lucia (2001). Point out any man at all and this baby will seduce the poor schmuck within a second. There’s only so much us guys can take.

John Lithgow

Although his theatrical brand of acting is hardly naturalistic, this face nails every humanly conceivable emotional nuance to perfection. Lithgow reflects the child in all of us: looney, jealous, innocent, overjoyed, clueless, whiney or just plain mean.

Jennifer Connelly

Hers must be the most beautiful eyes in the world. Hold me, I’m drowning in them right now…

Luis Guzmán

Pretty he ain’t. And why would he be? Big grins appear whenever this guy turns up in a supporting role. Admit it: everybody loves Luis!

David Lynch

He’s got a face much like his movies: uncanny, uneven (in a good way), mysterious and oddly amusing.

Click on the titles to watch the trailers:

• The Fountain
  I was lucky enough to be among the first to see two scenes of this eagerly awaited Darren Aranofsky film at the Cinema Expo in Amsterdam. Visionary stuff, dark and lyrical, with a strong emotional core. Absolutely my cup of tea!
• Zwartboek / Black Book
  I’m not sure what to think of Paul Verhoeven’s choice for Independence Day DP Karl Walter Lindenlaub, whose type of blockbuster gloss I’m not particularly fond of. Still, this smells like vintage European Verhoeven.
• The Black Dahlia
  Just look at it, dammit! Look at it! De Palma’s next masterpiece is just a kiss away.
• El Laberinto del Fauno / Pan’s Labyrinth
  Adult fairytale by 24Lies favorite Guillermo Del Toro, which seems like a gorgeous companion piece to his previous Spanish film, The Devil’s Backbone (2001).
• Sunshine
  Danny Boyle, the British director of Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later (2002), does existential sci-fi? Oh yes… right now, please!
• Borat
  Sacha “Ali G” Baron Cohen in what promises to be the most politically incorrect comedy of the year. His (in-character) speech during the Cinema Expo almost killed me!
• The Science of Sleep
  French visionary genius Michel Gondry doesn’t seem to be holding back one bit with this playful romantic fantasy. Can’t wait!

Keep those Five Words coming, people! (See post below.)

Don’t mistake this for another one of those Favorite Whatever exercises. There’s no room for such fluffy diversions on Negative Space! Instead, let’s get right down to the heart and soul of it: What, I ask you, are your cinematic erogenous zones?

In order to adequately answer this seemingly abstract question, I challenge you all to name five specific words that bind the movies that move you. Not the most influential ones, not the culturally correct examples, but the movies you keep coming back to, however flawed they may be. The kind of movies that remind you (and you alone) of why you love the medium in the first place.

A film that cannot be described by these five words might still be good – an indisputable classic even – but it wouldn’t shake you to the core. The question is: what does? What tickles your fancy? What makes your movie-loving heart throb? Now’s the time to show the world where you’re really coming from…

To give an indication of what I’m getting at, here are my Five Words, in no particular order:

1. RAPTURE
   I confess: I’m a romantic and an unflagging aesthete. I love the sense of being transcended by lyricism, beauty and the sublime.
2. GLOOM
   Rapture only becomes truly heartbreaking for me when it’s wallowed in gloom. The celebration of tragedy that forms the climax of Blow Out is probably my favorite cinematic moment. Call me a romantic nihilist.
3. SENSUALITY
   Just because cinema is too sensuous a medium to NOT have sex in the equation. Which probably makes me a sexist romantic nihilist.
4. IMAGINATION
   Fiction is my religion. As a proud subscriber to the Manifesto for the Imagination, I hold the power of poetic truth, myth, metaphor, magic realism and the speculative in high regard.
5. WONDER
   I have a special fondness for elements that are unlike anything I’ve seen/heard/felt before. True originality is hard to find, of course, but I’m always looking for a certain frisson (be it a camera angle, a line delivery, a facial or gestural expression, a visual effect, art direction, sound design, montage or narrative structure) that evokes a genuine sense of wonder in me.

Sure, that looks easy enough, doesn’t it? Just wait until you start your own list!

Rapture, gloom, sensuality, imagination, wonder:
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Your turn now. Mind you: Just five words. Not six, not fifty. I won’t be flexible about this! Avoid easy ways out (scratch VISUAL–every movie is visual!) or open doors (fundamental dramatic ingredients like CONFLICT). Give me something personal and precise that offers a good taste of your sensibilities, however unfashionable or bizarre. I assure you that, if you decide to have a go at it, the Five Words Challenge will make your next video rental choice a lot easier!

Statler (right) & Waldorf

WALDORF: That was wonderful!
STATLER: Bravo!
WALDORF: I loved that!
STATLER: Ah, that was great!
WALDORF: Neh–it was pretty good.
STATLER: Well, it wasn’t bad…
WALDORF: There were parts of it that weren’t very good, though.
STATLER: It could’ve been a lot better.
WALDORF: I didn’t really like it.
STATLER: It was pretty terrible.
WALDORF: It was bad.
STATLER: It was awful!
STATLER & WALDORF: Terrible! Take ’em away! Bah, BOO!!!

I love Pixar, but their latest feature is nowhere as radical as this little gem from 1952. It never ceizes to amaze me how far Tex Avery pushed his animation. And what a wonderful ending!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4CCl0vqNfo]

UPDATE:
Well, this post seems to have kickstarted a spontaneous Tex Avery blog-a-thon! For more Tex, visit these links:

• That Little Round-Headed Boy: T for Tex Avery volume 1 and 2
• Dennis Cozzalio: Rock-A-Bye Bear – Funniest cartoon ever?
• Ian W. Hill: Assorted Neat Stuff to Hit Dog With
• Cerb Chaos: Avery appreciation
• Jim Emerson: Escape from Alka-Fizz
• Gir: Half-Pint Pygmy

I’m re-reading A Dame To Kill For at the moment–my favorite Sin City yarn and the graphic novel that will form the centerpiece for the upcoming Sin City (2005) sequel. One look at the panel below unveils how grateful we should all be for Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez to have cast the curvaceous Angelina Jolie in the leading role. If their faithfulness to the source material in the first adaptation is any indication – and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be – expect OODLES of nudity in the next installment…

It’s easy to be entertained by Sin City‘s glorious design and think that’s all there is to it. The hard-boiled prose blown to Shakespearean proportions, the one-dimensional pulp archetypes and a downright fetishistic attention to sleaze and violence, make it seem all surface. And yet Miller taps into the romantic core of masculinity to give flesh to the most primal of urges.

A story like A Dame to Kill For laughs at the whole flimsy notion of civilization – social etiquette, virtue, nobility, tact – rips it open like the cheap dress that it is and reveals the roaring heart underneath. If film noir taught us that love is a trap, the inhabitants of Sin City show us how much we love to be trapped. Even if destiny looks us right in the eye, we can’t help giving in to our animal instincts.

Which brings us back to überwoman Angelina Jolie… A word of advice: Forget the bad press Mrs. Pitt is currently getting because of the boring Brangelina hype. That’s gossip for losers. Forget all about that silly little tomboy called Lara Croft. Stuff for twelve-year-olds. Ava Lord is the role Angelina Jolie was born to play. The actress always seems slightly out-of-place in realistic settings, and here’s why: Sin City is where she truly belongs.

To be credible in Sin City, only the incredible will do. Jolie’s supernatural charisma will be a natural fit for the Frank Miller universe. Divine physique? Check. Throaty voice? Check. Unrestrained pleasure to the senses? Check. Danger lurking behind almond eyes? Check. We’re talking about Ava Lord here: the femme fatale to end all femmes fatale. It was a very inspired decision of the filmmakers to postpone the production of their sequel until after Jolie’s pregnancy. This dame shall be worth the wait.

Imagine starting up a website with a like-minded stranger from the other end of the globe. That’s what Jim Moran and me decided to do three years ago. Jim lives in LA, I’m from Holland, but after we got to know each other at an online discussion forum, we came to realize that we shared certain ideas about the sort of film criticism we wanted to see more of: The provocative, evocative kind that values a keen eye and an open mind over relentless evaluation. We began corresponding on a daily basis, and the two of us developed a very special friendship in the process of getting 24LiesASecond off the ground.

Last Summer, at the Amstelveld square in Amsterdam, Jim and me met each other in person for the very first time. It was a surreal experience to arrive there with my youngest son Luka, knowing this guy’s mind so well and yet be unfamiliar with the body attached to it. We hugged and it was no longer an issue. Jim stayed at my house for the weekend, where he became a member of the family for a while. We talked about movies and shared anecdotes the whole night through until the birds started chirping. Saying goodbye at the airport was pretty hard…

Jim (right) with yours truly

We began calling each other frequently, and much to my surprise, Jim planned another trip to Europe. Earlier this month we had our second rendezvous in Amsterdam. I brought Tina and the boys along for lunch and we threw frisbee in the Westerpark together. Then, Tina took the kids back home and I showed Jim modern architecture at the KNSM-island, Old South and the Cult Video rental store where Tarantino used to go to. The rest of the day we spent wandering along the canals, sitting at cafes and catching up.

It sure was good to see you again, my friend! Somehow I have the feeling you’re not as far away now as you seemed when you left the first time…

Miike’s bizarre fantasy film The Great Yokai War (2005) opened in selected US cinemas this week. For those who missed my first impressions back in February, here’s a chance to read them again:

I just came back from seeing Takashi Miike’s new film The Great Yokai War at the Rotterdam Film Festival. I knew nothing about this movie going in, and boy was I in for a treat! It turned out to be something akin to Japan’s answer to the Harry Potter or Narnia series. You know: Miike, for kids!

Apparently, for the first time in his career, Miike was handed a big-ass budget and the cult-favorite made sure it showed. This film is massive in scale yet remarkably off-beat and full of the perversities and black humor Miike is known for. For a supposed family film, it’s way too “out-there” for Western taste (mine anyway: I wouldn’t let my oldest son see it until he’s, like, ten or eleven), but it will blow your mind. In fact, The Chronicles of Narnia is the undercooked egg The Great Yokai War swallows whole for breakfast!

You won’t hear me declare it a masterpiece. To tell the truth, I don’t know what the hell it is. Something I’ve never seen before, that’s for sure. Miike’s cinema is just too plain weird to satisfy on any conventional level. This guy re-invented the word “subversive.” Kiddie movie or not: Yokai War goes from gory body-horror to intimate drama, from absurd parody to epic grand guignol fantasy, from kinky science fiction to all-out slapstick. It features legions of Asian folktale goblins, the coolest robots I’ve ever seen in a motion picture and two very sensual female characters, young enough to make me uncomfortable to be aroused by. Just picture Miike behind the computer screen, trashing proven Hollywood impulses and pushing his CGI-artists in every direction he can think of. (If you’ve seen Audition and Gozu, that should mean something.)

Think Miyazaki, but live-action, with a slightly fetishistic sensibility. Just a few references that popped in my mind while looking at the film: Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, The Wizard of Oz, Nightbreed, Blade Runner, Akira, The Neverending Story, Metropolis, Labyrinth, Godzilla, The Terminator, Kung Fu Hustle, Lord of the Rings–all filtered through the prism of the mad filmic genius of our lifetime.

About three months ago, inspired by screenshots posted at Amid Amidi’s eye-opening Cartoon Modern blog, I ordered the brand new DVD of UPA’s Gerald McBoing Boing. It features four of the finest-looking animated shorts ever produced, back from a time when the whole idea of limited animation was considered an artistic vision, rather than a cheap and easy way to increase productivity.

From a ’50s design standpoint, these cartoons are astonishing. Director Robert “Bobe” Cannon had a very Tati-esque sense of environment and mise-en-scène that makes every frame a joy to behold. McBoing Boing‘s use of minimal shapes, jazzy movements and shifting color schemes, coupled with its sheer unwillingness to conform to the laws of reality (perspective, gravity, naturalistic detail, any logic at all) made it a radical departure from the painstaking realism that Walt Disney championed at the time.

No wonder, since UPA was founded by John Hubley–a former-Disney animator who, along with a number of others who left Disney after the animators’ strike in 1941, felt that the medium of animation had been forced down a narrow path by simply trying to imitate reality. Anyone of you who’s ever read my article on “the plausibles” will know how much I believe this observation applies to cinema in general.

I’m not sure how many of you have childhood memories of characters like Gerald or Christopher Crumpet, but the work of UPA is hardly known in Europe. Overshadowed as it currently is by the immensely popular cartoon libraries of Disney, Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera and MGM, one can only hope that the rest of these forgotten gems will find their way on a DVD collection soon.

In the meantime, some of UPA’s best shorts can be found on YouTube. For your convenience, I collected some of them on one page. Let’s start with a taste of Gerald McBoing Boing right here:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=uNsyQDmEopw]

Dear Mr. Scott,

Jim Moran and me developed an editorial policy at 24LiesASecond that restricts our contributors to write about films they appreciate. The concept behind it being: Why waste words on what you think stinks, when there’s plenty out there to love? It’s a policy that I’ve really taken to heart and intend to stick to on Lost in Negative Space.

But alas, not for now…

You see, this is an emergency. Someone really needs to I feel the need to warn you that – in spite of the pats on the back the suits nice gentlemen at Fox might be giving you at the moment – for a director of your considerable stature, churning out turds like your latest film A Good Year (2006) is nothing less than a fucking disgrace strikes me as something of a disappointment.

It’s not that I don’t admire your work. Alien and Blade Runner are masterpieces of genre cinema that I value deeply, and despite its narrative problems on a purely visual level, I consider the director’s cut of Legend to be one of the most mesmerizing fantasy features ever directed. I realize it’s hard to sustain such a high level of brilliance throughout an entire oeuvre, but not even GI fucking Jane little could have prepared me for the crap I had to endure what I was to behold at the Cinema Expo in Amsterdam last week.

Here’s the thing. About a quarter of an hour into A Good Year, I realized to my great shock that I was looking at an attempt at comedy… and not a very succesful one at that. Trust me, Sir, leading man Russel Crowe is many things, but droll isn’t one of them. What’s more: I couldn’t escape the impression that I was witnessing the product of an old man a filmmaker with nothing left to prove much to say or show. Let me put it this way: In case you’re looking for a few blurbs to polish up the newspaper ads, my suggestions would be either ‘NUMBINGLY BORING,’ ‘UTTERLY PREDICTABLE,’ or ‘MADDENINGLY MORALISTIC.’

Yes, I’m sure the wine and the cigars tasted good around the sun-soaked vineyards of that wonderful French estate where most of your shoot took place. And no, I certainly have no complaints about A Good Year‘s lush cinematography, although you’d have to be a moron to fuck up a shot in the Provence. But I came in expecting to see a film by Ridley Scott, the visual stylist… not to watch his freaking holiday snapshots!

‘Everything matures… eventually’ seems to be the tagline that the copywriters at Fox made up to promote your film in days to come. The real question, I suppose, is how you choose to mature.

Yours truly,
A worried admirer

Jim Emerson, the founding editor-in-chief of RogerEbert.com, and a 24Lies reader to boot, has a fascinating project going on at his Scanners blog, focusing on opening shots. It’s a truly wonderful read with many remarkable contributions (don’t skip 24Lies author Bob Cumbow‘s take on that famous Steadicam shot in John Carpenter’s Halloween).

I made a personal contribution with a description of the opening shot of Ken Russel’s Altered States (1980). Here it is:
______________________________________________________

Altered States opens with the image of a fluorescent, egg-like shape surrounded by darkness. It is a window. From below, in comes a floating human figure (William Hurt as Prof. Eddie Jessup), who appears to be immersed in liquid. Surrounded as he is by the dark oval frame of the window, he resembles an embryo inside a mother’s womb. The camera slowly tracks back to reveal that Jessup is inside a horizontal tank in an empty room. As it tracks back even further, the viewer detects the edges of a second window, rectangular this time. In front of that window sits a bearded scientist in a laboratory, who carefully monitors the room with the tank holding Eddie Jessup.

In the film, science tries to discover the essence of the Self by use of altered states of consciousness. The opening shot prepares the audience for this very process by taking the viewer through different layers/windows of consciousness: from the symbolic birth of the Self, via self-awareness, to self-examination; from subjectivity to objectivity. The soundtrack amplifies this trajectory, going from bubbly water effects and steady breathing through an oxygen mask, to the buzz of lab equipment and clicking of buttons.
______________________________________________________

For many more examples, visit Jim Emerson’s Scanners blog.

A beginning is a very delicate time…

As I was catching my breath from a pretty exhaustive 24LiesASecond article published a while ago, the desire cropped up to take a break from long form for a while. My celluloid fantasia had taken me in all kinds of crazy directions – sometimes relevant, sometimes less so – and many scattered thoughts and subjects were still whirling around in my head, ready to be explored. There was no way I was going to make sense of these any time soon, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. I rather enjoyed the storm of free association waging behind my eyes.

Faced with this strangely pleasant lack of coherence, an old idea reared its ugly head… You guessed it: Why not start a blog?

I’ve been thinking about starting one ever since I found out the form existed, but one small matter had always managed to discourage me: A fear of not being able to deliver the proper amount of content. Unlike my friend Dennis Cozzalio – fellow 24Lies contributor and the Takashi Miike of bloggers (for proof, just visit Dennis’s excellent Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule), I’m a deliberate slow writer. And not just because English isn’t my native language. The incurably prolific Stephen King once said about himself that he writes “like a fat lady diets.” Well… I’m more like an anorexia patient trying to gain weight.

Of course, such an excuse isn’t good enough. Who was I kidding? There are no deadlines in the blogosphere. And the cool thing about blog posts is that they don’t have to be fully developed. They can be afterthoughts, sideline scribbles, sketches… indeed, negative space. If my 24Lies articles are to the point, a blog could be beside it.

So here we are: Lost in Negative Space. Between the lines, beyond the screen, beside the point.

It’s good to have you here, my guest. Sit down, have a drink, click around. If you like what you see, drop a note in the comment section. I’ll appreciate it. Now let’s get started!