🚀 go-pugleaf

     I probably SHOULD be posting this to net.movies, but as the people here
seem to be more concerned with "cartoons"/animation, this seemed the right home
for it.

     If a theater near you is advertising the Tournee of Animation, it's
something really worth going to see.  Several award-winning pieces are
in the program.  Admittedly, it repeats a lot of stuff from last year's
(?) Festival of Animation, but only the really good stuff.
     The pieces I remember:  Varga's "Lunch", "Charade" (You guys remember
this one! "....Su..Su..Superman.") "Vincent" ('nuff said.), "Bottom's 
Dream" (nice pastoral stuff) "Anna and Bella"... lots of neat stuff.
      Admittedly, they forgot "the Killing of an Egg", and "Tango" but
hey, even the title credits are impressive.
      And there were two pieces in particular I admired.  
      Tezuka (of Japanese animation fame, the "god of comics" himself) has
done a piece entitled "Jumping".  The art is kind of cartoony, looking 
rather like colored pencils.  But there is no dialogue.  No central character.
The piece is done from a first-person point of view.  You are on a country road,
and you are jumping up and down.  Unexpectedly, your jumps become bigger,
and bigger...and BIGGER and *BIGGER*....
      You go from countryside to suburbs to city to ocean (sideswiping 
a couple birds along the way.)  If you've ever wanted a view of what it
would be like to jump off a skyscraper, this is the piece to see.  It's
amazing to see what one man can do with a camera and cels, and Tezuka is
undoubtedly a deity in my mind, now.
        The other piece that impressed me, was called "Skywhales", and the
art rather impressed me as Ken Macklin-type art.  The beings speak in 
unintelligible gibberish, but the animation and production look of this
piece is amazing.  The grace and alieneity (word?) of the characters and
setting is marvelous.
        All in all, I am simply hoping to peak interest (not that it really
needs the push) in the current state of the art animation is in, right now.
There's more than Bullwinkle and Japanese-stuff (although I dearly love
both), and it's all within reach.  

                                       --Kathy Li

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