Those who have regularly attended the animation collections presented from time to time at the Blue Mouse Theater know what to expect in this latest "Festival of Animation" (though this time it's at Cinema in Your Face!).
As a matter of fact, if you've seen other recent cartoon collections like this one, you've probably seen some of these cartoons.A wildly eclectic international collection, "Festival" begins on a rather odd note, with a 1930s Betty Boop black-and-white classic, the wildly off-the-wall Boop version of "Snow White," in which Betty is spurned by her stepmother, frozen in a block of ice and ultimately turns the villain, who has become a dragon, inside-out. If you've never seen a Betty Boop cartoon, this is an appropriate introduction.
Everything that follows, however, is from this decade, several with 1988 copyright dates.
Some that have been shown locally before include "The Thing That Lurked in the Tub," a hilarious three minutes about a toxic waste sludge monster that comes up through the bathtub drain but meets its match (this short has the film's only profanity); "The Cat Came Back," a very funny piece (this one is about 7 1/2 minutes in length) about a guy who takes in a cute orphaned kitten to his ultimate regret; "How to Kiss," a treatise on the art of smootching without swallowing your lover's head; and the computer classic "Luxo Jr.," about a Mama lamp and her lively youngster, which closes out the show.
Among the best of the new stuff are "Particle Dreams" and "Pencil Test," both amazing pieces of computer animation, which, as startling as they are, are still outdone by "Festival's" penultimate piece, "Tin Toy," about a little toy soldier/one-man band attempting to avoid the rampaging baby he belongs to. This one manages to be hysterically funny while stretching the three-dimensional look of the art form.
I also laughed out loud at "Winter," a very short (2 minutes) piece about a young child who wants desperately to play outside in the new-fallen snow, and "Lea Press-On Limbs," which is for people who like their humor a bit darker - it's an ad for a product to be used when you accidentally rip your arm out of its socket.
Less successful were "The Door," a Russian piece, which, at nearly 10 1/2 minutes, feels twice that long, and the Bulgarian "Wednesday, Eve of Tuesday," a wild cartoon filled with anachronisms, which simply proves that humor isn't always universal.
But there are plenty of others worth a look, in all making "Festival of Animation" a must for fans of motion picture animation and an enjoyable series of cartoons for everyone else.
Though unrated the collection would doubtless earn a PG for cartoon violence and the one spoken profanity. Some of the cartoons also have mild vulgarisms, but there's nothing too offensive here.