
American cartoons are the starting point for Martin Arnold's new work. Sequences of short films form the basis of a process of fragmentation, deconstruction, dismantling and repetition. Arnold uses fun, family entertainment to create films with open-ended possibilities for association. His pieces, such as Hydra (2013), Charon (2013), Nix (2013) and Self Control (2011), feature characters whose anatomy is no longer recognizable as such, but rather resemble puppets, remotely controlled from the outside. Trembling hands, dancing tongues, blinking eyes and snoring mouths move like ghosts against an abyss-like deep black background, in which bodily elements constantly disappear, only to reappear once more.
2013-02-26
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7.5This generous collection includes 46 of the 48 shorts that starred Goofy between 1939 and 1961 (but none of the great Mickey-Donald-Goofy films from the mid-'30s). The "How to Ride a Horse" sequence in The Reluctant Dragon (1941) set the pattern for many of these cartoons. An elegant narrator (artist John Ployardt) explains a sport that Goofy attempts to demonstrate. The character that animator Art Babbitt described in a 1935 lecture (quoted in the DVD bonus material) as an easygoing dimbulb gave way to an enthusiastic but spectacularly maladroit figure. One of the funniest entries in the series, "Hockey Homicide," contains several studio in-jokes: dueling stars Icebox Bertino and Fearless Ferguson, and referee Clean-Game Kinney are named for artists Al Bertino, Norm Ferguson, and director Jack Kinney.
7.3Ryder and the pups are called to Adventure City to stop Mayor Humdinger from turning the bustling metropolis into a state of chaos.
0.0Scratched lines and shapes bloat around this footage of an unknown businessman, sometimes forming hats, clown noses, arrows, etc. He becomes a kind of pawn in my cruel little game. Sound is a musicbox which helps lift this once painfully boring footage to the level of high art. –H. M.
5.9Batman, along with many of his allies and adversaries, finds himself transported to feudal Japan by Gorilla Grodd's time displacement machine.
7.4When Maggie Simpson is rescued by a cute young baby from playground peril, it's girl meets boy, girl loses boy, guess what happens next?
6.9Relaxing with a carrot at a U.S. Army air field, Bugs is reading "Victory Through Hare Power" and scoffs at the notion of mentioned gremlins, little creatures who wreak havoc on planes with their diabolical sabotage.
7.1If Bugs Bunny were to direct his signature inquiry--"What's up, doc?"--toward the modern-day Warner Bros. creative team, he wouldn't be far off. For 1001 Rabbit Tales, they've doctored up a batch of classic cartoons featuring the carrot muncher and his bumbling comrades and bundled them, near seamlessly, into a feature-length film. Here's the premise: Bugs and Daffy, both book salesmen, are competing to sell the most copies of a kids' book. Instead of burrowing a beeline to his sales territory (he should have made a left at Albuquerque), Bugs ends up in the castle of Yosemite Sam, here a harem-leading honcho. Sam's pain-in-the-spurs son, Prince Abalaba, needs somebody to read him stories; Bugs, who'd sooner take the job than suffer the alternative, that involving being boiled in oil, signs on.
6.4Born of a flower and growing to only a couple of inches tall, poor Thumbelina is worried she'll never meet someone her own size, until she happens to catch the eye of Prince Cornelius of the Fairies. Just as soon as she finds love, however, it's torn away when she's kidnapped by Ms. Toad. Now Thumbelina has to escape Ms. Toad's grasp and search for Prince Cornelius. Luckily, there's a whole city of animals willing to help.
9.1A DVD compilation of 3 zombie-themed episodes from What's New, Scooby-Doo?. Smile and say "ciao"! The phantom-busters travel to Italy in Pompeii and Circumstance. With a colossal mystery to solve, will our friends be ghoulish gladiator goners, or will their love for Italian art and Scooby Snax save them? Then it's off to the City by the Bay for the Grind Games in The San Franpsycho, where a seaweed-sprouting ghoul from Alcatraz prison cares competing skateboarders to the core. If they don't find the creep behind the Legend of the Creepy Keeper, it'll be lights out in Fright House of a Lighthouse. Who's scared of zombies? Not Scooby-Doo!
0.0In the midst of the frenzy night a man finds himself lost in the crevasse of time. It was not the grotesque beings nor the monsters, but it was he who “was here, but wasn't here”. He was the phantom. Buried under memories full of inhibition and promises that never kept – words washed up on the shore – time keeps him at a distance from the “place”. And he hears poems coming on the waves from the other side rhyming and lapping against the shore. A 360° scope video Installation commissioned by Nagano Art Museum.
0.0A mere sight of a gray wolf terrifies the entire village. There’s just one little girl who can empathize with the wolf and even make friends with him.
6.1Asterix and Obelix have been given a tough mission: Transform the chief's lazy nephew Justforkix into a warrior. When the Vikings abduct him and bring him back to their homeland, Asterix and Obelix must travel to Norway to rescue Justforkix.
6.9The circle of life continues for Simba, now fully grown and in his rightful place as the king of Pride Rock. Simba and Nala have given birth to a daughter, Kiara who's as rebellious as her father was. But Kiara drives her parents to distraction when she catches the eye of Kovu, the son of the evil lioness, Zira. Will Kovu steal Kiara's heart?
0.0This is a didactic film in disguise. A progression of brilliant geometric shapes bombard the screen to the insistent beat of drums. The filmmaker programmed a computer to coordinate a highly complex operation involving an electronic beam of light, colour filters and a camera. This animation film, without words, is designed to expose the power of the cinematic medium, and to illustrate the abstract nature of time.
7.0Enigma is something of a more glamorous version of White Hole, with a wide variety of elaborate textures (often composed of iconographic and religious symbols) converging towards the centre of the screen.
6.8One little ancient British village still holds out against the Roman invaders. Asterix and Obelix are invited to help. They must face fog, rain, warm beer and boiled boar with mint sauce, but they soon have Governor Encyclopaedius Britannicus's Romans declining and falling. Until a wild race for a barrel of magic potion lands them in the drink.
7.3The boy Mowgli makes his way to the man-village with Bagheera, the wise panther. Along the way he meets jazzy King Louie, the hypnotic snake Kaa and the lovable, happy-go-lucky bear Baloo, who teaches Mowgli "The Bare Necessities" of life and the true meaning of friendship.
6.2When marauding Romans capture - and catapult - their pal Getafix into lands unknown, the shrewd and cunning Asterix and his able sidekick Obelix spring into action! But their journey leads them to a strange and dangerous new world, where they must face a tribe of Indians, a stampeding herd of buffalo and a medicine man with designs on their magic potion!
7.3Asterix and Obelix depart on an adventure to complete twelve impossible tasks to prove to Caesar that they are as strong as the Gods. You'll roar with laughter as they outwit, outrun, and generally outrage the very people who are trying to prove them "only human".