Waltz with Bashir

Calvin and I went to see Waltz with Bashir last night. If you haven't heard about it, it is an "animated documentary" about the director and his memories, or lack thereof, of his experience as an Israeli soldier during the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon.

This movie was incredibly beautiful, deeply sad, and it even managed to be funny sometimes. I would actually pay $12 to see it again, and cry some more. Here's some technical information about how they made the movie, here's the Times'review.

More Comic-Con

This year, I was on a panel at Comic-Con. I was very excited to be a participant- the panel was about an upcoming show at the San Diego Museum of Art curated by our friend Betti-Sue Hertz that features artists who are using animation.

I talked about Robert Breer, who was a huge influence on me when I was studying animation in college in the 70's, George Griffin who was my teacher and boss (my first job after graduating from college was as the teaching assistant in animation at Harvard- bratty Harvard students turned me off from teaching for about 25 years) and Luca Buvoli, an artist who has done a great Not-a-Superhero series that seemed particularly appropriate for Comic-Con. Calvin was the moderator extraordinaire, Betti-Sue talked about some of the artists in her show, Lisa Cartwright of UC San Diego showed clips of early animation, and her 11 year old son Nilo Goldfarb showed some of his Flash animation projects.

Here is a picture of the event.



Many more pictures of Comic-Con.

Ratatouille

Incredibles director Brad Bird and Pixar have done it again- this movie is really charming, and exceptionally beautiful. Slate has a profile of Bird, click the launch button to see the clips with accompanying text. Who knew rats in the kitchen would be so much fun?

If you see the movie, make sure you stay for the final credits- an homage to great 2d animation of the 60's.

Paprika

Last night Calvin and I went to see Paprika, a full length animation from Japan. It was charming, scary, weird and fun. It combines dreams, movies, the internet and technology in a strange manner that might see somewhat familiar to fans of other anime such as Ghost in the Shell:Innocence. It may not make sense, but who cares, it looks so beautiful.

You can see short clips at the link.