December 2009

I'm back in Michigan seeing my folks. Then it's off to Toronto for New Year's. Probably won't be posting here much if at all, so I'll see you all in the new year!

Hopefully with some stuff to actually show you.

We're fast approaching the end of the year, folks. Alarmingly, this has been a fantastic year for film in general and theatrical animation in particular. There were a lot of animated films that I didn't see for various reasons (I have not had the opportunity to see My Dog Tulip or The Secret of Kells, though I have heard good things about both), but the ones I did see? Uncommonly wonderful.

Wonder what you missed? I'm cataloguing the best of it for you, in roughly chronological order. You should see all of these. They are all both good and important.

Coraline
This film, adapted from a Neil Gaiman novella, hails the return of stop-motion hero Henry Selick, whose beautiful direction can also be seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. I saw it in theaters in 3D, and it is both beautiful and terrifying.

Ponyo
The latest Miyazaki picture to appear in theaters stateside, aimed squarely at a preschool audience. I'm convinced that it's impossible for Miyazaki to make anything that is not charming, but Ponyo is one of his weaker films. Nonetheless, it is easily the most adorable movie of the year.

Up
Funny thing about Pixar movies: I like them a lot less in retrospect than I do right after I see them. Up is Pixar's best film to date, and I loved it when I saw it, but looking back, it feels like much less of a standout.

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Two stop-motion films in a year? Holy crap. It must be an animation renaissance. And Fantastic Mr. Fox has Wes Anderson's mark all over it. It's a humorous, charming and visually beautiful adaptation of a Roald Dahl book. I think this is my favorite animated film of the year.

The Princess and the Frog
Ten years ago, I probably wouldn't have mentioned this one at all. It's a 1990s Disney fairy tale throwback, but there are more daring aspects of it that never would have made it into a Disney cartoon in the 1990s (things that feel like the influence of Pixar's hand). The animation is beautiful. The jazz soundtrack is a pleasure. It is flawed, certainly, but I'd like to see more films like this.

And, as honorable mentions, I'd like to point out a couple of very good live-action films with significant use of animation:

District 9
Pseudo-documentary set in Johannesburg after an alien craft crashes there and the (intelligent but buglike) aliens are kept in refugee camps that are more like ghettos. The apartheid parallel is obviously hard to ignore, but it never felt heavy-handed. Of note: the aliens were created entirely using computer animation.

Where the Wild Things Are
It is rare that there is a film for children that doesn't talk down to them. This Spike Jonze picture actually manages it, being instead a sort of grown-up Sesame Street. It explores that strange misery and loneliness of childhood that comes with being "that kind of kid." If you were that kind, you understand. The animation work in this one comes in on the faces of the Wild Things--the faces were computer generated on the giant muppet suits worn by puppeteers. They look amazing.

I would include Avatar on this list, except I haven't seen it yet. The visuals on that one look pretty swell, too. But even if it's crap, this has been a great year. I hope it keeps up in the next year--I'd like animation besides Pixar flicks to look forward to in 2010.

Tonight I made this for dinner:

It had been a while since I cooked for real at my own house. I really need to do this more often because I'm much more competent at it than I remembered. The above meal, for example, was totally delicious. It's a vegetable and tofu stir-fry!

I would tell you how to make it but I don't really remember anything except the rough basics. This is one of those "play it by ear" kinds of meals that can't really be explained scientifically with measurements and times. I'll give y'all an idea, though.

The Supplies

• 2 cloves garlic


• 2 thin slices white onion


• a good handful of white mushrooms, I think I had four or five?


• a block of firm tofu


• a nice smallish stalk of broccoli


• an orange bell pepper


• a handful of baby carrots


• soy sauce, vegetable oil, and a bunch of pretty basic spices
  

The Process

1. Get out a nice big skillet and pour in enough vegetable oil to just coat the bottom. Do this even if it's nonstick. You will want to use a medium heat to get the oil going while you prep.


2. Crush and mince the garlic, and mince the onion. Slice the mushrooms into nice thin slices. Put this stuff in first after you get the oil sizzling. This is important. It puts flavors into the oil.


3. While that stuff is sizzling, chop up everything else into manageable pieces. Put the tofu in when the mushrooms are starting to brown. It is a wet food and you want it to go in a little before the hard vegetables. In a minute or so, you can put everything else in.


4. Add a splash of soy sauce, and dashes of the following spices: salt, black pepper, oregano, basil, and garlic powder. Take it easy on this stuff. You don't want to overpower the vegetables.


5. Now this is the judgment part. You stand there shifting and flipping stuff around with your spatula because you don't want anything to sit still too long and burn. It takes maybe around 5-8 minutes to cook everything up at this point. Keep an eye on it and start tasting when the broccoli's color gets brighter. The carrots and broccoli are the main vegetables to test, since they take the longest to soften up. When the tofu is brown enough and the veggies are soft enough for your taste, take it off the heat and put it in your mouth.

The vegetables you use are pretty adjustable (I had a zucchini I wound up not using just because it didn't seem to fit with everything else). Just make sure you have a few different plants with contrasting colors and flavors, else it will be boring to eat.

You should also make some rice to go with this. I shouldn't have to tell you how to cook rice, though, and I learned it by reading the Achewood Cookbook anyway.

Before you think I am a culinary genius, you should know that afterwards I made apple cinnamon muffins by following some instructions off the side of a box. But they were so good.

Long-time Gargoyle acquaintance Jon Visger (AKA Absofacto) has posted this totally sweet new video for his song "Paper Crane."

My favorite part is when he is standing in front of the gate covered in hobo symbols. But I wonder if the space bubble sequence is intended to be a reference to Aronofsky's The Fountain.

Jon also has all his EPs available as pay-what-you-want downloads at his website, so you have no excuse. Go get his music! And please pay at least a few bucks for each record if you can. Mr. Visger is a cool guy and all that money goes to him, to do things like make more nice music for you to listen to.

EDIT 12/14/09: Tonight Absofacto also released a new single. Go listen!

Music by Brian Lonano and Flash animation by Victoria Cook.

I don't know, either. All I know is Poezenklaas both intrigues and terrifies me.

Video found via Cartoon Brew.

I'm sure every person on the Internet has seen this before, but I'll post it here anyway, just in case you haven't:

The clip is from a 1985 claymation film called The Adventures of Mark Twain, which I guess saw a few TV broadcasts despite (or perhaps because of) being intensely creepy.

This particular sequence is based on Twain's unfinished novella, The Mysterious Stranger, which is in many ways just as upsetting as the animation. It's also a very interesting meditation on the nature of God and religion, though I'm not sure it's a good story (I guess that's what "unfinished" indicates). Still, Twain was nothing if not a master wordsmith. Go read the novella.