Neil

To answer AkiStar's question: I uploaded this to the database because someone requested it.

...yeah, I'm not sure why, either. But even so, that individual clearly liked it enough to request its addition, so it must be doing something right. Because of that I'll break the one-star chain and throw an extra half-star onto the pile.

I'm not usually one to raise my rating because of how someone else feels about a film, but hey. At the time of writing it's the season of giving and I'm feeling generous.

And to be fair, I did kind of enjoy writing the synopsis.

I saw this one years back and wasn't sure what to make of it; rewatching it for this review I feel the same way. It's funny, but I'm not entirely sure if this was intentional.

The short takes a pop song from a Japanese video game - sped up so that it sounds like the singer is on helium - and puts it into the mouth of a very odd-looking Flash-animated cat.

I'm not sure what to make of it.

There are several layers of reality in the film, and none of them are clear-cut. More than once something which would seem to be a major plot development turns out to be a dream, hallucination, scene from Mimarin's TV show, or a combination thereof. When Mimarin asks her manager "yesterday? Was that real?", it's a perfectly legitimate question.

There are no easy answers on the surface, nor is there very much to find when you dig deeper: the film revels in its own ambiguity. Even after the ending - which has been criticised for being a little too neat - chunks of the story are left totally open to interpretation. More of a roller-coaster ride than a psychological study, the film doesn't seem built for particularly close analysis.

In terms of production values, the movie's a mixed bag. There's plenty of strong thematic imagery - reflections, posters, TV screens, that kind of thing - and the hallucinations are suitably creepy, but for the most part Perfect Blue looks pretty unremarkable - especially compared to Kon's other, more visually inventive creations. The eerie musical score is a different matter: simple, but effective.

The warmth and dry humour found in most of Satoshi Kon's works (even the equally weird Paranoia Agent) aren't in evidence here. Perfect Blue seems oddly po-faced compared to his other outings; there's a sense that he was restraining himself a little too much, his characteristic sense of humour only showing through in a couple ironic moments - such as the scene where a character complains about Japanese psycho-thrillers being too boring.

Perfect Blue is an unusual film that takes a bold stab at doing something different. In some ways it misses its goal, but in many others it succeeds pefectly.

Another hit from Neil Cicierega, patron saint of stupid Flash cartoons!

Some great character animation (considering that the characters are, well, just glove puppets) and inspired silliness all round. I'll have to agree with Greykitty that Bothering Snape is the best of the two - it has that spontaneity to it.

The film that bagged Halas and Batchelor a reputation as "the Disney of the UK"; not counting Handling ships and Water for Fire Fighting, a pair of 60-70 minute long instructional films that the studio had made for the Admiralty and Fire Service respectively, Animal Farm was Britain's first full-length animated feature.

Aside from the occasional speech delivered by the pigs, Animal Farm has very little dialogue; most of the story is imparted by a narrator. This'll probably be the biggest turn-off to modern audiences, as the narrator shows flagrant disregard for the whole "show, don't tell" rule - at one point, for example, he carefully explains to us that a character isn't dead. Generally speaking the film is most successful when there is no dialogue or narration; just imagery - because Animal Farm's imagery can be really striking. Early on there's a sequence where a drunken, bad-tempered Farmer Jones potters about his farm at night, with a torch; aside from close-ups of his shoes he's represented soley by light and shadow, along with drunken mumbling and crunching footsteps. Later on is a scene where the animals sing their anthem in front of a blazing bonfire; both are incredibly atmospheric. Despite the Disney/Warner stylings, Animal Farm largely avoids the pantomime acting associated with its American counterparts; ironically enough it's closer in many ways to the animated features that Russia had started producing a few years previously.

Today, if Animal Farm is remembered at all, it is usually seen as just another bowdlerised adaptation of a literary classic that's not worth bothering with. Amongst animation buffs, though, it's appreciated a little more, particularly in its native country; in 2005 it was voted the ninety-second greatest cartoon ever made in a poll conducted by the UK's Channel 4. What's easy to forget about Animal Farm is that, for its time, the film was really quite unusual. An animated feature devoted to political satire - somewhat watered down political satire, granted, but political satire nonetheless - is not what you'd expect to see released between Lady and the Tramp and Peter Pan; also, the violence and sometimes sombre tone, while mild by today's standards, caused a bit of a stir upon release: American newspapers described Animal Farm as "too violent for children" and "adult entertainment - cartoon not for kids". Today people associate that kind of response with Fritz the Cat, not a British movie from 1954.