An abstract color celebration of Soviet perseverance under fire (the literal firepower of foreign and capitalist warmongers), this lyrical animated short aims to capture Mother Russia's essence like lightning in a bottle. There's a spaghetti western vibe at times to the striking silhouette imagery here. Florid patriotic folk songs on the soundtrack are often depicted line-for-line in the gorgeous animation. - Dennis Harvey
In a return to the Out of the Inkwell format, Betty Boop invents a pep formula to speed up lazy Pudgy, but it escapes into the real world with rapid results.
A (barely) two minute short is that it was made specially for a Paramount newsreel segment on Bute and Nemeth making films in their teensy New York apartment. Paramount apparently never got round to including the filmmakers in any newsreel, but their own film survived in the Bute-Nemeth Archive. (weirdwildrealm.com) To the rhythm of music that sounds a bit like a Busby Berkeley tune, lines and circles appear against a black background. Then triangles, in groups. Black and white squares move in tandem. Sparkling forms turn in kaleidoscopic patterns. Then cubes appear, white against the background, bouncing; a yin and yang rotate a few times before the film ends with an quick burst of scattering light.
That's what Olive wants. To even the score, the boys visit Wimpy's barber shop. Wimpy is out, so they shave each other; you'd think Popeye would know better than to let Bluto at him with a razor.
Kemi lives and works in the murky slipstream of a North London pub. As the booze flows the line between who belongs behind and in front of the bar becomes increasingly blurred.
A day in the life of the world's unluckiest guy. Starting the morning off with a shaving nick from hell, he endures fires, mad dogs, rampaging vacuum cleaners, horny neighbors, kids with ray guns and, of course, a steam-roller.
Short anime screened in theaters with the stereoscopic 3D conversion of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society movie. The story of Xi Avant is set in Spain and other locales in the near future, and it is tied to the NTT Docomo mobile phone network's next-generation Xi service.
Subtle coloring and an impressionistic approach to landscape distinguish this patriotic animated short set to music. After a flourishing Soviet hamlet is destroyed by Nazi planes, the sole survivor is confronted by a hulking Nazi commando in a tank. The military man tries to cajole the young violinist into repeating a jaunty harmonica melody at gunpoint but the boy strikes up a noble song of resistance instead. Stepantsev's film may romance the idea of martyrdom but it does so with a gravity not often found in similar films.
About a boy who finds a way to enter into a magical, fantastic world by sneezing with his eyes open. He must then enlist the aid of a strange ally in order to get home again.
Dinner Time is noted as the first sound cartoon short made after Warner Bros.' success with The Jazz Singer and produced even before Walt Disney's first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie (though released after).