Here are links to the earliest cartoons in Riochard Brody’s excellent article, “Draw Stars,” in the Dec. 30, 2019 New Yorker. (Note: Racist and other stereotypes below.)

Emile Cole, Fantasmagorie, 1908, restored. (Original)

Winsor McCay, Little Nemo, 1911:

McCay, Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914:

Max and Dave Fleischer, Out of the Inkwell: The Tantalizing Fly, 1919 (remastered):

The Fleischers, Jumping Beans, 1922 (remastered):

Wallace Carlson (Bray Studios), How Cartoons Are Made, 1919:

Wallace Carlson, He resolves not to smoke, 1914:

Gregory La Cava, The Breath of a Nation, 1919:

Joseph Sunn claymation: Green Pastures, 1919:

Wallace McCutcheon’s merging of Green Pastures with live action, in The Sculptor’s Nightmare:

Howard S. Moss stop action, Mary & Gretel, part 1, 1916:

Mary & Gretel, part 2:

Walter Ruttmann’s abstract Opus 1, 1921:

Lette Reiniger’s silhouette Cinderella, 1921:

Bryant Fryer’s silhouette Follow the Swallow, 1927:

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By blu.

Awesome.

[Tags: graffiti animation awesome ]

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Check out NaturalMotion’s show reel for Endorphin, software that models the human body without using motion capture devices. Given sufficiently fast processors and ample memory, it was just a matter of time before algorithms started out-doing putting tracing paper over matter.

[Tags: animation games ]

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:”Wall-e” is such an amazing movie that it left me unsatisfied.

It’s totally enjoyable. The graphic realism is phenomenal. The creativity of the details is staggering. The directorial vision is superb. The editing is one confusing scene short of perfect.

But “Wall-e” is yet another damn kids story. Oh, adults will completely enjoy it. Scene for scene, it carries you through. You care about the characters and each segment has plenty for everyone. But ultimately the story is predictable, simple, and safe for the kiddies.

At this point in Pixar’s amazing career, it’s proven it can do anything. It can imbue a trash compactor with personality and zip it across a world subject to any rules Pixar imagines. Pixar has the technical skill to show us anything it can imagine. It has the movie-making craft to tell a story with a thousand moving parts.

Now it’s time to stop playing it safe and to and make some art. Now it’s time to stop dazzling us with what it can do, and to do it.

IMO.

[Tags: pixar movies wall-e animation entertainment reviews ]

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