Last week I got a chance to go check out the Animation Shorts alla Oscars 2008. I was pretty happy with most of them, however, what I wasn’t happy with was the line-up for “Honorable Mention” that didn’t make it. Namely, a beautiful and extremely creative gem titled Skhizein. The story and the animation were beautifully done…..the concept was simply brilliant.

Basically the central character is struck by a meteor and is displaced from himself exactly 91 centimeters. Ok. Just stop right there. How friggin’ beautiful is that?

The entire short explores the relationship he finds between himself and this newfound displacement in the world. After discovering ways to exist (chalking his new existence into reference!), he finds himself seeking another meteor falling to the earth in hopes of “correcting” himself.

I love this idea because I’m a HUGE fan of displacement. The ways in which we interact with our world, the ways in which we are to begin anew, the ways in which we find ourselves out of our own normalcy and yet find a way to continue, these always fascinate me. (Check Valerie Pirson’s work below)

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In any case, although I really enjoyed the short that did win La Maison Petit in Cubes (below), I have to say that Skhizein really won my heart this year.

(here’s the link to Part 2)

Here is another short that I liked quite a bit. Naturally, I’m still a sucker for the Buster Keaton-esque.

“Fidelity”: Don’t Divorce… from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Ok. So admittedly it has been some time since I posted. This is primarily due in part to a physical change of space, but I I’m not unwilling to admit it has been something more cerebral than that. So much has changed! So much is about to change on the horizon. So raise your aperitivo to new things, new friendships…. and old ones that have come back.

_Must Read After My Death_

On with the congratulations. A few days ago I ran into an old friend via one of the ominous social networking sites. His name is Morgan Dews and I met via Sundance a year after I stopped working there. The short film he arrived with that year was a provocative experimental doc that was as beautiful as it was graphic. Very revealing on numerous accounts.

A few years later, I had met with Morgan in a coffee shop in New York on my way out of the country. Once again, he had kind and inspiring words for me that lit a fire under my ass. It was in NY that I learned he had been working on another documentary -about his grandparents and his family.

Here is the link to the film. It opens in NYC on Feb. 20th. For those of you in the area, I recommend a night of “the real feelings and hidden problems lurking behind the horn rim glasses and happy dinner parties of prosperous post-war America.“

Congrats Mr. Dews.

this morning, sipping my way through coffee, I found this piece by Stéphane Manel (this is his myspace site as his own site seems to be under construction for the time being). In any case, I thought this song was super fun and perfect if you feel like kickin’ it [boyzzz!] late 80s/early 90s style.

for those who are French, here is piece by Valerie Pirson. I ran across it today and thought it was pretty great. as local lore has it, the piece titled “Pistache”(pistachio?) was seen by Michel Gondry who offered her a job on his film “Science of Sleep”. Since then Valerie has been working at Partizan Lab.

beginning of the film is a little hard to read because of the youtube’dness of the quality, so here are the first few lines:

“We consider the following theory;
Every human being is in balance,
unstably,
due to many changing parameters.”

(I also type this out because this is what pulled me in. It’s just beautiful.)

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Back in February I was sent this short film. The short was up for an Oscar and, the creator Josh Raskin, was a friend of a friend (of a friend, I believe.  there was a postal courier in there somewhere).  Point being, in a matter of moments, I was drooling over the incredible amount of creativity, the simplicity and complexity, the hand-drawn and motion graphics (note the great pen illustrations by James Braithwaite).  Mostly, however, I was consumed with the beautiful way in which it integrates the possibilities of what can be done when animation strikes a chord with a social/political message.  Much the same way I saw Knife-Party achieve this with What Barry Says, I Met the Walrus does this but with something more: character.  There’s something about this short that separates it, allows it to be nearer, to be warmer and palatable in a way that I find both charming and inspiring.  Likewise, it has of way of using a moment from the past that hearkens to a sentiment of our own current awareness.

In any case, I am big fans of Raskin and all his crew.  I wish them the best and I look forward to see what they come up with next.

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than  we need them.” – Arundhati Roy

“….We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.“ -Barack Obama

As some of you can attest, there is nothing more awkward that having political arguments with family. On one hand, there are issues of respect, love and admiration for those that have been there in your formative years. Then on the other hand, one must juxtapose that [almost to a point of an integration of value/belief] with what you have have learned, what you have found; the knowledge you have picked up along the way.

In any case, lest this post detract from something it isn’t (though perhaps it is), recently in my own searching I have found an amazingly intelligent woman I put on par with the likes of Susan Sontag and Arundhati Roy: Naomi Klein.

If you’ve been finding yourself walking past this book -Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism- because the cover appears questionably like all of the other partisan books out there, stop and pick it up. The arguments laid out by Klein are well-formed, thought out and incredibly thick with research; in short Naomi has done her homework (for 4 years) writing this book.

In fact, and perhaps unlike other partisan diatribes sold on bookshelves, Klein has posted her documents -her research- online. This includes everything from U.S. senate reports investigating the US Government and the relation of the ITT corporate influences intervening in Chilean politics (eventually leading to the U.S. backed institution of the tyrannical, Gen. Augusto Pinochet), to letters of economist Andre Gunder Frank decidedly breaking ties with the “Chicago Boys” school of economics. These Chicago Boys being students studying a theory -developed by Milton Friedman- based on free open-markets (“wide-open!”) which eliminates all state-funded programs and privatizes everything from schools *(as we’ve just recently seen in the wake of Katrina) to utilities like power, water and infrastructure.

Based on this book, Alfonso Cuarón (Great Expectations, Y tu Mama Tambien, Children of Men) made this short with his brother Jonás Cuarón. Cuarón adds the visuals (from found footage, CIA manuals, etc) where Klein’s book gives the research compounded in 677 pages.

Whatever your stance, it’s worth picking up a book as well-developed as Klein has accomplished.

I’m still rooting for her Pulizter.

per io (qualcuno che non parlo italiano bene) questo é qualcosa fico perche, questo ragazzo, sta parliamo su dei posti che conosco.

< …mangia il Muffin. Come il cane!>

Fabio, Ivo e il muffin – Crea il tuo blog con audio, foto e video su www.mtv.it!

Finestre di Manhattan – Crea il tuo blog con audio, foto e video su www.mtv.it!

Little Italy – Crea il tuo blog con audio, foto e video su www.mtv.it!

i can’t really claim this sweet little group as my find; i was sent a song that i loved by mimi who is here.

i know this is an old video that everyone has seen, but then again Hope is never old. right? ehhhhh….

this i just found and thought it was kind of great.