What's the Real Point of the Entertainment Industry?

I realize that this post is of a wider scope than animation itself, but it's an important can of worms that somebody needs to open. Why are we paying money to imagine that we're doing something interesting when we're just playing with a piece of plastic, punching keys on a keyboard, or simply staring at a screen? What's the point of periodically deluding ourselves in worlds of fantasy when there's a perfectly good real world that's staring us in the face? We entertain ourselves with preconceived constructs, come up with new innovations for these constructs to better suit or delusions perpetuated by our perceptions of our environment, and animation cinema seems to be one of the forms of entertainment which goes furthest off the deep end.

Animation represents a fictional world that is thrust upon the audience in a way that allows the viewer to knowingly delude their self into believing that it is true and false at the same time. We know that we're seeing something contrived, but don't seem to care so long as it entertains us enough to wish that it were real. Doesn't it take time to adjust to this artificial reality and come back to normality afterwards? On top of that, there's the irony that what we're seeing is somehow based on our environment or we wouldn't be watching it and wouldn't have been made in the first place. When you start getting into the subject of obscure entertainment, the subject gets even more complex.

It's quite obvious that I'm deluding myself while watching animated films, but how does this relate to the entertainment industry as a whole? It's quite obvious, at least to me that in the United States, the desire for profit and other forms of self perpetuated illusions of contentment have overshadowed the desire to create unique films and that the simple minded greed is on both sides of the board, the consumers and the financially motivated entertainers. The self demeaning nature of our industry however, has spread around the world largely thanks to us, and now thanks to greed, artistry has developed where there was none and we've developed fancier and fancier ways of self delusion through animation. But are we really any more entertained than ever before? Since there's an industry selling entertainment, are we working for play?

Uproar in Heaven online with English subtitles

For those who've long waited patiently to see one of China's greatest animated features, it is now finally online with English subtitles on Crunchy Roll. I'll wait until later for a larger write up, but am I the only person who finds it rather odd that Nezha is a villain in this movie and the hero in Nezha Conquers the Dragon Kings? There seems to be a bit of inspiration from The Adventures of Prince Achmed, particularly with the style of the layered backgrounds, the shape shifting battle sequence, and the aura around Sun Wukong after the mountain crumbles which looks like the effects of Aladdin's lamp.

The link for Uproar in Heaven:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/group/CRSeries_-_Uproar_in_Heaven_-_Movie

There's also the English dub of the later movie, Nezha on Youtube, though it has some major changes from the Chinese version. It's easy enough to find with a one word search.

Chromophobia's Influence on Yellow Submarine

Last night I read a the biography of Raoul Servais on his website, and came across a claim that Chromophobia was an influence on Yellow Submarine. At first I brushed it off, thinking that the two weren't exactly similar, even if they did have some psychedelic themes in common. Then some of the obvious similarities sunk in between these two films, one short and one long, that had somehow eluded me beforehand. Before I go further into this discussion, see if you can find Chromophobia on You Tube, though I won't link to it as you may be visiting this blog from another country where the film is legally sold.

The first, most glaring similarity is that the basic plot is almost exactly the same. Horrible, evil, selfish, mean people invade a colorful land of happiness and content, turning it into a dreary land devoid of self expression. Through an inherent miracle, several unfamiliar figures save the land and its people by witty gags that supported current youth attitudes. If you look closely at the poses of The Beatles while they're saving Pepperland, you'll notice incredibly unsubtle similarities to the Flower Jester(s) from Chromophobia. Also, there's the little cute looking girl in Pepperland that is an obvious reference to the girl in Chromophobia who helps bring the town back to its colorful old life. Then there's the artist in Chromophobia who the Nowhere Man in Yellow Submarine seems awfully similar to, including the gleeful laugh. Then there's the flowers appearing on villains, the depressed expressions on people's faces, the...

Granted, Yellow Submarine is enjoyed more for the music and bizarre visuals than for the plot. The characters are far more developed than those in Chromophobia, as it is a full length movie. There are some moderate tweaks to the basic storyline, and the characters most similar to the ones in Chromophobia are relatively minor. The Blue Meanies are much more interesting to me than the soldiers from Chromophobia. Well I'll cut myself off before I overanalyze everything, but the bottom line is that Yellow Submarine and Chromophobia are as comparable as The Thief and the Cobbler and Aladdin. I'll be back soon with another post when somebody starts reading this blog.

Animated Double Features to Provoke Conversation

There are some films that offset each other in such a curious manner that they're guaranteed to provoke a memorable conversation. If you're reading this with a satanic sense of humor, and want to get a rise out of some of your siblings or friends, here's some double features that won't happen in a million years.

Ratatouille followed by Krysar

Robin Hood followed by The Tale of the Fox

My Neighbor Totoro followed by Belladonna of Sadness-This is about the only combination that is more uncanny than the theatrical double bill with My Neighbor Totoro followed by Grave of the Fireflies. This combination, is of course, not for children though you could put the kids to bed and watch the second while they're asleep.

Bambi followed by The Plague Dogs

Sleeping Beauty followed by Kirikou and the Sorceress

Charlotte's Web followed by Animal Farm

Who Framed Roger Rabbit? followed by Watership Down

The Aristocats followed by The Cat who Walked by Herself

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust followed by Vampires in Havana

A Bug's Life followed by Fantastic Planet

The Lion King followed by Gandahar (English subtitled version from Britain)

Spirited Away followed by Angel's Egg

As much as I'd like to write about each one of these, it would be better to see both, though perhaps at different times so that you can discover my reason for the comparisons.

Benny's Bathtub

While searching for information on films that were listed on Wikipedia's List of animated feature length films, I found one film which I'd consider more unusual than good. This film isn't exactly what I'd call unique, either as it is quite unique in concept, but borrows quite heavily from other films and popular culture. From clips posted on youtube, Benny's Bathtub, a popular 1971 Danish film that's virtually unknown outside of Scandinavia and perhaps rightfully so, strikes me as a bizarre psychological but pop cultural children's film with references that go a little over the edge. There's a bizarre starfish character that changes colors like Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat, some unexpected bits of abstract animation that scream Norman McLaren, references to what seems to be The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and probably eons more I've missed. The whole film is posted on You Tube, but is untranslated(don't let that stop you, because nothing I've seen suggests any sort of comprehensible plot). The film is based off of an also popular Danish children's book, and that's about as far as words can describe this movie, unless somebody bilingual in English and Danish translates it. Here's a song from the movie on You Tube in what seems to be one of the more interesting segments: link

Right Under the Nose of He who Knows

There are all sorts of well made and original animated classics that are available now on DVD, but that nobody seems to notice. Here is a list which will be updated that points to as many films as possible which are available on DVD right now. Forget that Disney movie you've been thinking of buying that likely a masterpiece as the ads suggest, or that derivative, overpriced anime show that nobody will care about in 20 years and instead buy something of real value. I have no affiliations with any distribution or production company, nor am I personally accquainted with any animator or filmmaker, or relative of theirs who may have worked on any of these films. If such a situation should arise in the future as I continually update this list, it will be declared upfront.

All of the films on this list are available with English subtitles or language dubbing, though not all are both region 1, region 0, or NTSC format. Should anybody know of any superior, legal versions, I shall acknowledge them on the list, but only should the person give their legitimate e-mail and all contributions will be listed in a separate category under their authority, not under mine.

 Should anyone reading this blog discover that a film that I or somebody else has posted on this list be an illegitimately released, copied, fake, or nonexistent DVD unwittingly, and in their case possibly willingly, that incident will personally be noted on this blog under an errors section. Back up your case with solid evidence, or you'll be ignored and unable to post, make suggestions, or in any other way take part in this blog . That is all and if you are unsure of a release's legality, please refrain from mentioning it here or inquire further from a more trustworthy source. That is all for now, though I reserve the right to change these rules at any time with the acknowledgment of change, and here is the current list of films below:

For Now:

Available directly through an Amazon site:

Lotte Reiniger's The Adventures of Prince Achmed

Jiri Barta's Labyrinth of Darkness (contains feature film Krysar)

The Puppet Films of Jiri Trnka (contains shorter version of feature The Emperor's Nightingale with narration by Boris Karloff)

Francois Vose's The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship

On Amazon UK:

Rene Laloux's Time Masters

Amazon Japan:

Masaaki Yuasa's Mind Game (has English subtitles and is also available on YesAsia)

Updated below: Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

On YesAsia

The Wan Brothers' Uproar in Heaven (English fan-subtitles can be found with a quick online search)

Tomomi Mochizuki's Ocean Waves

Isao Takahata's Gauche the Cellist

That's all for the present time, as I need to do some more digging and have several other parts of the blog to update. Thanks for not visiting my blog! I guess it's time to start actually mentioning this blog on some animation websites so I can get some regular readers and other animation obsessed fans who can help to contribute.

When you're out of cash, but want something to watch

Thanks to a large scale search through the entire Crunchy Roll anime index which I took the liberty of doing several weeks ago due to boredom, here are the feature films which I consider to be good as well as rare. As far as good films go, the database won't last you long, before descending into incredible amounts of derivative mainstream junk. I had nightmares for a week after searching through this hellish geek fetish of a database hoping for a masterpiece or two. Without registering, you'll be able to get through about a movie or two in a day period before you're cut off and forced to register, but the system is easily foiled, so long as you have another nearby computer. 

This obsession with rare films is one that takes a huge toll on your wallet, so here are some good films which you can easily and semi-legally view online for free. All of these films seem to be unlicensed for an English market, except for Robot Carnival which has a company that owns the rights but hasn't bothered to release the film on DVD. If I missed any that have less than 2,000 IMDB votes and are both unusual and well regarded, I'll make sure to update the list. This will probably be the last time I ever link to so many films directly on my blog, but that's what this blog was created for, revealing obscure animated films to readers and discussing them.

Belladonna of Sadness

This film is for mature viewers only and revolves around Belladonna, a woman in the middle ages who is tempted by witchcraft after being sexually abused by her town's Baron on her wedding day as payment for the ceremony. The film relies quite heavily on still images, with full animation sparingly used, which works quite well.

link

Legend of Sirius

A dark childrens film, the movie is based loosely on Romeo and Juliet as well as Western mythology. A prince of the sea, Sirius, falls in love with a daughter of fire, Malta, and despite the inevitable ending, the movie is beautiful along the way.

link

Mind Game

You can read a synopsis and reviews at the Internet Movie Database that describe it better than I could: IMDB Page

link

Ocean Waves

This Studio Ghibli movie, originally made for television, is a slice of life story centering on the life of a high school aged boy. The movie is casual in both technique and ambition, but proves to be a surprisingly engaging film.

link

Princess Arete

The one movie from Studio 4ºC that isn't especially experimental, this movie is a refreshing change of pace from the zany creativity of Mind Game. In contradiction of Disney principles, a young princess is tired of being in her position. In a plot revolving suitors, magic, and quiet personal reflection, Princess Arete reexamines her life.

link

Robot Carnival

This animator's compilation film has a wide variety of segments, most without dialogue, and all revolving around some sort of robot. The movie is quite a mixed bag, but contains many interesting segments, the best ones seeming to come from the lesser known animators who have attracted little attention since.

link

That's all for this update, and thanks to all of you for not reading my blog!