by on

Pathé (1907)

Le Cochon Danseur (The Dancing Pig) is a silent, 4 minute long, black-and-white burlesque film released in 1907 by French company Pathé, apparently based on a Vaudeville act. In the film, a giant anthropomorphic pig, dressed in fancy clothes, dances with a girl, who later embarrasses him by tearing his clothes off. The two start to dance together, then walk into the curtains behind them. In the infamous final scene, the pig moves his tongue and eyes around and then bare his teeth, possibly in an attempt to show the puppet’s mechanical abilities.

The film had fallen into obscurity for over a century, but gained more notoriety around 2007. It has now become an Internet meme and creepypasta, with Clarisse Loughrey stating that the film “will definitely be entering into your nightmares tonight.”

The Dancing Pig is the titular main antagonist of Le cochon danseur. He is an anthropomorphic pig with sharp, predatory fangs.

The pig has been used as a popular Internet meme villain and has become popular on the Internet since 2007.

At first, the pig acts as a rude, greedy, but voracious, gentleman to the woman, who takes his jacket off and reveals his body, thus embarrassing him. Pretty soon, they make up and dance together. Afterwards, they take a bow and go backstage.

At the end of the short film, the pig shows his true, evil nature when he is seen laughing evilly whilst flailing his tongue, rolling his eyes around, and showing his sharp teeth, suggesting that he killed the woman and ate her.

The Dancing Pig is an obese anthropomorphic pig. He wears a black jacket, a white shirt, a small top hat and no pants. His mouth is filled with sharp teeth.

by on

Pathé Frères (1906)

A young girl is given her breakfast of milk and a biscuit by an elderly woman. When her beribboned cat comes up, she shares the meal with her. Later, the cat sticks her paw into a glass of milk and licks it off.

This is a French film that was filmed in October 1905 in Troyes France and released on April 1906.

The name of the director, the young girl, and the grandmother are all unknown.

The title of the film translates to Pussy’s Breakfast.

by on

Tim Burton (1984)

Happy Halloween!

Frankenweenie is a 1984 featurette directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Burton with Leonard Ripps. It is both a parody and homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein. Burton later directed a feature-length stop-motion animated remake of Frankenweenie, released in 2012.

by on

Špela Čadež (2013)

A man helps his neighbor write a love letter.

Filip dreams of writer’s glory and luxurious lifestyle in a more prosperous part of town. One day, he gets a knock on the door. His neighbour Tereza, an older woman that Filip tries to avoid by all means, asks him to write a letter for her fiancé. Filip agrees and by doing so, he gets involved in a mad game between reality and fiction.

Based on the short story “Her Lover” by Maxim Gorky​.

This short film won following awards:

– Golden Spike / Best Short Film / Valladolid International Film Festival, 2013

– Vesna / Best Short Film / Slovene Film Festival, 2013

– Golden Dove / Animated Films and Videos / Leipzig DOK Festival, 2013

– TTF Shorts Award / Best Short Film / Trieste Film Festival, 2014

– Debut Prize / Hiroshima International Animation Festival, 2014

– Best Animation Film / National Competition / Dresden Film Festival, 2014

Director – Špela Čadež

Producers – Tina Smrekar and Špela Čadež

Cast – Katja Levstik and Grega Zorc

by on

Neil Boyle (2011)

The Last Belle is an award winning 2D animated short film featuring the voices of Sienna Guillory, Colin McFarlane, and Amanda Donohoe. It is produced and directed by Neil Boyle. The film was created using classic-cartoon technology: 35,000 hand-drawn and hand-painted pieces of artwork, shot directly onto 35mm film with a rostrum camera, to achieve a traditional cartoon feel. For much more behind-the-scenes info please visit http://www.thelastbelle.com/

by on

Dušan Kastelic (2021)

In a strange, dark box lives a group of box-headed elderly humanoid creatures with roots instead of legs. Most of these creatures are sunken into a catatonic sleep, unaware of anything outside their hermetic, sealed-off world.

But one of them emerges from the crowd, stunned into consciousness. Young and growing, the creature starts to cause a joyful ruckus, but struggles against the disapproval and rancor of the rest of his box-dwellers. But then the youngster begins to fight back, looking for a way outside the box but coming against its most oppressive forces yet.

Writer/director/animator Dusan Kastelic’s short animation is a surreal yet exuberant allegory about the pleasures and perils of non-conformity, being an individual and pushing through obstacles to a new level of consciousness.

The narrative takes the phrase “outside the box” and spins it into a deeply imaginative, hypnotic narrative that resembles a fairy tale. Not a sanitized children’s version of a fairy tale, however: the film instead resembles the original European fairy stories, which were dark, psychologically complex and disquieting in their emotional violence.

The images are nightmarish, with their evocations of distorted flesh and murky colors. But the expressiveness of the creatures and attention to detail — created in open-source 3-D software Blender — are remarkable from a technical and emotional level, and draw in viewers with a powerful combination of gesture, sound and storytelling.

Despite the claustrophobic world portrayed in the film, there are splashes of zany humor and joy, particularly as the younger creature expresses its unbridled childlike self. The musical score and sound design by Mateja Staric go a long way to create contrast between stultifying conformity and youthful individualism, as well as keeping the narrative at a consistently engaging pace.

Despite its strange appearance, the uninhibited joyousness and high spirits of the newly emergent creature are so much like the energy of children, and viewers cannot help but relate. Yet “The Box” becomes genuinely sad and painful as the youngster is repeatedly brought down and cut down to size, and confronts the mechanisms of the box itself that keep its inhabitants docile and in the dark.

Watching that struggle becomes a powerful metaphor for the oppression and conformity that we all face, whether it’s the box that society puts us inside or the ones we put ourselves in. To watch the creature struggle against a dark, narrow world is hard, and yet, as the creature discovers, as long as you can feel a spark of an essential self, there is always a way towards the light.

by on

Danny Elfman (2021)

Stream & download: https://dannyelfman.ffm.to/littoc
Director: Sven Gutjahr
Created by Berit Gwendolyn Gilma & Sven Gutjahr
Producer: Berit Gwendolyn Gilma
Production Manager: Philip Treschan
Featuring: Dæmon Clelland aka SHREK 666
Co-performer: Carra
Art direction: Berit Gwendolyn Gilma
Cinematography: Sven Gutjahr / 1st AC: Philip Treschan
Set design: Joan Ling-Li Nesbit-Chang
Gaffer: Esra Tanriverdi
Character design & prosthetics: Dæmon Clelland
Make-up: Leana Ardeleanu
Custome design: Dæmon Clelland & Joan Ling-Li Nesbit-Chang
Choreographer: Franka Marlene Foth
Insert performer: Danny Elfman
Videographer additional footage: Melisa McGregor
Make-up additional footage: Lizbeth Williamson
Casting assistance: Roberta Caminneci
Pizza boy: Alexander Elschner-Linda
Cat: Mango
Strip Club: Angels Berlin
Filmed in Berlin, 2021
——————————
Official Site: https://www.dannyelfman.com/

Music & Lyrics by Danny Elfman
Produced by Danny Elfman
Recorded by Noah Snyder
Additional Engineering: Nick Rives & Matt Tuggle
Mixed by Zakk Cervini
Mix Assistant: Nik Trekov
Mastered by Joe LaPorta at Sterling Sound
Vocals, Guitars & Synths by Danny Elfman
Drums – Josh Freese
Guitars – Nili Brosh
Bass – Stu Brooks
Percussion – Sidney Hopson
Strings – Lyris Quartet
String Orchestration by Steve Bartek
Orchestration Assistant – Marc Mann
Midi Prep – Orlando Perez Rosso
Executive Produced by Laura Engel
Project Produced by Melisa McGregor
Danny Elfman’s Representation – Kraft-Engel Management
——————————
Love In The Time Of Covid (Lyrics by Danny Elfman)

Living a life in a nutshell – Living a life in a nutshell
Stay inside and you’ll do well – break any rules and they might tell

World outside is humming — The mountain goats are sunning
This shit ain’t no fun, open the door and run….

Now nobody likes you, what a shame
Now nobody likes you, now nobody likes you…
Ooh, she likes me – ooh, she likes me, messages excite me
Ooh she likes me….

Love in the time of Covid

Keeping it, keeping it all inside
I want to see you, I want to see you
Without your clothes, without your skin
Without your skin – Without your skin
Sinning, sinning, sinning – Zoom me at midnight

I want to see you – without your clothes, without your skin
I want to see you – without your skin without your skin

Living a life in a nutshell, staying inside is a tough sell
Sniffing around for some intel – if I run out of buds it’ll be hell
Outside birds are singing – church bells are ringing
I’m filling up with feeling – open the door and run

Now nobody likes me (Nobody likes you)

Ooh, she likes me – her videos excite me,
Under the virtual moonlight, we got a date at midnight

Love in the time of Covid

Watching the cat, watching the cat,
Bouncing off the walls (I feel like that) – let’s make a rendezvous
It’s almost like having you in the room,
I want to have sex (too soon) – I can almost feel you
Starting to spin, staring to spin
Looking up, looking out, looking in
I’d give the world just to touch your skin.

© 2021 Danny Elfman, under exclusive license to Epitaph / Anti Music & lyrics published by Morte Pharmaceutical Music (BMI)

by on

Kunio Katō (2008)

La Maison en Petits Cubes is a 2008 Japanese animated short subject film created by Kunio Katō, with music by Kenji Kondo and produced by Robot Communications and animated by Oh! Production. It won several prizes, including The Annecy Cristal at the 32nd Annecy International Animated Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 81st Academy Awards.
It was also included in the Animation Show of Shows in 2008.

As his town is flooded by water, an aged widower is forced to add additional levels on to his home in order to stay dry. But when he accidentally drops his favorite smoking pipe into the lower submerged levels of his home, his search for the pipe eventually makes him relive scenes from his eventful life.

by on

Tim Burton (1984)

Vincent is a 1982 stop motion short horror film written, designed, and directed by Tim Burton, and produced by Rick Heinrichs. It is the second Disney horror film, the first being The Watcher in the Woods. At approximately six minutes in length, there is currently no individual release of the film except for a few bootleg releases. It can be found on the 2008 Special Edition and Collector’s Edition DVDs of The Nightmare Before Christmas as a bonus feature and on the Cinema16 DVD American Short Films.

The film is narrated by actor Vincent Price, a lifelong idol and inspiration for Burton. From this relationship, Price would go on to appear in Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. Vincent Price later said that Vincent was “the most gratifying thing that ever happened. It was immortality — better than a star on Hollywood Boulevard”.

Frankenweenie is a 1984 short film directed by Tim Burton and co-written by Burton with Leonard Ripps. It is both a parody and homage to the 1931 film Frankenstein based on Mary Shelley’s novel of the same name. Burton later directed a feature-length stop-motion animated remake, released in 2012.

by on

Wallace McCutcheon (1908)

An animated political parody of the 1908 presidential election.

At a political club, the members debate whose bust will replace that of Theodore Roosevelt. Unable to agree, each goes to a sculptor’s studio and bribes him to sculpt a bust of the individual favorite. Instead, the sculptor spends their fees on a dinner with his model during which he becomes so inebriated that he is taken to jail. There he has a nightmare, wherein three busts are created and animated from clay (through stop-motion photography) in the likenesses of Democrat William Jennings Bryan and Republicans Charles W. Fairbanks and William Howard Taft. Finally an animated bust of Roosevelt appears.

by on

Ken Jacobs (1960)

A film in four parts. In In the Room, a man and a woman in outlandish garb are sitting in a claw-foot bathtub smoking, while the man abuses a doll in various ways. In They Stopped to Think, the filmmaker focuses on a woman trying to position a stool upon which to sit next to a wall. The filmmaker talks in voice-over about filming the scene, and his current relationship with the people shown in the film. The scene shifts to a pier where a man and woman are filmed, playing to the camera. In It Began to Drizzle, a man and woman are lounging in a street-side patio. The scene then shifts to a man and some children doing chalk drawings on the sidewalk, and how others respond to what they are doing. In The Spirit of Listlessness, a man lounging on an urban rooftop is playing with balloons while he plays to the camera.

Outrageous yet tender, the film begins with the skip of a cracked 78 rpm record and a handmade title festooned with streamers and lettered in dripping red. In vignettes continuing in this vein, characters occasionally stumble on glimmers of beauty in their bleak existence: a view from the roof and kids drawing on the sidewalk. The scenes are unsettling in their immediacy. Jacobs embraces the New York City streets as his stage and improvises props and costumes from castoffs. The characters, including Jack Smith and Jerry Sims, are completely at ease with the camera. They cavort, they pose, they affront, and they demand our attention. Like it or not, we are made part of the scene.

For many years Jacobs played 78s at screenings, again transforming poverty into a live-performance asset. A grant from Jerome Hill facilitated by Jonas Mekas enabled Jacobs to add voice-over to the middle section and create a sound print. By this time, his relationship with Smith had soured, and he had lost touch with most of those pictured. Jacob’s narration, presented self-consciously as anything to distract you from talking to each other, acts as a remembrance of things past. The closing vignette, shot on a New York rooftop on a crystalline day, shows Smith clowning with a balloon to the tune of Happy Bird. In Little Stabs at Happiness, moments in the sun do not last.

Ken Jacobs is an experimental filmmaker, who, along with Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Maya Deren and others, helped spearhead the American avant-garde film movement. His impressive filmography spans more than 60 years and 45 films, utilizing just about every experimental technique imaginable. In the ’60s, he helped redefine the notion of domestic (home) movies, and along with it, domestic space—pioneering work that expanded the parameters of art cinema, and also, coincidentally, the gender expectations of male artists. Jacobs has also experimented with found footage, creating such memorable works as Star Spangled to Death, a nearly seven-hour epic charting an alternative U.S. history. Most recently, he has been reformatting, reworking, and altering silent films to give illusions of depth, creating experimental, heavily stroboscopic abstract cinema, and 3D. At every stage of his career, Jacobs has sought to push the technology as far as it can go and to challenge his audiences to think about politics, gender, class, race, documentary, and movies differently. This series provides a rare opportunity to see the work of one of the greatest living American filmmakers.

by on

Walter R. Booth (1906)

The ‘?’ Motorist is a 1906 British short silent comedy film, directed by Walter R. Booth,
featuring a motorist driving around the rings of Saturn to escape the police.

The ‘?’ Motorist is a 1906 British short silent comedy film,commonly called “The Mad Motorist” or “Questionmark Motorist” and directed by Walter R. Booth. Released in October of 1906, the film features a couple on the run from the police. While running from the police, they end up driving over the policeman, who magically recovers seconds after and continues to run after the car. Soon the couple comes to a building and their car magically drives up the wall, evading the stunned policeman and leaving an amazed crowd behind. The car drives past stars on clouds, around the Moon, and around the rings of Saturn before crashing through the roof of Handover Courthouse. The car drives through the courthouse and outside once more, interrupting the hearing. Outside on the road, a policeman and court officials stop the car which suddenly turns into a horse and carriage. The couple drives off in the carriage victoriously having escaped a ticket. The trick film is “one of the last films that W.R. Booth made for the producer-inventor R.W. Paul,” and, according to Michael Brooke of BFI Screenonline, “looks forward to the more elaborate fantasies that Booth would make for Charles Urban between 1907 and 1911, as well as drawing on a wide range of the visual tricks that Booth had developed over the preceding half-decade.”

Booth later remade the film as The Automatic Motorist in 1911.

The film has also been compared to the work of Georges Méliès and “The Impossible Voyage.”

The Automatic Motorist

Walter R. Booth (1911)

A bride, a motorcar, a robot chauffeur and a policeman – what could possibly go wrong? Fantasy and ‘trick’ film pioneer W.R. Booth uses cut-out animation and models to create a truly out-of-this-world sci-fi adventure. The mad-cap plot sees a newlywed couple transported from a country lane to outer-space (via St Paul’s Cathedral), where the policeman encounters some pretty feisty Saturnians. W.R. Booth was a stage magician turned filmmaker, whose hand-drawing techniques pointed the way towards animated cartoons. His taste for fantastical imagery and Jules Verne-style journeys echoes the work of fellow illusionist Georges Méliès: the grinning moon in The Automatic Motorist is a definite nod to Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon (1902).

A Trip to the Moon

Georges Méliès (1902)

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la Lune) is a 1902 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. It’s considered one of the first science fiction film.

The Impossible Voyage

Georges Méliès (1904)

The Impossible Voyage (French: Voyage à travers l’impossible) is a 1904 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès. Based in part on Jules Verne’s play Journey Through the Impossible and modeled in style and format on Méliès’s earlier, highly successful A Trip to the Moon, the film is a satire of scientific exploration in which a group of geographers attempt a journey into the interior of the sun. Since the film is silent and has no intertitles, the proper names and quotations below are taken from the English-language description of the film published by Méliès in the catalog of the Star Film Company’s New York Branch.

by on

J. Searle Dawley (1910)

Restored in 2017 by the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Conservation Center,
with new music by Donald Sosin.

Frankenstein is a 1910 horror film made by Edison Studios. It was directed by J. Searle Dawley, who also wrote the one-reeler’s screenplay, broadly basing his “scenario” on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein. This short motion picture is generally recognized by film historians as the first screen adaptation of Shelley’s work. The small cast, who are not credited in the surviving 1910 print of the film, includes Augustus Phillips as Dr. Frankenstein, Charles Ogle as Frankenstein’s monster, and Mary Fuller as the doctor’s fiancée.

by on

Cecil Hepworth & Percy Stow (1903)

The first-ever film version of Lewis Carroll’s tale has recently been restored by the BFI National Archive from severely damaged materials. Made just 37 years after Lewis Carroll wrote his novel and eight years after the birth of cinema, the adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations. In an act that was to echo more than 100 years later, Hepworth cast his wife as the Red Queen, and he himself appears as the Frog Footman. Even the Cheshire cat is played by a family pet. With a running time of just 12 minutes (8 of which survive), Alice in Wonderland was the longest film produced in England at that time. Film archivists have been able to restore the film’s original colours for the first time in over 100 years.

Music: ‘Jill in the Box’, composed and performed by Wendy Hiscocks.

This restoration was supported by The Headley Trust and The Pilgrim Trust.

To find out more about the film, visit http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/i…

by on

David Lynch (2002)

David Lynch Theater Presents: RABBITS 1

Rabbits is a 2002 series of eight short horror web films written and directed by David Lynch, although Lynch himself refers to it as a sitcom. It depicts three humanoid rabbits played by Scott Coffey, Laura Elena Harring, and Naomi Watts in a room. Their disjointed conversations are interrupted by a laugh track. Rabbits is presented with the tagline “In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain… three rabbits live with a fearful mystery”.