Viewing Journal: 4/30/2022

289) DUEL TO THE DEATH

(1983 dir. Siu-Tung Ching) Date Seen: April 30 2022

how the fuck is this a feature debut? It might even be "Tony" Siu-Tung Ching's best film as a director.

288) BLOODY FRIDAY

                 [BLUTIGER FREITAG]

(1972 dir. Rolf Olsen) Date Seen: April 30 2022

287) NIGHT TRAIN [POCIĄG]

(1959 dir. Jerzy Kawalerowicz) Date Seen: April 30 2022

286) THRU THE MIRROR

(1936 dir. David Hand) Date Seen: April 30 2022

a nifty 15 years early dry run for the 1951 ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

285) THE PIED PIPER

(1933 dir. Wilfred Jackson) Date Seen: April 30 2022

Fair warning: don't fall asleep watching this bright rubber hose-era Disney while eating tons of candy.. You will have Pied Piper inspired dreams that morph into the nightmarish KRYSAŘ (1986)

Viewing Journal: 4/29/2022

284) SWING GIRLS

(2004 dir. Shinobu Yaguchi) Date Seen: April 29 2022

I ordered a KAMIKAZE GIRLS dvd online but got this in the mail for some reason instead haha. It was pretty funny too. Apparently Teens with Extracurricular Activities is a popular subgenre in Japanese media?

283) BURST CITY

(1982 dir. Gakuryu Ishii) Date Seen: April 29 2022

282) THE DEMON [IL DEMONIO]

(1963 dir. Brunello Rondi) Date Seen: April 29 2022

281) THE SKELETON 

                 OF MRS. MORALES

(1960 dir. Rogelio A. González) Date Seen: April 29 2022

280) MICKEY DOWN UNDER

(1948 dir. Charles A. Nichols) Date Seen: April 29 2022

One trip to the outback and Mickey came back obsessed with Aussie rules footy

Viewing Journal: 4/28/2022

279) ANGEL DUST

(1994 dir. Gakuryu Ishii) Date Seen: April 28 2022

Ishii, my man. I didn't know you like to get wet..

278) CRAZY THUNDER ROAD

(1980 dir. Gakuryu Ishii) Date Seen: April 28 2022

277) THE GREAT 

            PIGGY BANK ROBBERY

(1946 dir. Robert Clampett) Date Seen: April 28 2022

Steve Gerber probably saw a TV airing of this as a kid, right?.. Even though Howard the Duck's character design might look more akin to Disney's Donald, Something about transporting Daffy to the visual universe of comic books seems like it could've been a stronger subliminal influence on Gerber's brilliant comics series. As far as great Warner bros toons go, this is up there with PORKY IN WACKYLAND and WHAT'S OPERA, DOC?

276) BABES IN THE WOODS

(1932 dir. Burt Gillett) Date Seen: April 28 2022

Why is the idea of being killed and eaten seem so much worse than just being killed? Almost like an instinctual thing, leftover in our limbic hindbrain. As a kid, the idea of the witch also wanting to eat Hansel & Gretel was way more horrifying to me than her merely imprisoning them. This early Disney short captures all that unnerving stuff in a more safe & playful way.

275) HE WHO GETS SLAPPED

(1924 dir. Victor Sjöström) 2nd Viewing: April 28 2022

Viewing Journal: 4/26/2022

269) COMET IN MOOMINLAND

(1992 dir. Hiroshi Saito) Date Seen: April 26 2022

268) NEZHA CONQUERS 

    THE DRAGON KING 哪吒闹海 

(1979 dir. Shuchen/Dingxian/Jingda) Date Seen: April 26 2022

267) THE LITTLE PRINCE 

& THE EIGHT-HEADED DRAGON

(1963 dir. Yugo Serikawa) Date Seen: April 26 2022

266) ZVENIGORA - ЗВЕНИГОРА

(1928 dir. Alexander Dovzhenko) Date Seen: April 26 2022

Not as polished as Dovzhenko's latter work but still captivating.. Would make good primer viewing for Eisenstein's OCTOBER (1927).

265) 

 THREE BLIND MOUSEKETEERS

(1936 dir. David Hand) Date Seen: April 26 2022

the theme song for this short was unsettling ↓

Viewing Journal: 4/27/2022

274) THE TRAGEDY OF MAN

(2011 dir. Marcell Jankovics) Date Seen: April 27 2022

When you work in freelance animation you get used to staring at a lot of generic projects & tweaking boring shit for hours on end. So when something utterly unique like AZ EMBER TRAGÉDIÁJA [TRAGEDY OF MAN] comes around it can feel jarring. Like a bolt of rejuvenation to your imagination.. More extraordinary work from Marcell Jankovics (who created FEHÉRLÓFIA: SON OF THE WHITE MARE).

273) PANIC HIGH SCHOOL

(1978 dir. Ishii, Yukihiro Sawada) Date Seen: April 27 2022

I prefer DOKI DOKI PANIC HIGH SCHOOL

LET'S GOOOOOOOO!

272) THE FOX AND THE HARE 

             ЛИСА И ЗАЯЦ

(1973 dir. Yuri Norstein) Date Seen: April 27 2022

Wondrous. Alluring. Moving.. (It's Yuri Norstein though, so I'd've expected nothing less)

271) THE MONKEY KING: 

     HAVOC IN HEAVEN 大鬧天宮

(1963 dir. Wan Laiming, Cheng Tang) Date Seen: April 27 2022

"Magic monkey; my hero 

Monkey Magic! 

Come on, monkey!" 

- passage from the ancient scrolls

270) THE GOLDEN TOUCH

(1935 dir. Walt Disney) Date Seen: April 27 2022