This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of "Thursday Movie Picks", the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. This time around, the subject is animated movies for adults, and since I don't watch all that much animation, this one was a bit difficult for me. But I was ale to come up with three movies:
Twice Upon a Time (1983). A bad guy wants to steal the mainspring from the Cosmic Clock because, if he does so, he'll be able to stop time and give everybody permanent nightmares. Mumford and his pet Ralph sre sent to stop this, with help from a good witch and her superhero boyfriend. It's a bizarre little movie and older kids could probably enjoy it, although there was both a clean version and a more grown-up version with more adult humor. The film combines animation with photographic backdrops.
Pvt. Snafu (World War II). Pvt. Snafu was an animated character in a series of short warning films made specifically for enlisted men. They're not really training films per se, instead being the opposite, in telling the men what not to do. Mel Blanc provided the voice, and other talented people from the World War II-era military's film division wrote and directed. A good example is The Goldbrick (1943), which has writing by Dr. Seuss, and direction by a young Frank Tashlin:
Fritz the Cat (1972). An anthropomorphic cat has drug- and sex-fueled adventures in hippie-era New York, ultimately going on a failed cross-country trip with a crow. The movie was the first animated movie to receive an X rating from the MPAA.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Thursday Movie Picks #165: Animated movies for adults
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4 comments:
Interesting choices. Haven't heard of the first but I've seen a Private Snafu film, an fascinating look back. I only made about ten minutes of Fritz the Cat. I watched because of its infamy but it was vulgar and smutty and I just couldn't care enough to stick with it any further.
I am not an animation fan in the main so this was tough. I enjoyed my first choice but I watched my other two just to have three picks and they were ones I'd noticed before but they were both rotten.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)-Schlubby private eye Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is hired by R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) a cartoon producer to investigate an adultery scandal involving Jessica Rabbit (Kathleen Turner), who isn’t bad she’s just drawn that way, wife of Maroon's biggest star, Roger Rabbit (Charles Fleischer). Things heat up even more when owner of Toontown Marvin Acme (Stubby Kaye), Jessica's supposed lover, is found murdered, the evil Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) vows to catch and destroy Roger. Excellent blend of animation and actors with Kathleen Turner by way of Veronica Lake doing sensational voice work.
Cool World (1992)-A prisoner Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) has created a comic book universe from his cell and one day finds himself sucked into it where he discovered not only another trapped human Frank Harris (Brad Pitt) but his lascivious creation Holli Would (Kim Basinger) who tries to entice Jack by ANY means so that she can cross over to the human world and with her a Pandora’s Box of cartoon depravity. Ugly leering film of value only to see Pitt working his way up.
A Scanner Darkly (2006)-Stupid hodgepodge about an undercover cop trying to bust a drug cartel but coming under the influence of the drug he becomes a test subject himself…or something like that. The hook here is that the movie was filmed with actors (Keanu Reeves, Wynona Ryder and Woody Harrelson among them) and then retro scoped with animation. It wasn’t worth it, all concept and little entertainment.
I really want to see Fritz the Cat but I haven't been able to find it anywhere :(
Haven't heard of the first 2 but I know of the others. Fritz is notorious but always wanted to see it. Good ole Snafu which I enjoyed watching and so politically incorrect now but I love it as this is history and one must view it as such.
I first learned of the Pvt. Snafu movies a couple of years ago when TCM ran a spotlight with the author of a book on five directors who took time out to serve in World War II; the Snafu shorts were used as filler extras between movies. It's not just that they're history, it's that they were designed for an audience of younger men who weren't going to have any female companionship around for quite some time.
There was actually a book released a couple of years ago of nude pics from World War II. Apparently quite a few soldiers with cameras would take one or two nude pictures (often from the back or otherwise posed to hide the genitals) as a prank, and somebody collected a whole bunch of photos to put them together for the book.
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