Animation Express (2005-2009) [Blu-ray]
Animation | Short | Fantasy

Take a journey beyond your wildest imagination with this amazingly inventive, hugely entertaining collection of 26 animated shorts sure to delight viewers of all ages! With everything from modern masterworks such as and Sleeping Betty to groundbreaking experimental shorts and classic cartoons, emerging talents join seasoned directors from the National Film Board of Canada, employing a startling palette of technologies to create animation magic.
Films Include:
• Madame Tutti-Putli
• Spare Change
• Forming Game
• The Spine
• Hungu
• The Man Who Slept
• Rosa Rosa
• How People Got Fire
• Rains
• Robes of War
• Retouches
• Drux Flux
• Subservience
• Sleeping Betty
• Invasion of the Space Lobsters
• The Necktie, Sainte Barbe
• Come Again in Spring
• Paradise
• HA'Aki
• Vive la Rose
• Here and There
• Land of the Heads
• Flutter, Runaway
• Engine 371

Since 1941, the Film Board of Canada has sponsored and produced short films by some of the most influential artists in the world of animation, from the groundbreaking experiments of Norman McLaren, to Torill Kove's The Danish Poet, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Animated Short Film. If you haven't heard of the FBoC, don't fret—characteristically for America's neighbor to the north, they keep a low profile—but for 70 years they've been one of the foremost advocates for independent animators, churning out hundreds of shorts and garnering almost just as many awards.
While much of this work is absolutely brilliant, it goes largely unseen, simply because short form animation is a niche product and there's really no easy way to market or sell it. Thankfully, the FBoC occasionally puts out a compilation disc, like the spectacular collection Animation Express, which gives us easy access to 39 of the film board's most wildly imaginative and technically stunning productions from the past 10 years.

[CSW] -2.2- I didn't see much value in most of these animations. It could be that most were too far removed in time -- they go back 10 years, from the availability of really good animation tools and thus lacked the sophistication that I probably have come to expect.

--- JOYA ---

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