Sunday, February 7, 2010

DVD: Animation From Around The World



I picked up this DVD at Dollarama. It was nestled between all the shitty narrated children's book DVDs, and the 3-Crappy-70s-Movies-In-1 DVDs. Just from the title, I figured I'd find something at least remotely bizarre on it.

The DVD turned out to be a dollar well spent. It's FULL of bizarre shit!

According to the internet, this is actually a repackaged video originally called "The International Tournee of Animation: Volume 4." People have apparently paid $30-$40 for this thing on VHS, and here I picked it up in a dollar store.

I'm putting up two segments from this video. The first is a segment of moving blobs, narrated by a man and a woman having sex. Don't believe me? Watch it:



Before I get into the second video, I want you to take a good look at the back of the DVD case. Read it:



Unfortunately, I cannot put the second video on Youtube. If I do, it will get removed because it violates Youtube's terms due to the pumping sex action and big titties!

This isn't the only offensive piece on the DVD, there are a few others. This is just the most offensive one. Not only is it a bit creepy, it contains war, nutity, and sex - everything you'd want your children to see in a DVD from the dollar store!

It's about a 30M download. CLICK HERE TO GET IT!



And if you'd like to own a copy of this DVD but can't find it in your local dollar store, you can get it from Amazon.

6 comments:

Dee96 said...

On the front cover, that looks like Arnold (from "Hey Arnold!")

J. Lahondere said...

This crap is downright frightening.

The Whiz Kid Forte said...

You're right, Dee96, that boy sure looks like the titular character of Hey Arnold!

Chris Sobieniak said...

I remember another blogger years ago mentioning a similar thing with an EastWest DVD he bought that was taken from another Expanded Entertainment release called "Animation Celebration Vol. 1", so this is not new to me.

I use to borrow a VHS copy of the few International Tournee of Animation tapes from the public library back in the mid 90's. It was quite a interesting collection shorts, most rarely seen at all outside festivals and the art house crowd (or filler on HBO). My favs include Michel Gagné's "A Touch of Deceit", Buzzco's "A Warm Reception in L.A." (using a look they would later use for PSA's and segments of Square One Television) and perhaps the Beastie Boys video "Shadrach". Other noted works include Alexander Petrov's "The Cow" and the Oscar-winning "Balance" by Christoph and Wolfgang Laurenstein.

The Arnold seen on the cover of this DVD comes from one of the shorts originally animated by Craig Bartlett himself back around 1990 called "The Arnold Waltz". The film itself used a technique of animating clay figures on a pane of glass underneath the camera. This gave the films a sort of depth between the characters and backgrounds as both background and foreground elements were placed in levels apart from each other at a certain distance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2toJG1Ex-ME

Another film produced by Bartlett earlier was "Arnold Escapes From Church", which pretty much went the same route of a kid using his imagination and daydreams during the time. This was the Arnold I also recall from the comics that were once published in Simpsons Illustrated Magazine (as Matt Groening is Craig's brother-in-law).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBudWRMeH4o

In noticing "Pictures from Memory" that I can still download (the other video is gone now), this is quite a fine example of the work of the studio Zagreb Film in Croatia (then the former Yugoslavia), the film itself is pretty much the artist semi-biographical view of his life from childhood to college, and in particular, an era from the second world war to the beginnings of the Cold War. I enjoyed this film myself for what the artist wanted to say about the world he had known and lived through. Animation has a way of expressing these concepts in ways that a live-action film might not be able to do so easily in a few minutes without added dialogue or other expositional setups.

I think this DVD probably should never had been released the way it was since it was an illegit copy anyway (possibly from a LaserDisc source since I do have a LD copy of the same material, the LD itself is missing a couple shorts including inserts made by Bill Plympton for MTV), let alone selling it as a children's title the way it was placed in dollar DVD bins for the past number of years. The original release from "Expanded Entertainment" had disclaimers informing viewers of the material beforehand and the box cover touted the message "Animation for Grown Ups" as it's slogan. It really shouldn't have been released at all due to the reasons above, yet at the same time, I'm glad it is if it gave some people an interest to check out something outside the mainstream once in a while.

Chris Sobieniak said...

Bothering to add iodine to the pain, here's some of the other offerings from the 22nd International Tournee of Animation that was toured around 1989-90...

Plymptoons (Bill Plympton): http://www.veoh.com/watch/v20051175SGt6BMAz
A Touch of Deceit (Michel Gagne): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ShZxsylm3Y
The Cow (Alexandr Petrov): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwbBRv8qIpI
Cat & Rat (Jim Richardson): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIai4c8hyXo
Sand Dance (Richard Quade): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-haEk09srU
Vykrutasy (Garry Bardin): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6NRJWD0kYU
Gisele Kerozene (Jan Kounen and Eisa Cayo): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwMHD4mteMs
Animated Self Portraits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwdo1_n8qS4
A Warm Reception in L.A. (Buzzco Associates): http://s3.amazonaws.com/mcookiesmedia/warmreceptioninlamd.mov
The Bedroom (Maarten Koopman): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRKuZ7KqpvQ
Balance (Christoph & Wolfgang Laurenstein): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfBMimsvTKI

rabia said...
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