Christmas has come early this holiday season. They've rolled out the dollar DVDs at the end of Giant Foods' Holiday Aisle and let me tell you people, these are stocking stuffers of the Gods! Especially my new favorite purveyor of 100-penny entertainment, East West DVD (www.eastwestdvd.com). Lord knows they have the cheapest, most misleading cover art known to man, and the films are obviously taken from VHS tapes, but they deliver the goods! (and goods that are extremely hard to find elsewhere). And you don't have to be Bixby Snyder (Robocop's "I'll Buy That For A Dollar" man) to know what a value awaits you!
The gem of my dollar deals has to be something called ANIMATION CLASSICS. This one has absolutely no information on it to let you know who, what, where, when or how, but I'm here to tell you, grab this DVD. It's the Holy Grail of European and indie experimental animation, containing many titles either previously unavailable or available only on 16mm film. I know, because several of them are part of Enoch Pratt Free Library's incredible rare 16mm film collection. East West DVD is currently selling four animation collections:
- ANIMATION FROM AROUND THE WORLD (a 96-minute repackaging of 1991's The International Tournee of Animation: Volume 4)
- GREAT ANIMATION 2 (a 60-minute repackaging of 1985's Academy Award Winners Animated Short Films, which includes two Will Vinton claymation gems, Sundae in New York and Closed Mondays)
- GREAT ANIMATION VOL. 3 (an 80-minute repackaging of 1991's Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation Volume 1, a collection of 14 films from 5 countries that is highlighted by Juliet Stroud's hilarious Snookles and the similarly themed Bambi Meets Godzilla)
- and ANIMATION CLASSICS
ANIMATION CLASSICS is a 96-minute repackaging of 1991's long out-of-print Animation Celebration Video Collection Volume 1, which contained the best films chosen from the first Los Angeles International Animation Celebration. There is no main menu and no description anywhere of what's on the 2-chapter disc. Below is a listing of the 23 short films you will find on it (many thanks to packratshow 's Live Journal blog for compiling the information that follows).
Auguszta szepitkezik (1983, Csaba Varga, Hungary, 5 minutes) - Translates as "Augusta Makes Herself Beautiful." Enoch Pratt Free Library has Varga's similar Az Ebed (Lunch) on 16mm film
'Cat and Mouse' at the Home (1983, Kirk Henderson, 5 minutes) - a spoof of Tom and Jerry cartoons
De Karakters (1986, Evert de Beijer, Netherlands, 7 minutes)
Pileto (The Chicken) (1982, Sortir Gelev, Bulgaria 1 minute)
Come Back To Sorrento
Disconnected (1988, Craig Welch, Canada, 5 minutes)
Happy Hour (1983, Brett Koth, 3 minutes)
Quasi's Cabaret Trailer (1980, Sally Cruikshank, 3 minutes)
Mongo Makongo (1986, Michael Posch, 8 minutes)
Quest: A Long Ray's Journey Into Light (1986, Michael Scuilli and Melissa White, 4 minutes)
Kuku (1983, Velislav Kazakov, Bulgaria, 3 minutes)
Seiltänzer (Rope Dance) (1986, Raimmund Krumme, 10 minutes)
Sunbeam (1980, Paul Vester, UK, 4 minutes)
Traveling Light (1985, Jane Aaron, 2 minutes)
La Belle et la Boîte (1982, Paul Dreissen, Netherlands, 3 minutes) - Dreissen's best known for his work on The Beatles 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine
Second Class Mail (1985, Alison Snowden, 4 minutes)
The Wreck of the Julie Plante (1985, Stephen Watson, 4 minutes)
Animation Has No Borders (1986, Peter Sweenen, 5 minutes) - compiles animation by 36 animators from 36 different countries, set to the music of "The Internationale"!
The Strange Case of Mr. Donnybrook's Boredom (1981, David Silverman, 6 minutes) - an animated Ogden Nash poem
It's an O.K. Life (1980, George Griffin, 3 minutes) - Griffin is best known for his chronicle of animated style, Lineage (for more on Griffin, see Geogrif and Canyon Cinema)
Moebius Play (1985, Tita Cooley, 3 minutes)
Dino Alley (1985, 1 minute)
The Chore (1987, Joe Murray, 2 minutes)
Broken Down Film (1985, Osamu Tezuka, Japan, 6 minutes) - from the creator of Astro Boy!
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