Blogging the NewFest: Animation Program; 2 Minutes Later, Starrbooty

I have always loved Saturday morning cartoons, and the NewFest has always satisfied that old jones by providing an animation program on Saturday mornings every year.

This year there were 18 entries, including two from Michael Trull and Rick Ziegler, who had an entry last year that was lots of fun and had everyone laughing so hard that we missed half the jokes. Luckily it was repeated as a short in another program. This year their "Small Talk...At the Gym" and (on the left top) "Bro and Dude's Cool Afternoon" were equally hysterical. Part Robert Smigel TV Funhouse and part Stoner Movie take-off their short cartoons deserve wider circulation despite the fact that the court as many lawsuits as the creators of South Park.

Relationships, from Brazil, reminded me of Shel Silverstein's Missing Piece. Except that is was so much more psychologically astute, and witty to boot. Showing couples of various shapes and what they do to fit together (and the result) it had a warmth and compassion for our search that left everyone feeling both happy and sad at the same time. No small feat.

Softly starts by having fun with the phenomenon of Bratz dolls, those weirdly designed dolls with oversized heads and huge eyes. Kind of like the Keene paintings of kids with big eyes in the 60s, only made 3D to play with for girls. Well, Bryan Jackson made several boy Bratz dolls and then sent up every cliche of romance, queer and otherwise, in a way that was simply brilliant. Every detail and shot was perfect.

Also of note was John Goodwin's Fabulosity. His films have turned up now 3 years running, and by far this was my favorite of them all. A kind of live-action/animated musical comedy version of Twilight of the Golds, the play about what happens when a family can learn through DNA testing if their kid will be queer.

Foolishly I went to the experimental program. I should know better. I hate films that are non-narrative. Maybe I missed something good, but I walked out after the first film to take advantage of the sunny day, so I went uptown and walked thru Central Park before making dinner and heading back for the evening program.

First up was "2 Minutes Later." This program began with a black and white short called "Lucky Man" an excellent recreation of film noir with a queer twist. Very well done. Director Dan Faltz probably drank milk from Dashiell Hammett's breast (now there's an image).

"2 Minutes Later" was a buddy detective movie, with the buddies being a gay man and a lesbian thrown together by chance and who bond between chases, trysts with others, bullets flying and cocktails. Smartly written (and looking great in spite of a production budget of $170,000, and shot in 17 days) and directed by Robert Gaston, it deserves distribution immediately, though, like so many small budget independently produced films at NewFest, it has yet to be picked up. The actors had real chemistry: Michael Molina and Jessica Graham were a perfect pair (and perfectly paired off in their own styles with others for hot gay male and lesbian sex scenes). Not many flix offer something for both gay men and lesbians. As he introduced the film, Gaston said: "We're not trying to save the world with this film, we just want to entertain people for a couple of hours." He has well succeeded.

Poor Peter Stickles caught some flack from the audience, not for his performance here as the murderer (no, this doesn't give anything away) but for his appearance in The Lair, which I noted earlier, was dreadful. He took this graciously, by playfully flipping the bird.

Last was Ru Paul in Starrbooty. As Joe My God noted after seeing a preview the other night, "set your faces on stunned." And he isn't wrong about that. Very funny, in its opening moments it was as wildly hilarious as John Waters' Desperate Living. Poking fun while paying homage to so many genres at once makes for a dizzying experience. It could still use some editing, since it is a bit long and some of the jokes wear thin after the third time. But the soundtrack, filled with new numbers sung by RP, was terrific. And available on iTunes soon.

Today is the hard day. In the theater from 1:15pm straight through to after 11. So it's time to go and buy some sandwiches.

Comments

[3D Animation Movie on Lord Ayyappa]

good animation program