Hatrack River Forum: Why I love Salon.com....

This is topic Why I love Salon.com.... in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.

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Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

I just spent an hour listening to 20 absurdly good MP3 tracks; half of them were from artists I had never even heard of, and they're almost certainly going to result in some CD purchases.

And Christy and I spent an hour before that actually watching five of the shorts nominated for "Best Short Film" at the Oscars; Salon obtained the rights to air them for one day only -- ending at midnight tonight -- and made 'em available to their subscribers. Two in particular -- "Ryan" and "7:30 in the Morning" -- are absolutely brilliant, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to see them without having to remember to drag myself to a film festival.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

I meant to remember to watch those short films when I got home from work today, but I completely spaced it off! [Mad]

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

If you missed 'em, I'd strongly recommend making the effort to at least track down the two I mentioned above. I think you can actually get "Ryan" from another website -- Salon's link in this case was just a redirect, rather than the direct stream that the others were -- and it's probably worth the effort to find.

Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :

Thanks for the recommendation--I'll do that.

Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :

So which songs did you like? Recommend, brother, recommend!

Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :

You can watch Ryan here: http://www.nfb.ca/oscars2005/nfbpop2.html

Posted by Zeugma (Member # 6636) on :

I thought I was going to like "Ryan", being an aspiring 3D animator and all, but then I watched it and realized it was just an onanistic attempt for some hack to use the legend of a true tortured artist to make himself seem more credible. The opening scene, in particular, is ridiculously shallow. Second only to the interruption in the otherwise interesting money sequence, where he turns to the camera and jerks the attention back onto himself.

Nice special effects, sure, though they seem more tacked on for the "wow" factor than there to support the film... but man. It should have been titled "Chris".

And that walk cycle at the beginning makes me want to throw something at the screen. [Razz]

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

"I watched it and realized it was just an onanistic attempt for some hack to use the legend of a true tortured artist to make himself seem more credible."

Does the fact that he acknowledges this make it any better? [Smile]

And honestly, I hesitate to call the animator a "hack;" some of that animation is wonderful. When you consider that absolutely none of it is motion-capture, but freehand photo-realism and CGI, it seems hard to call the art "hack"-work.

[ February 26, 2005, 09:05 PM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]

Posted by Zeugma (Member # 6636) on :

How much of that animation was actually done by Chris? The list of credits for "Ryan" is quite long, and he's only listed for Director, Character Design, and "voice".

And no, acknowledgment of self-indulgence doesn't necessarily make it any better, especially when the artist takes it to such an irritating level. I've seen more than enough student films to know the difference between well-crafted meta self-indulgence and mere angsty amateur self-indulgence. [Razz]