Friday, September 14, 2007

Animating the Animator

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Chris Landreth animates himself in his award winning short RYAN



Chris Landreth pays tribute to the life and legacy of Ryan Larkin in a brilliant visual masterpiece of animation art.



Chris Landreth (born 1961 in Hartford, CT), an American director, animator and writer working in Canada, uses standard CGI animation in his work. But well beyond that, he often puts his signature touch of surrealist styling into his animated shorts. He does so especially successfully in Ryan, a 2004 Oscar winning animated psychological documentary of Ryan Larkin (1943-2007), featuring actual taped interviews as voiceover.

Chris calls his stunning and unembellished visual portraiture 'Psychorealism'.

Ryan Larkin was a renowned animator in the 60s and 70s, who had gotten caught up in a downward spiral of excessive drinking, cocaine abuse, and homelessness which eventually lead to his death in February 2007 at age 64.


When asked how he came up with the idea for Ryan, Landreth said,


"I met Ryan Larkin in the summer of 2000. I hung out with him for one week and thought, "What a life story this guy has". It has all the elements of drama. It's got tragedy, comedy, absurdity, [and] this redemptive element. And there are some other themes as a result of it that are about Ryan, but also about alcoholism, addiction, mental illness and fear of failure."



[Must see: Hollow Man on CROSS-CULTURAL OUTLINE]


[For a different kind of animation: click here]


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Deliciously Dysfunctional Tryst

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If a love story is called for, Angel Eyes delivers romance and drama wrapped up in mystery and suspense.


Two highly dysfunctional people come together
A Film Critique by The Commentator


The 2001 drama/romance Angel Eyes, directed by Mexican-born Luis Mandoki and starring Jennifer Lopez and James Caviezel, exhibits the finer side of main-stream "commercial" movie making by resisting the sell-out of shallowness and predictability . The main characters are well crafted and well developed in the course of the film and reveal depth of emotion and convincing inner conflict. The subtle plot clues are achieved by using points of view and camera angles and nothing is given away until the final denouement.

For a script that relies heavily on an undercurrent of mysterious off-screen events and early psychological trauma as the foundation and validation of the plot, Angel Eyes is exceptionally well laid out and right on target.
The Amalgamated Perspectives 3.5 star Award

About the actress

About Jennifer Lynn Lopez (born to Puerto Rican parents in 1969 in the Bronx, N.Y.), is a Hispanic American actress, singer, songwriter and business entrepreneur.
Lopez's childhood friends nicknamed her "The Supernova," and her first husband, Cuban Ojani Noa, called her "La Guitarra". This first marriage lasted barely a year. In 2001 she married actor and choreographer Cris Judd (divorced in 2003) and is currently married to the popular Salsa and Latin pop star Marc Anthony (2004–present).



[For details about plot and cast go to Angel Eyes]



[Read a review of a film from a completely different genre]



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