Module 13: Japan (and the Rest of Asia) and Computer Animation

Hoo boy. This was a MASSIVE module, mainly because it incorporated two huge topics that probably warrant their own modules: Computer animation and Japanese animation. Computers have been a major tool in the production of animation since the 1970s, giving the ability to produce rendered animation with a 3 dimensional look or vector animation. It has taken over not only the field of animated films but also the production of many live action features. The technicalities of computer animation is way beyond the limits of my understanding, but needless to say it has completely transformed the animation industry.

And then there's the realm of Japanese animation, which has gained a massive following of its own. While animation has been in production since the 1910s and 1920s, it didn't really start to take off until the efforts of Osamu Tezuka, who is prolific in both the production of manga and anime. From then it expanded into Japanese culture as anime films and series became a big source of entertainment for the Japanese. And now it is becoming an international interest. I'm a big fan of the films of Studio Ghibli, and from that people seem to think of me as being an anime buff, but I've really cut back on watching anime since getting into the Oscar nominated animated shorts,* while my sisters have taken on the title of true blue anime otaku. It's still an interesting field for me.

*I really should come up with some abbreviation for this term, like ONIS.

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Ranking the Oscar Nominated Shorts 1972-1981

When I started this blog back in February, I was posting reviews at a rate of two a week, but I later had to pare it down to one a week as I couldn't keep up with the pace. With the new rate it felt as though it would take us forever to get through, but now we've hit the halfway point in our reviews in what feels like a blink of an eye. True, it has been eight months and a whole lot of things have happened in my life in that time, but it still feels like nothing more like a hop, skip, and a jump since my first review on this blog. And the halfway point of 80 years is 40 years, and you know what happens every 10 years? I rank the nominees by preference. I've been maintaining these rankings in each individual years by quality and preference, but when combining them all into one big list I focus solely on preference because that is much more subjective. Of course, that would lead to some incidents where some films that are not quite so good gets ranked high and masterpieces that are ranked low. But hey, at least there are no absolutely mediocre films that have been nominated...right? Well, except for A Greek Tragedy, and that film actually won. *grumble grumble*

So...1972-1981. For the most part there were three nominees a year, like the decade that came...after. However, there were two years with four nominees, and one busy year with five nominees, so that comes out to 34 films, just a wee bit above the 1982-1991 list. Is that going to change the complexion of things? We shall see. But for now...let the countdown begin!

NULL: Dedalo (1976)
Impossible to find, especially since my online course is turning out to be a dead end. However from what I've seen of it I'm not quite as excited about this as Lorenzo, but dammit! It still needs to be seen somehow!

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Best Animated Short - 1974

Well, I've had quite an adventure since finishing my last review back on Thursday, August 30. The day after that, I finished my Infectious Disease rotation in Akron, OH and went on a detour to Atlanta, GA to watch a Braves game. You see, I had seen eight games at eight stadiums so far this year, and hadn't even seen a Rangers game yet, even though they are the closest team to me. I figure I'll probably watch a Rangers game by the end of the year. If I can just see another game on my way back from Ohio I'd have seen games at 1/3 of the Major League stadiums, which would be a mini ballpark tour. When I found out I get a Labor Day weekend, I immediately set off to look for home games that wouldn't deviate too much from the 18-hour drive.

In the end I found that the Cubs and Braves had home games on Saturday, September 1, and attending those games only adds 4 hours to my drive. Chicago is six hours away from Akron while Atlanta is 12 hours away. The Cubs game is at 1:05 while the Braves game is at 4:05. In the end I opted to visit Atlanta.

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