The Animatrix
5/31, the Egyptian, 9:30 pm, limited availabliity
7/10

Segment, Director (notes)
1. The Second Renaissance Part 1*, Mahiro Maeda (both segments, limited previous US release credits)
2. The Second Renaissance Part 2*
3. Program, Yoshiaki Kawajiri (a Vampire Hunter D film, Bloodlust)
4. Beyond, Kouji Morimoto (animator on Kiki’s Delivery Service)
5. World Record, Takeshi Koike
6. Kid’s Story*, Shinichiro Watanabe (Vampire Hunter D, more)
7. Matriculated, Peter Chung (Aeon Flux)
8. A Detective Story, Shinichiro Watanabe (Vampire Hunter D, more)
9. Final Flight of the Osiris*, Andy Jones (animation supervisor or contributor to Final Fantasy, Titanic)

*Written by Matrix creators Joel and Andy Wachowski

The May 31 screening of all nine Animatrix shorts at the Egyptian is likely to be one of the most coveted tickets at SIFF this year, coming four days prior to the release date of the Animatrix DVD on June 3. The print I saw at the press screening was on film, which surprised and pleased me. On the whole, the shorts will appeal most strongly to hard-core Matrix fans; but there are works of genuine merit as animated short films in the mix.

The Miyazaki-esque Beyond and the previously-released hyper-realist CG work, The Final Flight of The Osiris, benefited most from the large-screen showing. Osiris was presented in February with Dreamcatcher and looks very much like the CG animated film Final Fantasy. That’s no accident, as the director, Andy Jones, was the animation supervisor for Final Fantasy. We learn how the denizens of Zion gain knowledge of the robot army that menaces them in Matrix Reloaded. While the film succeeds, I was still annoyed by the CGI synthespians. Why not just use real actors, instead of failing with these digital dolls as we’ve seen repeatedly over the last few years?

The best film of the set is Beyond, in which a glitch in the Matrix’s rendering software creates a haunted house that is gleefully explored by some Japanese kids. Director Kouji Morimoto, who worked on Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, creates an affecting, beautifully imagined and visualized vignette of urban Japanese life.

With the good comes the mundane and the bad, and this set is no exception. It came as a surprise to me that the film that stood out as at least ill-advised and at worst lawsuit bait had been scripted by the Wachowskis. Kid’s Story directly equates teen suicide with joining the rebellion against the Matrix. I winced, and so will others, until one day we read about it in the paper. I have no idea what they were thinking.

I could go on, but SIFF has requested pre-release reviews remain capsules, so I’ll hold my peace for now. All in all, no surprises, and film snobs might have a better time elsewhere. Matrix geeks, however, won’t care what film snobs think, and so it ever shall be.

Originally written for and posted to the Tablet SIFF Reviews board.

(I’ll be writing a longer review of the films for Cinescape as well.)

American Splendor
Dir: Shri Sprinter Berman & Robert Pulcini
USA, 2003 : 100 minutes
Wed. 6/04 @ 7:00 pm Egyptian Theatre & Mon 6/9 @9:30 Pacific Place Cinemas
RATING: 9/10

Paul Giamatti’s spectacular portrayal of comic book author Harvey Pekar amazes. When Giamatti’s Pekar leaves the green room for Letterman’s stage the mid-80’s, the filmmakers pan to a monitor showing the real Pekar’s actual appearance. It’s hard to recognize that we’re looking at two different men. Giamatti, who is also seen onscreen with the real Pekar circa 2002, manages to inhabit both the Pekar we first saw on Late Night and the expressively drawn versions seen in Pekar’s comics, drawn by different artists.

He slouches, he slumps, his eyes bulge. He is really Harvey. Except he’s not. The thoughtful, funny script has a ball playing with this, just as Pekar does in his books. I can’t do the film justice here. Go see it. Giamatti’s performance is only one of many things about the film that made it a wonderful moviegoing experience.

(Another reviewer on the Tablet blog was not as enthused about the film, put off by Pekar’s incessant, whining self-pity. A possible difference is that I’m a comic-book geek who’s long loved Pekar’s work. If anything, the film lightens Pekar’s comic-book portrayal by several shades of depressive, misanthropic black.)

Originally written for and posted to the Tablet SIFF Reviews board.
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Additionally, I’ve been looking forward to the film since I had heard about it last year, and was very encouraged when it won some awards at Sundance earlier this year. I confess to having eagerly enjoyed the non-sequitir appearances by Harvey on the Letterman show in the 1980’s, and have vivid recollections of his final appearance.

An interesting aspect of seeing it now, in the blog era, is that to one extent or another, Pekar’s been blogging his own life for damn near twenty-five years now. And making damn fine literature out of it, too. A particular difference of his execution versus mine, in blogland, is that there’s serious structural work, conscious literary creation of a character named Harvey Pekar, in his comics.

Whereas here, I’m speaking in a very unselfconscious first person voice, actively seeking to present the words here in my own, actual personal manner, only occasionally seeking careful literary control. I suppose this may be a part of what Anne and others chew on in the great “is blogging journalism” debate, from another angle.

Here’s a corollary question: is American Splendor, the comic book, journalism? What about the movie?

(I looked and looked for a website for the film – but couldn’t come up with one!)