The Animation Show, Volume 2 (2005)

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Curated by animators Don Hertzfeld and Mike Judge, this is a wide ranging collection of animation; computer, clay, hand-drawn, dramatic, funny, abstract, documentary. You name it. As with any collection of many shorts the quality is wide ranging too, and personal taste will play a big part in how a given person responds. But the best bits here are quite brilliant, and make this set worthwhile for fans of animation aimed at an adult audience. If Volume 2 isn't quite as filled with gems as volume 1, I was still very glad to have seen it. And given that Volume 1 and 2 currently seem to only be available as a pretty inexpensive 2-DVD box set, the total package - with a nice booklet with a biographical sketch on each of the artists represented, and a decent number of special features and extras - was an small investment I was very glad to have madeThe best of Volume 2 for my taste were: Jonathan Nix's wistful and imaginative 'Hello'. and Don Hertzfeld's wondrously funny, dark and sometimes sad "The Meaning of Life" - an oddly but potently poetic cartoon. But even the less brilliant are all interesting, with only a very few real clunkers in the bunch.Note: For me, the best of the available collections was the later Volume 3, which has a tremendously high ratio of hits to misses.

I was a huge fan of the first Animation Show disk, so I was sure to see this second collection. However, I was very disappointed because the films just weren't very funny--as they tended towards "arsty-fartsy" films that just made my head hurt.One of the biggest disappointments was the virtual absence of Don Hertzfeldt's cartoons throughout the DVD--only having the bizarre and not particularly good MEANING OF LIFE. Likewise, PAN WITH US and MAGDA were too artsy and I disliked them. Fortunately, WARD 13 was a sick and twisted and funny film and the rest of the films were adequate.Fortunately, THE ANIMATION SHOW does get much better with Volume Three. Three is NOT funny like one, but features much more amazing and mind-blowing films--and one of my all-time favorites, the unsavory and cool RABBIT.

It pains me to write a mediocre review of this animation collection, but compared to the first year's collection, this batch doesn't measure up.The first Animation Show collection had a good balance between technically-interesting animation and shorts that were down-right entertaining. It was so good I saw it three times in the theater, was on the waiting list for the first round of the DVD release, and have since shown it in my home theater to friends numerous times. Naturally, I was very eager to see the 2005 collection.This year's show favored shorts that were remarkable for the technical superiority of the animation techniques, unfortunately at the expense of including many shorts with actual entertainment value. Are these shorts works of art? Undoubtedly, but I have a feeling they won't achieve anywhere near the cult-status of many of the shorts in the first collection.The only exception to my observation was Bill Plympton's "Guard Dog." Despite not being a fan of Bill Plympton, I found this short to be pretty good and worthy of a few chuckles, even if it was predictable.

Yeah, everyone knows Plympton (and "Guard Dog" was a funny short) and the stick figure guy (Hertzfeldt)'s "Meaning of Life" (which had some very funny moments), but I want to recommend seeing this collection for one of the lesser known shorts. Slight spoiler ahead: It was called "Hello" (by Jonathan Nix). It was about this character with a cassette tape player for a head, trying to work up the courage to approach a cd player head character to ask her out. He goes to his old friend the gramophone/record player head for help. Even as a generally cynical person who hates trite sentimentality I still thought the entire piece was very sweet. It was very creative, well done and the story was the right length, hit the right tones, etc. My only suggestion was to put the names of the songs in the credits.I also really liked the animation for "When the Day Breaks" (by Tilby & Forbis) - the anthromorphized animals were really well done. However the 'story' was weak. "Ward 13" (by Peter Cornwall) done in claymation was good, suspenseful and amusing.On another note, I didn't really think the computer graphic animation shorts should really have been included - or it should've been a separate section. I tend to think of that as not quite the same as non computerized animation. I look for different things and have different expectations when I watch those. However one did stick out as highly amusing, though it will only appeal to you if you have a twisted sense of humor, it's called "Fallen Art" (featuring the "Asfalt Ballet") I wont' ruin it for you by describing it but it is amusing (in a sick way) and definitely very creative.