Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story (2005)

Posted on May 28, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #47
Pete Michels | 85 mins | DVD | 15

Following Family Guy’s cancellation after three seasons, it somehow found a new lease of life on DVD, posting surprising sales in what was, I suppose, the early years of the format’s mass take-off. This led to a rethink by Fox and a belated (as in, several years later) renewal for the animated sitcom. This story was originally intended to form a three-part opener to the first season back, but Fox wanted a direct-to-DVD movie too — presumably to capitalise financially on that previous success — and so those three episodes were retooled into a feature.

We know how this can turn out.

And it does feel like three Family Guy episodes stitched together. Much like that other stitched-together-from-three-animated-TV-episodes movie, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the events of part one (or the first twenty-odd minutes) seem entirely separated from the two-parter that makes up the back hour. Fortunately the Family Guy team seem to have more common sense than their Lucasfilm counterparts, choosing to link back round to the start for their film’s climax, tying it all together after all. Nice work.

The plot is more or less suitably movieised — despite that first-part almost-disjoint, it’s a more-epic-than-usual tale of Stewie’s origins (sort of) — though it seems slightly held back by its genesis as three TV episodes and the need for it ultimately to be split back up (it was broadcast, censored, as a three-parter at the end of the comeback season). With subplots that begin and end within each half-hour(-ish) segment, it plays about as well as watching a three-parter back to back… which is more than can be said for that Star Wars film. Consequently, it also feels just like regular Family Guy — the same level of humour, basically — though it seemed to me like there were more scatological jokes than normal, some of them going on too long as well. If you’re not a regular viewer of the series, references to running jokes will pass you by; equally, the nature of its humour, often based in cultural references, means that some bits that are obviously jokes will elicit no more than bafflement from a non-versed viewer. Still, there’s plenty of more universal humour too. It relies on the usual style of numerous non sequitur flashbacks and asides. Which, again, is fine — that’s their style; it would be wrong to be anything else.

The need to turn three TV-aimed episodes into a movie — and, somewhat ironically, back again afterwards — does have a few effects on proceedings. Various bits had to be cut for the broadcast version, most for the silly technicalities of US TV rules — the fact the DVD is rated 15 over here, the same as the series normally is, shows how arbitrary US regulations are. It feels like there are a few more jokes that are slightly dirtier than normal and there are a few extra swear words, but they consciously didn’t go OTT with them and, thankfully, it shows. But actually, most of the stuff that’s cut (as detailed on the commentary or in full here) is for those daft US rules; so, stuff that just steps over a certain line; stuff that, to be honest, most Americans wouldn’t even notice.

Also, contractually the film had to make a certain length, so there’s some conscious padding in there — though, as they note on the commentary, they did their best to make the padding funny too. Take the intermission, for instance, which features just voices over a black “Intermission” screen: dirt cheap to animate (what with there being no animation) but it both adds a bit to the running time and smoothes the jump between parts two and three.

I don’t know how much I’ve reviewed the film and how much shared some behind-the-scenes tidbits here, but if you like Family Guy… well, you’ve probably already seen this (it’s been out, what, six years? I’m behind here), and if you don’t like it there’s nothing to change your mind. And if you’ve always been curious but never given it a go, don’t start here — I don’t think it would be incomprehensible to first-time viewers, but I don’t think it’s the best introduction to the series either, and it probably makes more sense if you know the characters a bit.

This score reflects that lack of universal appeal; for regular viewers, I’d say it’s good quality and probably four stars.

Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

Posted on March 26, 2011 by badblokebob

aka Rupan sansei: Kariosutoro no shiro

2011 #9
1979 | Hayao Miyazaki | 100 mins | TV | PG

The Castle of Cagliostro, the second animated big-screen spin-off from manga-inspired anime TV series Lupin III, was the first film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who even non-anime fans have heard of these days thanks to Spirited Away’s Oscar win (eight years ago now!) and Pixar’s recent championing of him.

I’m ashamed to say I haven’t see a great deal of Miyazaki’s output, so I can’t comment on how much of an indicator (or otherwise) Cagliostro is of what was to come, but it’s a fine film in its own right — Steven Spielberg reportedly called it “one of the greatest adventure movies of all time”, and I’m inclined to agree.

For starters, the action sequences are brilliant — exciting, inventive and varied. I don’t know if Spielberg saw this before tackling any of the Indiana Joneses, but you can feel the tonal connection. There’s also a similar amount of humour. The animation itself is very good — there are prettier examples of the genre, but the locations especially are beautifully painted, and it’s aged very well for a ’70s-produced animation. The score is rather dated though.

As I mentioned, this is the second spin-off film from a TV series, and at times it does feel like it: characters turn up under the impression the audience already knows who they are and what their connection is to the others. It’s not a major problem — most are introduced well enough within the context of the film that it can still be easily followed — but it’s there.

Is this a good film to interest non-anime fans? Maybe. The plot and structure are familiar (in a good way) from the wider adventure genre, and some of anime’s regular stylistic flourishes aren’t as much in evidence as in some other works. The genial tone may make it too “Saturday morning cartoon” for some — and by “some” I tend to mean teenagers or the teenage-minded, who would be better suited to something like Akira because it’s all Dark and Serious and Grown-Up; the kind of person who would’ve chosen a PlayStation over a Nintendo console because it was black instead of white/coloured and therefore Adult and Not For Children; childish idiots who think they’re Mature, in short.

Um, where was I? Oh yes: Indiana Jones; Roger Moore-era James Bond — it’s that kind of tone, more or less, and if you enjoy that kind of film then I don’t see why you wouldn’t enjoy this. Unless you think cartoons are for kiddies only (in which case, see the long sentence at the end of the last paragraph).

The Castle of Cagliostro is a fun and exciting adventure, and convinced me enough that I bought the only other Lupin III title currently available on UK DVD (the film that precedes it, The Secret of Mamo). And when the director of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park says something is “one of the greatest adventure movies of all time”, one really ought to listen.

The Castle of Cagliostro placed 4th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2011, which can be read in full here.

Bolt (2008)

Posted on March 25, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #11
Byron Howard & Chris Williams | 96 mins | Blu-ray | PG / PG

Bolt is the 48th film in Disney’s animated canon (whatever the official name for that is these days), from their CG-only era that filled most of the ’00s. It’s a period already remembered as When Disney Lost Its Way, after the second (or is it third? I forget) ‘golden era’ of the early ’90s; the time that produced flops like Treasure Planet, Home on the Range and Meet the Robinsons. Things are looking up — it’s been followed by The Princess and the Frog, where a return to 2D animation distinctly marked a more widespread change of direction, and the praised Tangled — but it may be Bolt that comes to be seen as the true turning point, because it’s actually rather good.

Let’s get the worst bit out of the way first: thankfully, Miley Cyrus’ part is quite small. She’s adequate, but one suspects she got roped in because a) Disney were already trying to find a way to continue making money out of her post-Hannah Montana, and b) she provided a surefire-selling song for the end credits. Chloë Moretz reportedly recorded all of Penny’s dialogue before Cyrus was brought in; one can’t help but feel that, age-wise (and probably acting-ability-wise too), she would’ve been a better fit for the character.

But it’s not about Penny, it’s about Bolt, and he is excellently realised. Bolt, if you don’t know, is a dog, and the animators have captured dogs’ behaviour perfectly. It’s not just the obvious things, as seen during the sequence where Mittens the cat trains him to be a ‘regular dog’, but all the little mannerisms throughout. The animals are anthropomorphised, of course, but they’re not just animal-shaped-humans; they’re what these animals would be like if they could talk. Crossed with humans, anyway.

Also noteworthy are the action sequences. Far from being perfunctory attempts at liveliness, these are properly exciting, making full use of 3D CGI to create exciting and dynamic sequences. I’m not just talking about the couple we get from the TV-series-within-the-film either, but also the ‘real world’ ones as Bolt, Mittens and Rhino jump onto trains, out of moving vans, escape from a pound, etc. Of course, the TV-series-within-the-film is completely implausible — like you could film a TV show with massive action sequences in such a way that you only ever do a single take, never mind achieve all those effects on a TV budget. But then this is a film where a talking dog, cat and hamster work together to travel from New York to Hollywood entirely of their own volition — I think it’s safe to say no one’s aiming for documentary levels of realism.

And it’s funny too, especially once Rhino the hamster turns up. It’s not the greatest comedy ever made (and the level of praise attributed to Rhino in some quarters may have taken it too far), but it’s genial enough and elicited a few decent laughs. It even had me getting a little emotional at the end, which isn’t something I ever expected to feel about a film starring Miley Cyrus and a dog made out of polygons.

Despite being computer-generated and 3D, there are attempts to add a painterly look to the film — brushstrokes, pastel colours, that kind of thing. It works rather well when seen in isolation in backgrounds, some of the big wide shots, etc; but the obviously-CG main elements jar against it, the painterly style not extending to the characters or main environments fully enough for it to gel. Especially when the apparently-flat paint-styled backgrounds begin to move in three dimensions (for instance, as the camera pushes into scenery, so that trees/buildings move relative to road/field/hills/streets), it becomes a little weird. An interesting experiment, but not a wholly successful one I think. Something like Ratatouille’s attempt at softening CG animation’s usual hard crispness was more effective.

It would be easy to dismiss Bolt as part of Disney’s CG folly, especially as it stars Miley Cyrus and is immediately followed by their return to 2D animation, but I think that would be a mistake. It’s a fast-paced and fun adventure, with accurately-captured animals meaning it’s especially likely to appeal to dog lovers. Disney’s next golden era just might begin here.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

Posted on December 26, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #114
Lee Unkrich | 103 mins | Blu-ray | U / G

Didn’t get Toy Story 3 for Christmas? Pick it up in the sales, then, because it’s bloody good.

Look:

Much was written about Toy Story 3 when it was released this summer, so I’m not sure how much I have to add, but here we go. It’s no surprise either — that’s what happens when a preeminent and popular studio releases a sequel to a beloved and acclaimed film franchise 11 years after the last instalment. High expectations abounded. For once, they weren’t necessarily unrealistic: if anyone could pull off such a feat, it’s Pixar.

It was somewhat amazing when Toy Story 2 equalled — some (including me) would say bettered — the first film. We may be more used to quality sequels these days but, as major franchises like The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean readily prove, they’re still far from guaranteed. To even try again with a threequel seems madness (no one’s told Chris Nolan this either, it seems). But they tried, and they succeeded: Toy Story 3 is at least the equal of the first two, if not once again slightly better — something that is, as far as my memory can muster, unheard of.

Individual adjectives serve admirably: it’s hilarious, emotional, exciting, scary; a great comedy, a great action/adventure. And Ken’s fashion show sequence is worth the price of admission all by itself. It’s kid-friendly, of course, but it’s not just for kids — it’s for young adults, who’ve grown up with these films and these characters and, in a way, are letting them go along with Andy; and for adults, who may have left childish things behind but can hopefully still appreciate the thematic sentiment.

Darker sequences support this interpretation, I think — the furnace climax, for instance, which carries a palpable sense, even to a savvy adult viewer, of “will they really do that?” doom. With the intention being that this is the series’ closing instalment — and with Andy grown up and leaving so that, however things end for the toys, this is The End for viewers — there are times when one wonders just how dark Pixar may be willing to push it. The potential that some or all of the toys may be lost along the way is a genuine fear, a move of blue-moon rarity for modern Children’s Films. This is in addition to the usual Pixar style of including jokes and references to skim over the kids’ heads.

I suppose TS3 may not be quite as effective if the first two films weren’t part of your childhood. I feel they were on the edge of mine — I was certainly too old to actually have any of the toys, for instance; I imagine anyone who had their own Buzz or Woody will feel even more emotional seeing them go through what they do here. Similarly, it pays to be aware of events and jokes in the preceding films. You don’t need to know intricate plot details, but there are plenty of pleasing references to catchphrases and moments.

Is Toy Story 3 faultless? Probably not. But I can’t think of any right now. Sublime.

Toy Story 3 placed 2nd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Tales of the Black Freighter (2009)

Posted on December 21, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #100a
Daniel DelPurgatorio & Mike Smith | 25 mins | DVD | 15 / R

In the world of Watchmen, superheroes are real, and so comics have turned to other avenues; mainly, pirates. Threaded through the novel is a boy reading one of these pirate comics, which we also get to see excerpts from, because it (rather obliquely) mirrors the arc of one of the tale’s major characters. As a comic-within-a-comic — indeed, a comic commenting on a comic — it works well as a conceit. But when it comes to adapting the novel to the big screen, how do you convert that?

In this case, as an animation… which was then removed from the feature. It’s back in the home-video-released Ultimate Cut though, which I’ll cover at a later date. First, what of Tales of the Black Freighter as a standalone animation, which is how it was released in the run up to Watchmen’s theatrical run last year.

Appropriately, the short emulates an ’80s Saturday morning cartoon style… albeit in cinematic widescreen, evocative 5.1 Surround Sound, and with horrific R-rated gore. Yes, this probably wouldn’t actually have been shown on Saturday morning TV, even in America. Nonetheless, considering Watchmen’s ’80s setting, it’s a solid choice for this adaptation, which could well have gone down a more modern-styled route.

The story itself is a bit slight. It barely runs 20 minutes once you take off credits at either end, and even at this length feels a little drawn out. It’s a morality play, one that it would take mere minutes to cover the key points of, including a twist ending that seemed surprising in the original. Knowing what was coming, I can’t say if it’s as surprising on screen as it felt on the page; the cartoon is at the disadvantage of presenting the story in one 20-minute chunk, whereas in the graphic novel it’s scattered in small chunks throughout, delaying the reveal and making it harder to piece together the clues.

Overall, however, I did find the story easier to follow in this form. Perhaps Zack Snyder and Alex Tse’s screenplay strips away some of Alan Moore’s typically pretentious narration, or perhaps it was just the benefit of consuming it in one sitting rather than in morsels woven through an already-complex narrative, but keeping track of what’s happening is easier here. Does it lose something when taken out of that context though? Probably, but then I never felt it added much to the graphic novel in the first place. It’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the film when I finally get round to watching The Ultimate Cut — I already have some reservations waiting to be expressed in my review.

I did enjoy Tales of the Black Freighter, though I wouldn’t readily recommend it to others without specific reason. One can easily imagine it as an episode of an anthology series about this mysterious vessel; indeed, thinking of it that way makes me long to see more episodes. But it’s still an odd tale, one created primarily to serve a purpose alongside the main story of Watchmen. I think it does stand alone, but in doing so it becomes reliant on the final twist, which takes a time coming. I’m not sure how many would be interested in the story if they weren’t fans of the novel or film.

It’s got an excellent song over the end credits, mind. Definitely the highlight.

The Special Edition of Beauty and the Beast (1991/2002)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #115a
Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise | 92 mins | Blu-ray | U / G

Do you need me to tell you how great Beauty and the Beast is? I imagine not. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know. If you haven’t, you really should, and then you’ll know.

There’s a reason this managed to become the first animated film ever to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. It’s impossible to fault in any significant way. The design and animation are beautiful (in particular the stained-glass opening), the voice acting spot-on, the score exquisite, the story fast-paced and enthralling, there’s even a variety of moral messages for the kids to learn — though, to be honest, some adults could do with learning them too. It’s hilariously funny, remarkably exciting, surprisingly scary, relentlessly romantic… By forefronting the love story it may not be as obviously boy-friendly as Aladdin or The Lion King, but between Gaston, the wolves, Lumiere, Chip, and the action-packed finale, there’s plenty for less romantically-inclined little’uns to enjoy.

As a musical, it’s equally faultless. Every song is a gold-standard Disney tune — Belle (the opening song), Be Our Guest, Gaston, The Mob Song (as the villagers set off to kill the Beast), and of course Beauty and the Beast itself. There are few musicals of any calibre where I feel able to say there’s not a single dull or mediocre song to be found, but Beauty and the Beast is certainly one of them. Every number bursts with memorable tunes, witty rhymes, genuine emotion — even the Soppy Girly Song is a good one! Perhaps the only exception in this Special Edition’s sole extension, a previously-deleted song called Human Again. It’s not a bad song — not at all — but it’s a notch below the others. (There are a few more changes to the film than just adding the song, listed here.)

You may have heard that a 3D version now exists too, released in some territories earlier this year with a US cinema and Blu-ray 3D release scheduled for 2011. Aside from the usual issues around post-production 3Disation, how well can a 2D-animated film convert to the format? Surely it looks even more like flat layers stacked on top of each other than other fake-3D efforts? I’m curious, though probably not enough to seek it out if it makes it as far as UK cinemas.

Some of “Disney’s Animated Classics” (do they still call them that? I don’t know) stretch the definition to its breaking point — indeed, some of them do break it. But Beauty and the Beast more than lives up to the name. In fact, it could easily drop the “Disney’s”. And the “Animated”. It’s a pure Classics. Erm, Classic.

Hercules (1997)

Posted on November 5, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #99
Ron Clements & John Musker | 89 mins | TV (HD) | U / G

Hercules is the first post-me Disney; the point where, for whatever reason, I stopped watching their output. But, of course, Disneys — good Disneys, at any rate — are suited to every age group.

To not do myself too much of a disservice, I remember at the time being very unimpressed with how Hercules looked in trailers. I felt the animation looked far too Modern — all those sharp lines and chunky styles — ugh. Now, in the wake of so many computer-based animated efforts (be it 3D or Flash-based), it looks positively hand-drawn and traditional. And it looks great in HD.

Directors Clements and Musker also helmed Basil the Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Treasure Planet and The Princess and the Frog — an extraordinary run with few duds (says he who hasn’t seen the last two, I hasten to point out), which is unmatched in at least the modern Disney era (unless you start counting Pixar). Hercules isn’t their best effort, but it stands up pretty well.

Firstly, there’s a good cast: Rip Torn’s Zeus is fun, Danny DeVito’s hero-trainer Phil a decent version of a Disney archetype, James Woods’ Hades a solid villain. Even the villain’s comedy sidekicks, who by all rights should be intensely irritating, are entertaining. Pegasus, meanwhile, is worthy of Disney’s long tradition of animal-sidekicks-with-no-dialogue-who-can-still-convey-their-thoughts-and-feelings-perfectly (I feel this tradition needs a snappier name.) Love interest Meg, meanwhile, starts out intensely irritating but is gradually redeemed. Good work, I say to the film’s twenty credited writers.

In spite of that — and, indeed, in spite of what one might expect — the tale is told with surprising faithfulness. There’s still a healthy dose of anachronistic content to liven up the humour though. In fact, the sequences with Hercules’ adoring fans and merchandising empire ring even more true in this Twilight-obsessed world than they did 13 years ago. It’s one of the scarier Disneys, I think — not because it brings Twilight to mind (though I appreciate that’s enough to send a shiver down anyone’s spine), but because of all the giant monsters and Hell-ish stuff. But maybe I’m just being over-sensitive.

Where the quality falls down slightly is the music. It suffers from songs that are at best unmemorable and at worst irritating. The gospel-styled Greek Chorus grew on me, but started out singing dreadful dialogue — I know songs don’t have to rhyme, but really, theirs should have — while Hercule’s big song is like a wimpy first draft of Mulan’s I’ll Make a Man Out of You (though even mentioning it in the same sentence as that number makes it sound better than it is). Only love interest Meg gets a passable song, not that I could remember it within hours of watching the film. Maybe it’s not all that bad really, but when early-’90s Disneys could produce several unforgettable tunes per film, it feels like a weak album from a band you usually enjoy.

Hercules isn’t up there with Disney’s best late ’80s/early ’90s output. I’m certain this isn’t just nostalgia talking — it’s not just my childhood memories that make the likes of Aladdin, The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast superior — but it was better than I expected and, though flawed, has a lot to commend it too.

The Emperor’s New Groove (2000)

Posted on November 5, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #102
Mark Dindal | 75 mins | TV (HD) | U / G

Disney’s 40th (canonical) animated film had a very troubled production, which, from what I can tell, turned it from a derivative riff on The Prince and the Pauper into this load of tosh.

The ‘hero’ — the titular emperor, Kuzco — is thoroughly irritating, and we have to suffer him in voiceover narration as well as on screen. OK, the film’s aware he’s irritating, that’s the point, and he has a Journey that leads him to become Good and Nice and all that moral palaver; but so does, say, the Beast, but that film doesn’t try to force him on us as the central identifiable character. New Groove has a Belle-equivalent pre-installed — moral family-man villager Pacha, the ‘buddy’ in this ‘buddy movie’ — and perhaps if the story had followed him it would have more success in the likability stakes.

The villains, by comparison, are a delight. The problem is, while we ‘love to hate’ the likes of Scar or Gaston, here we just ‘like’ scientific ex-advisor Yzma and her nice-but-dim henchman Kronk. It’s hard to hate them when they’re somewhat wronged and more pleasant to spend time with than the supposed hero. It’s not that I wanted them to succeed in killing Kuzco, more that I didn’t care whether they did or not.

There’s one song, and it’s not particularly good. Not that a Disney film has to be a musical but, well, most are, and it’s not as if the rest of the film is strong enough to support their absence. Much like Hercules, I’d always perceived this to have a nasty squared-off animation style. In reality it doesn’t suffer from that too much, and again looked nice and crisp in HD. I usually ignore image quality when it comes to reviews — not that I don’t care, but in these reviews I’m aiming to look at the content of the film rather than the particular copy I watched — but HD has such noticeable benefits for animation (when done well).

There are some good bits tucked away — like the sequence at the diner, or a lot of Kronk’s stuff (it’s easy to see why he was chosen to lead the straight-to-DVD sequel), or a good chunk of the climax — but there’s not enough to make up for the rest.

Somehow, it holds a decent score on both viewer-rated IMDb and critic-rated Rotten Tomatoes. This surprised me for two reasons: one, I thought it had gone down badly; and two, it deserved to go down badly. No pleasant surprises here — The Emperor’s New Groove is as weak and irritating as the title.

The Emperor’s New Groove featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Mulan (1998)

Posted on July 28, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #64
Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook | 84 mins | TV | U / G

I realised recently that I haven’t seen an animated Disney film produced after The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which I saw on rented video thinking I was probably getting too old for the Mouse House’s output. Now I’ve grown up, of course, I know you’re never too old for a good Disney. As Mulan seems to be one of their last to gather significant praise before they slipped into their ’00s rut, it seemed a good place to begin catching up on what I’d missed.

It’s easy to see what critics and/or audiences liked about Mulan. There’s a few good, catchy songs — though sadly no villain’s song, which is usually one of the highlights — and some lovely animation — though I feel it’s been rather outshone by the similarly-styled Kung Fu Panda in this regard. There are decent action sequences too, fast-paced and fluidly animated, which helps make what could’ve been a Girly Film into something palatable to both genders (I remember being distinctly unimpressed with Pocahontas when forced to see it in the cinema).

The other thing that stands out about Mulan, particularly now, is how very Americanised it is. That’s nothing new for Disney, of course, but it feels a little odd these days. When we’re so used to increased attempts at appropriate cultural reverence from Hollywood movies, it’s almost uncomfortable to hear such American accents from clearly Chinese characters. (It’s this kind of thing that has caused uproar for The Last Airbender in the US (quite aside from it supposedly being a load of cobblers). How times change.) Eddie Murphy’s Mushu (who now comes across a little like a proto-Donkey) is particularly incongruous in this regard. I suppose it’s no worse than, say, Aladdin, or The Jungle Book, or all the Euro-set films.

With a ‘princess’ overcoming her assigned place, a pair of cute/humorous animal sidekicks, a princely husband-to-be, and a vicious villain in need of defeating, the tale of Mulan has certainly been adapted into the Disney mould. It may not be their best effort, but it’s still a strong one.

Mulan is on Channel 5 today, Sunday 4th May 2014, at 5pm.

1945-1998 (2003)

Posted on July 20, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #66a
Isao Hashimoto | 14 mins | streaming

Is 1945-1998 actually a film? Or is it a piece of video Art? Or just another online video?

Its setup is quite simple: it charts every nuclear explosion between the titular years; the total, by-the-way, is 2,053. These explosions play out as flashing dots on a world map; different colours indicate which country was responsible for the explosion, accompanied by running totals. You might note at the end that the US are solely responsible for over half.

The film begins with close-ups: the first test by the US; then the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. Then it zooms out, to a map of the whole world (arranged differently to how we’re used to seeing it here, with the UK and Europe off to the far left and America on the right. I suppose this is neither here nor there, but it took me a bit to get my bearings on where the explosions were happening). From then it progresses through time at a precise rate of one month equalling one second. If that sounds quite reasonable, the maths holds that it’s 636 seconds, aka ten-and-a-half minutes; or, quite a long time to look at a static map with flashing lights.

There are long gaps between explosions to begin with, but as it heads into the ’60s things pick up (so to speak). As time wears on further, the initially lifeless map transforms into an almost hypnotic array of multi-coloured flashes and variously toned bleeps (provided your attention didn’t already wander, that is). There are ultimately so many flashes and bleeps, and the effect is so lulling, that I had to force myself to remember these represented Big Nasty Bombs that were Not A Good Thing. Perhaps something more aurally grating would’ve been appropriate; the counter argument going that this would cause even more viewers to abandon the work.

Sadly, it’s become outdated: the bleeps all but stop after 1993 but, as the webpage you can view it on notes, North Korea have since tested nuclear weapons several times. Perhaps Hashimoto needs to add another 2 minutes and 24 seconds, just to ram home that the issue of nuclear weapons is still depressingly relevant.

So is it a film, or video Art, or just another online video? It’s all of the above (of course). 1945-1998 isn’t exactly fun viewing — really speaking, it’s a kind of moving graph — but, if one sticks with it, and despite its outdatedness, Hashimoto makes his point reasonably well.

1945-1998 can be seen at CTBTO.org.

100Films.co.uk

100% movies. Except when it's about TV.

Category Archives: Animation