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Here's something that happens rarely in Hollywood: someone trying to NOT take credit for work they did.

The post ‘Ratchet & Clank’ Screenwriter Doesn’t Want Any Credit For Writing The Film appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

Over 100 classic Popeye cartoons on one poster.

The post Every Popeye Fan Needs This Free Popeye Poster appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Genndy Tartakovsky talks to Cartoon Brew about the challenges of making "Hotel Transylvania 2" and what he's trying to do next.

The famous cartoon sailor has inspired a new line of clothing and skateboards.

Genndy Tartakovsky's monstrous goofballs are going to California.

The obesity epidemic takes its toll on cartoon characters in a new book and exhibition.

Get down with the sailor man!

"It was hard to let Popeye go," says Genndy Tartakovsky.

Our first look at Genndy Tartakovsky's "Hotel Transylvania 2."

If you've ever wanted a sculpture of Popeye as a real man, your wishes have been answered.

Director Robert Altman made more than thirty feature films and dozens of television episodes over the course of his career. The Altman retrospective currently showing at MoMA is a treasure trove for rediscovering Altman’s best known films (M*A*S*H, Nashville, Gosford Park) as well as introducing unreleased shorts and his little-known early work as a writer.

Every Altman fan has her or his own list of favorite films. For me, Altman’s use of music is always so innovative, original, and unprecedented that a few key films stand out from the crowd based on their soundtracks. Here are my top five Altman films based on their soundtracks:

1.   Gosford Park (2001): The English heritage film meets an Agatha Christie murder mystery, combining an all-star ensemble cast and gorgeous location shooting with a tribute to Jean Renoir’s La Règle du Jeu (1939). Jeremy Northam plays the real-life British film star and composer Ivor Novello. Watch for the integration of Northam/Novello’s live performances of period songs with the central murder scene, in which the songs’ lyrics explain (in hindsight) who really committed the murder, and why.

2.   Nashville (1975): Altman’s brilliant critique of American society in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. Nashville stands as an excellent example of “Altmanesque” filmmaking, in which several separate story strands merge in the climactic final scene. Many, although not all, of the songs were provided by the cast, which includes Henry Gibson as pompous country music star Haven Hamilton, and the Oscar-nominated Lily Tomlin as the mother of two deaf children drawn into a relationship with sleazy rock star Tom Frank (Keith Carradine, whose song “I’m Easy” won the film’s sole Academy Award).

3.   M*A*S*H (1970): Ok, I will admit it. It took me a long, long time to appreciate M*A*S*H. Growing up in 1970s Toronto, I couldn’t accept Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould as Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John — familiar characters from the weekly CBS TV series (but played by different actors). Looking back, I realize that M*A*S*H really did break all the rules of filmmaking in 1970, not least of which because it appealed to the anti-Vietnam generation. Like so many later Altman films, what appears to be a sloppy, improvised, slap-dash film is in fact sutured together through the brilliant, carefully edited use of Japanese-language jazz standards blared over the disembodied voice of the base’s loudspeaker.

4.   McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971): Filmed outside of Vancouver, Altman’s reinvention of the Western genre stars Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. The film uses several of Leonard Cohen’s songs from his 1967 album The Songs of Leonard Cohen, allowing the songs to speak for often inarticulate characters. Watch for how the opening sequence, showing Beatty/McCabe riding into town, is closely choreographed to “The Stranger Song” as is Christie/Miller’s wordless monologue to “Winter Lady” later in the film — all to the breathtaking cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond, who worked with Altman on Images (1972) and The Long Goodbye (1973) as well.

5.   Aria (segment: “Les Boréades”) (1987): Made during Altman’s “exile” from Hollywood in the 1980s, this film combines short vignettes set to opera excerpts by veteran directors including Derek Jarman, Jean-Luc Godard, and Julien Temple. Altman’s contribution employs the music of 18^th-century French composer Jean-Philippe Rameau. The sequence was a revelation to me personally, since it contains the only feature film documentation of Altman’s significant contributions to the world of opera. One of the first film directors to work on the opera stage, Altman directed a revolutionary production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress at the University of Michigan in the early 1980s: the work was restaged in France and used for the Aria Later, Altman collaborated with Pulitzer-Prize winning composer William Bolcom and librettist Arnold Weinstein to create new operas (McTeague, A Wedding) for the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Rounding out the top ten would be Short Cuts (1993), Kansas City (1996), The Long Goodbye (1973), California Split (1974), and Popeye (1980) — Robin Williams’ first film, and definitely an off-beat but entertaining musical.

Headline Image: Film. CC0 via Pixabay

The post Top five Robert Altman films by sound appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Today we look at the work of Aurélien Predal, Cartoon Brew's Artist of the Day!

Sony Pictures Animation just debuted on its YouTube channel an exclusive animation test from Genndy Tartakovsky's "Popeye" CG feature.

Popeye brings out the best in everybody. Opening tonight in Los Angeles is "Strong to the Finich! An Official Popeye Tribute Art Show" and there's some rather attractive pieces in it.

Actor Robin Williams has died at the age of 63 from an apparent suicide.

Genndy Tartakovsky's "Popeye" reboot is officially a thing now. While the film doesn't have a production greenlight yet, Sony's licensing division has begun to promote the property with concept art at the Licensing Expo in Las Vegas.

Last night Jeff Koons sold a sculpture of Popeye for over $28 million. The sculpture may not have been designed by him though. In the comments of our previous post about the Popeye sculpture, Brew reader Alex Kirwan pointed out that Koons's sculpture bears a striking similarity to a Dark Horse-produced Popeye figurine released in 2002.

Tonight in New York City, Sotheby's will auction a stainless steel, 2000-pound, six-and-a-half-foot-tall Popeye sculpture by Jeff Koons that is estimated to sell for between $25-35 million. Koons, who is already among the top three richest living American artists not to mention an avowed lover of "Croods," made three of these Popeye sculptures, which probably represents the number of people who he thinks are dumb enough to pay between $25-35 million for a Popeye sculpture.

Sony Pictures Animation announced today that Genndy Tartakovsky will direct Hotel Transylvania 2, scheduled for September 2015. Tartakovsky will co-write the pic with Robert Smigel (TV Funhouse, Saturday Night Live). Sony also says that while Genndy is “busy working an all-new CG take on the comic strip hero, Popeye,” he is developing an original idea, which currently has the working title Genndy Tartakovsky’s Can You Imagine? (Click on artwork above for bigger version.) It is being described as “a fantastic journey through one boy’s imagination.” Says Tartakovsky, “It’s good to be back at the Hotel Transylvania, and I’m very excited to work on Popeye, a character that I’ve loved since I was a kid. I’m also looking forward to developing an entirely new and original animated feature here at Sony Pictures Animation. This is an exciting time for me and for the studio.”

Just in case you’re looking for something to do…your very own Popeye mask. (Click to em-biggen.)

Cartoonist and storyboard artist Sherm Cohen has updated his fantastic How to Draw Cartoons Facebook page with scans of the rare 1939 book Popeye’s How to Draw Cartoons. The book has some solid common sense advice, including this bit which I liked: “Copy other characters you enjoy following in your newspaper. Don’t worry if they don’t look exactly like them. The important thing is—are you remembering to exaggerate your impression of the character you have in mind?” See the entire book HERE.

Below is a biography of Joe Musial, the artist who drew this how-to book. This bio appears in Fred Grandinetti’s Popeye: An Illustrated Cultural History:

Apparently, someone on ebay is selling brand new cylinder records – I assume for those who still have working Edison Amberola phonograph machines. But the big news is that this particular cylinder features a 1931 recording of Bill Murray with Al Dollar & His Ten Cent Band performing a song called Popeye the Sailor Man. This is not the cartoon theme song, but its a fun little ditty performed by Murray, an occasional voice in classic Max Fleischer cartoons (often as Bimbo). So to heck with CDs and mp3 downloads, enjoy this recording as it was never meant to be heard – on cylinder:

I spotted this poster on the wall during a visit to Sony Animation last week:

With Hotel Transylvannia number #1 at the US box office, I’m particularly delighted that Genndy Tartakovsky’s next project will be Popeye for Sony Animation and producers Avi and Ari Arad. No one (not even my hero, Gene Deitch) has been able to top the classic Fleischer version of this iconic comic strip hero. I’m betting that Genndy has the vision to be true to the characters comic strip and cartoon roots, yet bring him up to date for modern audiences with all the appeal and action-packed humor the character is famous for.

After that? Samurai Jack? Something new? Who knows? But I trust this guy – and wish him all the luck in the world. Here’s a great little half-hour interview he recently did with Movie City News:

Apropos of absolutely nothing apart from it just made me laugh, cackle and cough, here are some preview pages for issue #4 of IDW’s Popeye miniseries. Released next Wednesday, the creative team for this are Roger Langridge, Tom Neely, Luke McDonnell,and Vince Musacchia.

Chickens are great.

Blow me down! It looks like Popeye may be on his way back to the big screen, and with animation master Genndy Tartakovsky at the helm: Avi and Ari Arad are producing it for Sony Animation from a script by David Ronn and Jay Scherick.

Tartakovsky’s HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA is soon to open, his first animated feature after his triumphs on DEXTER’S LABORATORY, SAMURAI JACK and CLONE WARS. We’ve been looking forward to getting Tartakovsky’s big screen vision finally on the big screen for a while: he was once attached to an aborted take on Astro Boy. A full length Samurai Jack movie is also in the works.

As for the pugnacious, spinach fueled Popeye, since debuting in E.C. Segar’s triumphant THIMBLE THEATER comic strip (now available in gorgeous hardcovers from Fantagraphics), he went on to become the star of a Fleischer Bros. animation, and a nearly constant cartoon star for nearly 70 years, with recent appearances in South Park and Family Guy. Of course there’s also the extremely goofy but harmless Robert Altman Popeye musical film.