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Reviews
Gay Purr-ee (1962)
Pretty, Charming, but VERY Dated
As a long-time animation fan, I sincerely believed I had never seen this film before recently obtaining a video, then a "flashback" much like a recovered, repressed memory hit during the song "Bubbles"..... So, I saw the movie somewhere in my childhood, but have no fond memories or nostalgia about it.
Part of me sincerely wants to like this film. There's something in it for young and old, the music is superbly rendered, and the plot will appeal to younger children without being insulting to their intellect, though it may be a bit much for, say, those under eight or ten. And the characters have Chuck Jones' DNA all over them--anyone familiar with his later work with Warner Brothers, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," etc., will see all the signature expressions, facial builds, movement flow, etc.
That being said, however, the picture has several problems. Don't let Warner Brothers logos fool you; this is a UPA animation project, and it entails all the grainy, "low-budget" feel UPA was famous for (think Mr. Magoo or early Japanese anime). It works in its own novel way in this film, but anyone who has grown up in the CGI era that has brought us The Simpsons, Wall-E, Lilo and Stitch, Cars, Up, Tangled, Wallace & Gromit, Beauty & The Beast, etc. is likely to look at this and scream "Are they kidding?" Furthermore, although the musical talent was excellent in this picture (even on low-tech videotape, the songs come off superbly rendered, among the best animation has ever offered), the pacing of the movie and its music hearkens right back to the movies of the Fifties, Forties, and earlier where the movies were musicals that served more as vehicles for the musical soundtrack, not the other way around. If you go into this expecting the big musical where they continually interrupt the story to sing another song, you'll do fine, but many contemporary children may get fidgety and think "get on with it already!"
All told, I don't want to discourage this film. But I suggest that any viewer, over fifty years after it was made, consider the cinematic perspective of the time in which it was released, just as one should with any other decades-old film, animated or not.
Crac (1980)
You Will Never Look At a Rocking Chair the Same Way Again!
In the days of high-tech screen wizardry, this delightful French-Canadian film is a joy of gentle, simple animation. It depicts a slice of the history of Quebec, or Acadia or just about anywhere in frontier North America, in a touching and somewhat sentimental fashion, through the tale of the life and times of a lowly, hand-crafted rocking chair. Only small details, such as the rich background of traditional Quebecois folk music and the attire of certain figures, shows this story to be that of French Canada; the story is otherwise seemingly universal, expressed with no dialog. The animation is a rich palette of pastels and illustration seemingly from the children's literature genre, which works marvelously for the story at hand. It's not a perfect film--a brief flit with contemporary political commentary disrupts the story flow momentarily--but I have seen people moved to tears by the film's darker moments and then tears of joy at the conclusion.