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Cohen’s Cartoon Corner April 2019 by Karl Cohen
Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) and the Sasquatch named Mr. Link (Zach Galifianakis) in 'Missing Link". Photo: Laika
'Missing Link' from Laika
Laika’s “Indiana Jones” inspired stop-motion adventure comedy opens in theaters April 12. Their fifth feature, it is an epic globetrotting buddy movie with explorer Sir Lionel Frost (Hugh Jackman) and a Sasquatch named Mr. Link (Zach Galifianakis) who embark on a quest from the Pacific Northwest in search of the legendary Shangri-La, home of Link’s ancestry.
A welcomed change, Laika sticks its neck out and dares to create a film that doesn’t star a child hero.
“Link embodies a child-like innocence,” notes writer and director Chris Butler (“ParaNorman”, 2012), “the kids in ‘ParaNorman’ acted more adult than the adults in this movie.”
Let’s hope Laika’s work pushes stop-motion and storytelling into new areas of exploration, especially since its advanced publicity says, “Missing Link” moves in a completely different direction from its four Oscar-nominated predecessors.
Set in the early 20th century, the puppets and sets were built 20 percent smaller than usual so Link can seem enormous. He was 16” tall, a size that was still comfortable for animators to manipulate. The art department made 110 sets at 65 unique locations, the most in a Laika feature. One location is a Yeti temple.
One technical breakthrough was using full-color resin 3D-printed faces. The replacement animation faces were created using Stratasys new J750 printer and Fraunhofer’s Cuttlefish software.
Call For Entries to 2019 ASIFA Animation Festival
Once again ASIFA-SF has teamed up with professor Tim Harrington of SF City College to hold a fun event honoring independent and emerging student animators. The show will be in June at City College and people in the program will once again get a free copy of the program should you want to be included in the DVD.
Send entries as a file or a link to Tim Harrington , or use their Google form here.
The Simpsons, the first family of fun, confront one of their greatest existential dilemmas: donuts. image: Matt Groening
Disney Buys Simpsons
Now that Disney owns Bart Simpson, will they tame him? What did they really get for their $73.1 billion dollars that they spent buying the assets of Fox?
Sure they bought the rights to characters from “The Simpsons”, “Avatar”, “Deadpool” and “Atlanta”, and some other things for that absurd amount, but is spending that much to control more of the market worth it?
"We are rapidly transforming our company to take full advantage of evolving consumer trends and emerging technology in order to thrive in this new and exciting time,” said Robert Iger, Chief Executive Officer of Disney. “What lies ahead is the challenging work of uniting our businesses to create a dynamic, global entertainment company."
That sound like the voice of greed. Frankly I’d be more excited if they cared more about our world and were spending that money trying to tame global warming, to end world hunger or to bringing peace to the world. I’m tired of hearing about exciting plans for corporations to increase profits.
NPR just had an hour discussion on how tech corporations will create so many new millionaires in the Bay Area by going public (only the upper level of employees will benefit by stock offers), that the cheapest single family homes in San Francisco will sell for four to five million bucks within the next five years.
Yes, that will eventually make it impossible for anybody who isn’t a millionaire to live in SF. And what will Iger do with his additional billions that he gets for selling some of his holdings? And who will hire all the employees of Disney and Fox that are being laid off?
Burton’s ‘Dumbo’ Now in Theaters
Tim Burton’s live action retelling of Disney’s ‘Dumbo’ is now in local theaters. The trailer looks impressive, but the reviews are quite mixed. One calls it “weirdly watchable,” see Rotten Tomatoes review.
Emma Thompson was knighted a 'Dame' in sneakers, after which she asked Prince William for a kiss. photo: courtesy W Magazine
Thompson Not Lasseter Fan
In a letter obtained by the Los Angeles Times, Emma Thompson explained why she decided to exit “Luck” when John Lasseter took the helm at Skydance Animation.
"It feels very odd to me,” Thompson wrote Skydance, “that you and your company would consider hiring someone with Mr. Lasseter’s pattern of misconduct given the present climate in which people with the kind of power that you have can reasonably be expected to step up to the plate.”
“If a man has been touching women inappropriately for decades, why would a woman want to work for him if the only reason he’s not touching them inappropriately now is that it says in his contract that he must behave 'professionally'?”
“If a man has made women at his companies feel undervalued and disrespected for decades, why should the women at his new company think that any respect he shows them is anything other than an act that he’s required to perform by his coach, his therapist and his employment agreement?”
Although Thompson allowed that Lasseter's defenders insisted he deserved a second chance, "he is presumably being paid millions of dollars to receive that second chance. How much money are the employees at Skydance being paid to give him that second chance?”
“Given all the abuse that’s been heaped on women who have come forward to make accusations against powerful men, do we really think that no settlements means that there was no harassment or no hostile work environment? Are we supposed to feel comforted that women who feel that their careers were derailed by working for Lasseter didn't receive money?”
“I am well aware that centuries of entitlement to women’s bodies whether they like it or not is not going to change overnight. Or in a year,” concluded Thompson. “But I am also aware that if people who have spoken out—like me—do not take this sort of a stand then things are very unlikely to change at anything like the pace required to protect my daughter’s generation."
Guess Who Got a Salary Cut of Half a Million?
Don’t worry, the total possible annual compensation for Disney’s chairman and CEO Bob Iger could still be as much as $13.5 million. Disney will also be eliminating his annual $8 million increase in his annual “target bonus.” Instead they will give him the same lousy bonus of just $12 million a year.
Still, he told the press, “I am proud to be leading the Walt Disney Company through this important time and believe the changes I, with the board, have made are in the best interest of the company.” He really isn’t going to be as well-off in the future considering Iger's total salary jumped 80 percent for the latest fiscal year to $65.6 million and he earned $36.3 million in 2017 and $43.9 million in 2016.
Well, I guess $12 million a year is better than food stamps.
Karl Cohen is an animator, educator and director of the local chapter of the International Animation Society and can be reached .