THREAD: In 1937, the Nazis exhibited art they deemed “Degenerate” in order to mock it. I was looking through a list of these amazing artists the Nazis hated, and I was ashamed at how many of them I didn’t know, so let’s look at their work together! Here’s Alexej von Jawlensky.
All of these artists were targeted by the Nazis because they were "modernist." In other words, they were pushing boundaries and making experimental work that went beyond straight realism. These boldly colorful works by Arnold Topp are a good example.
César Klein's work is so cool. He was a German Expressionist painter, and designer of silent movies like GENUINE (1920).
I couldn't pick my favorite films from 2023, so instead, here are my favorites from 100 years ago!
Best movie of 1923: SAFETY LAST. Harold Lloyd's masterpiece is just as funny and thrilling as it was a century ago.
Best Animated Short of 1923: BEDTIME. These Ko-Ko the Clown cartoons from the Fleischer studio blow my mind whenever I watch them. So much creativity popping out all over the place. This print comes from @cartoonsonfilm.
Best Stop-Motion Short of 1923: VOICE OF THE NIGHTINGALE by Ladislas Starevich. The early use of color gives the short a dreamlike atmosphere. Incredible stuff.
THREAD: Anybody have a favorite bit of water animation?
The best for me might be Disney’s PINOCCHIO from back in 1940. Amazing mix of stunning realism and painterly abstraction. You could only get a look like this in animation.
Aleksandr Petrov’s paint-on-glass water in THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA is absolutely gorgeous.
Studio Ghibli is always good at water. I love those fish waves in PONYO.
THREAD: One of my favorite movie periods is the Pre-Code Era (1929-1934), the racy period before the Hays Code kept movies of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s under strict moral guidelines. Here are some of my favorite Pre-Code lines, like this one from 1933's MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM.
One of the harshest of all movie insults, delivered by Joan Blondell in the great 1933 musical FOOTLIGHT PARADE.
Another ace line reading from Joan Blondell, also from FOOTLIGHT PARADE.
THREAD: What’s the most bizarre entry in your favorite cartoon series? I thought I’d highlight shorts with popular characters that stand out as particularly weird.
For Bugs Bunny, it’s 1946’s THE BIG SNOOZE, where Bugs hops into Elmer Fudd's head to give him a surreal nightmare.
For Daffy Duck, it’s hard to get more nuts than this early entry - 1938’s THE DAFFY DOC - where Daffy goes ballistic at a hospital and chases Porky with a saw to perform surgery. The dialogue that doesn’t match with the mouth movements only strengthens the oddness.
Porky Pig starred in one of the wildest cartoons ever - 1938's PORKY IN WACKYLAND - where he chases a reality-bending do-do bird. This is director Bob Clampett at his most dizzyingly bonkers, and it was even preserved by the National Film Registry.