Pod decides to change jobs after losing his finger at a sardine packing plant. His new job as a security guard comes with an unexpected perk in the form of a lanky maid who carries a mysterious white book.
Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.
Jarnow adapts an architectural grid catalogue of cubic rotations in order to explore a direct relationship between animation procedure and logical numerical operations. The film is as much the making of animation as it is a paper model of a computer. The cube sheet, upon which the film is based, is so constructed that a horizontal cubic rotation and a diagonal pan yields a diagonal rotation. Combinations of these primary moves result in more complex rotations throughout this awe inspiring film.
A filmed exercise that follows in the path of Rotating Cubic Grid and Cubits, the predictably titled Cube features cubes of varying shapes and size sliding around and growing into and out of one another, demonstrating how multiple parts can make up a whole.
A free adaptation of Charles Perrault's famous Puss'n Boots, "The True Story of Puss'n Boots" is a story for young and old for the first time on cinema screens.
A stream of consciousness experiment committed directly to celluloid, Jarnow pays homage to Stan Brakhage and Harry Smith. Abstract designs transform self portraiture, lettering tests and images traced from other films including a Charlie Chaplin short.
Jarnow's first work for Sesame Street and the Children's Television Workshop - yak is a goofy take on the letter "Y."
Tondo introduces the cosmic formalism that was the primary theme of Al Jarnow's independent films. An infinite gridscape alternates with vibrating etchings, spirograms and other surreal realities.
Intended to be an "animation machine," Four Quadrant Exercise finds Jarnow adapting a perspective system, enabling him to render complex motions almost automatically. Created prior to the streamlined ease of computer software, this short is a commitment to the joy of making marks on paper.
The primary motif in this silent picture is a grid that controls the shapes and motions of forms contained within the framework of a rotating cube. Constructed from interlocking cycles, the film explores branches and loops along paths laid down by geometric logic.
A first love is corrupted as a man recalls his affair with a beautiful circus contortionist in this stop-motion animation of wooden mannequins.
In a restaurant kitchen, a chicken dreams of escape and freedom while trying to survive a poultry race organised by the team of cooks.
Small alien robots land on Earth for a photo safari. Their encounter with a wild ape man will prove communication between the two species to be... difficult.
Influential animator, Hungarian immigrant and lifelong Frank Zappa enthusiast Gábor Csupó recounts his chance meeting and eventual friendship with the musician himself.
A mind-twisting time-lapse beginning on a hill just outside town, doing for the concept of time what Charles and Ray Eames's 1968 film The Powers of Ten did for space. One billion years in two minutes.
A short film made of cel drawings, showing us how various mammals, plants and objects all share similar skeletal structures. Produced for Sesame Street.
A stop motion opus made up of hundreds of hand-painted wooden blocks that takes the viewer through a brief history of architecture. Primitive structures evolve into larger buildings...
Sakura Kinomoto, a Card Captor, wins a game of chance and is awarded a trip to Hong Kong, along with her best friend Tomoyo and her rival, Syaoran Li. It turns out that the ancient rival of Clow Reed, the creator of the mysterious and powerful Clow Cards, summoned them, and she's out for revenge. A battle ensues, and secrets are revealed about Clow Reed's shady past and Sakura's connection to him.
A supposedly idyllic weekend trip to the countryside turns into a never-ending nightmare of traffic jams, revolution, cannibalism and murder as French bourgeois society starts to collapse under the weight of its own consumer preoccupations.
The Grinch decides to rob Whoville of Christmas - but a dash of kindness from little Cindy Lou Who and her family may be enough to melt his heart...