MOVIE REVIEW : Comic Vignettes Spark ‘Animation’

“The Fourth Animation Celebration: The Movie” (Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles, Colorado Theatre in Pasadena and South Coast Village in Costa Mesa) offers viewers an assortment of short films from 10 countries, selected from the entries in last November’s Animation Celebration festival in Los Angeles. The emphasis is on comedy, but as Napoleon might have remarked in “Animal Farm,” some films are more comedic than others.

Several of the most successful shorts in the program represent the work of artists familiar to Southern California audiences. The Oscar-nominated team of Alison Snowden and David Fine use their typically understated humor and simple drawing style to solve an irksome office problem in “The Boss” (U.K.). Candy Guard continues to examine the life of a frowzy British bachelorette in “Fantastic Person” (U.K.), a very funny look at an unsuccessful self-improvement program. Bruno Bozzetto’s pleasantly silly “Dancing” (Italy) wins laughs through pure cartoon motion.

The real surprise among the comic films is “Quinoscopio,” a series of hilarious little vignettes created by Cuban director Juan Padron and Argentine humorist Joaquin (Quino) Lavado. Reminiscent of Sergio Aragones’ illustrations in Mad, these outrageous mini-cartoons spoof marital relations, music and childhood nostalgia.

The 10 winning entries in a contest sponsored by MTV to make a 30-second film on the theme of “World Problems? World Solutions!” demonstrate the power of animation as a teaching tool. Amy Kravitz explores the beauties and pleasures of calligraphy in the elegant “Literacy” (U.S.). Mike de Seve offers an eloquent denunciation of racism in “House of Cards” (U.S.), while Bob Sabiston gives a new twist to green consciousness in “The Trees” (U.S.).

The results of the Tex Avery Project, in which filmmakers were asked to recapture the madcap spirit of the seminal Warner Bros.-MGM director, prove considerably less successful. John Schnall tries to re-create the manic exaggerations of Avery’s wartime cartoons in “Unsavory Avery” (U.S.) but the badly timed gags fall flat. “Rrringg!” (Netherlands), Paul de Nooijer’s combination of live-action and animated photographs, is a pretentious, arty bore. Gavrilo Gnatovich’s “Pre-Hysterical Days” (U.S.) is the funniest of the trio, but it suffers from lack of a coherent structure.

The least enjoyable works in the “Celebration” also tend to be the sloppiest technically. At just over 18 minutes, Zlatin Radev’s “Canfilm” (Bulgaria), a parable of tyranny and changing political fashions, seems endless. The animation in Mike Judge’s crude “Office Space” (U.S.) and Corky Quakenbush’s inane “A Smaller World: Big Baby” (U.S.) make TV’s “Ren & Stimpy” look polished.

“The Fourth Animation Celebration: The Movie” continues through April 17.