I'm Hip

Not much if any story here really. But the kinetic animation and the jazzy soundtrack really blend well and draw you in to a sensory experience.

Directed, Produced and Animated by Dave Musker who has served as a animator and writer on numerous Disney features in a career of over forty years, Featuring the voice of David Frishberg a pianist/songwriter with multiple movie credits - who passed in 2021 and appears thru archive recordings.

It's definitely a fun immersive experience but at just four minutes in length and with no real story to tell - it falls a bit short for me

Watched in theater as an addition to the Oscar nominated animated shorts program.

This musical cartoon by John Musker is everything the title suggests. A cool cat (literally) fancies himself as the hippest in the room. The gags come at a rapid pace and all synchronized to the jazzy tune by co-writer and vocalist Dave Frishberg. It's a whirlwind of changing scenery and colorful styles. It's filled with caricatures of people Musker knew, which he enumerated in lectures at The Mill Valley Film Festival and also the CTN Expo. You would probably need to watch this cartoon 10 times to catch all the references. Even the end credits are full of inventivness. For those that don't recognise the creator's name (or don't know how to use IMDb) John Musker was half of the team who helped revolutionize Disney animation as co-director of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and many others. He made this film himself with a little help from his friends. It's cool, y'dig?

"I'm Hip" strikes me as a little odd that it even got into contention for an Academy Award as a short film - I mean, technically it is, but it's also chiefly a music video, and for a song I'm not sure I'd hear outside of ambient background noise in that one guy's bookstore that only gets frequented when the guy's professor friend makes his class go inside - but this isn't to say it is bad exactly. It leaves a bunch of impressions regarding self-important Hipsterdom, and it touches on the now somewhat dated aspects (ie Hipsters frequenting French Art House cinema) and even those that have become hackneyed if not out of date (Macrobiotic diets, and here I am clutching my pearls, another reference).

Why I can't be that mad at something like this is because I just like John Musker's animation approach - yes, if it rings a bell the co director of Aladdin and Little Mermaid and Moana among many other Disney staples - that jumps and hops and pivots from one reference to the next, so the speed keeps it so you can't ponder how one joke may not be as gravy as another. Musker and his team also like quick throwaway gags and manage to pack in jokes in spaces that I would need another watch or two to get. So while this is anemic in story, it is bursting with jokes and a winking sense that anyone who takes themselves so seriously (and Middle Class life who needs that speed, Jack), and that's enough for four minutes.

So, for sheer entertainment and kinetic energy, this is probably (no definitely) better than at least one if not two or even three of the shorts that got nominated at the 96th Oscars. Am I that upset that it wasn't included though? I need to talk with my Java Cappuccino friend on the two hour line for the Movha Scones and $30 Flatbread before I get back to you on that.

A tragically hip cat sings and dances hyperkinetically to Dave Frishberg's ironic title song.

Good heavens, it's a cartoon! John Musker directs it, and if, like me, you are a fan of Frishberg's work, you'll have to admit it would be harder to do "My Attorney Bernie" or even "Van Lingle Mungo", although "Blizzard Of Lies" offers some interesting possibilities. I enjoyed it, but I fear rather more for Frishberg's cynicism than the poorly matched visuals which seem too anxious to please its audience. That could well be intentional, but after decades of great studio-era cartoons, I am perhaps more than a touch jaded.

This film is, unfortunately, a letdown from start to finish. With a storyline that seems both tired and directionless, it fails to engage or offer anything fresh. The main character feels strangely derivative, as if pieced together from clichés we've seen countless times before, leaving the viewer with a sense of déjà vu rather than intrigue. The creator appears overly focused on name-dropping and filling the screen with fleeting appearances from "has-beens" who add little value to the narrative-turning what might have been a meaningful addition into a distracting sideshow.

Billed as a "passion project," this film might leave audiences wondering who's truly passionate about it, as its sluggish four-minute runtime drags with a suffocatingly dull storyline. The animation, however, is a highlight, showing glimpses of brilliance and potential; yet even this visual strength cannot redeem a plot that seems to go nowhere.

John, the creator, has hinted at two more upcoming projects, but if they're anything like this one, the outlook is bleak. If these future works follow the same uninspired path, they may only deliver more of the same hollow cameos and half-hearted storytelling. Perhaps it's time to reevaluate priorities, drop the reliance on familiar but irrelevant names, and put real substance into future work.

I want my 4 minutes back!