raykeller

Personally, I kept looking at my watch during my cinematic viewing of the navel-gazing heavy-handed "La-La Land" (never a good sign). Once over, I wondered what the hoopla was. Then come the critics and the awards, and I just still couldn't see the praise being heaped upon it. Then along comes "...Showman" and this film. It took liberties with time-lines, combined characters, created fictional situations.... and so what? Just like the equally dazzling "Bohemian Rhapsody" (congrats, Rami Malek!), it was a very entertaining movie, great songs, and you left the theater feeling marvelous - not like you were wishing you could get back the depressing two hours and four minutes you just wasted. If you want a documentary, switch to TLC. However, do you want to be entertained? Grab some popcorn and tune in!

Tex Avery, IMHO, is probably hands-down the best at his craft. Current stuff -- just that, stuff. The closest I've seen of recent work would have to be the four Roger Rabbit/Baby Herman cartoons (including the short that opened the film, "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?").

This simple premise -- starving cat & undersized intended snack -- is complicated by a miraculous growth fertilizer and spirals rapidly out of control to a completely ridiculous conclusion.

I was lucky enough to own the box-set of laserdiscs which included every cartoon Tex Avery made for MGM, and I would have paid three times what I did for it. Although this particular cartoon wasn't my favorite (I might have to lean toward one of the two versions of "Northwest Hounded Police" in which double-takes and eyeball gags are elevated to an art form), it was certainly in the upper levels. Another high-ranking short: "Bad Luck Blackie", in which a black cat simply struts in front of a surprisingly vicious bulldog to bring him instant -- and potentially lethal -- bad luck.

Try to see these shorts unedited, not the hacked 'politically correct' versions being shown on some cable cartoon shows. Absolutely the best animation for sheer hilarity that has ever been committed to celluloid.