books and tv
watched "the 100 greatest cartoons" on tv last night. it's the same kind of show that vh1 does all the time except there are british people making the lame jokes, people like the guy from duran duran. they also haven't seemed to figure out the whole segmentation and flow thing in tv yet over here, having one of these shows is certainly a big step, but presenting it in its full 4-hour glory with 3 commercial breaks shows that they aren't quite there yet.
anyway, i learned that british cartoons are, on the whole, terrible. but the commentators were very proud of them for these reasons:
1. the characters are all ugly, fat or both
2. the animation is jerky and blurry
3. the narrative moves at an awkwardly slow pace
4. the voices are poorly dubbed and there are no sound effects at all
5. there is always an extra-diegetic narrator
6. they all make unsubtle, unfunny drug references
the picture is from "willo the wisp", one of these cartoons, but by no means the worst. this one about a train that delivered fruit seemed pretty bad.
here's their ranking of all cartoons: bbc's 100 greatest cartoons
there are some interesting choices
i also finished reading a book this weekend called "vernon god little". i was going to write how bad the ending was, but then i thought about it, and realized i had just missed the point. its actually a pretty clever ending. while the writing style got on my nerves every now and then there were many hilarious sayings in the book. here's one thats not so hilarious but rather a real good description of country music:
"I ended up keeping my ole Country albums. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck - even my daddy's ole Hank Williams compilation. I kept them because those boys have seen some shit - hell, all they sing about is the shit they've seen; you just know they woke up plenty of times on a wooden floor somewhere, with ninety flavors of trouble riding on their ass. The slide-guitar understands your trouble. Then all you need is the beer."
i don't know how i can top that, so i'll stop this entry right here.
anyway, i learned that british cartoons are, on the whole, terrible. but the commentators were very proud of them for these reasons:
1. the characters are all ugly, fat or both
2. the animation is jerky and blurry
3. the narrative moves at an awkwardly slow pace
4. the voices are poorly dubbed and there are no sound effects at all
5. there is always an extra-diegetic narrator
6. they all make unsubtle, unfunny drug references
the picture is from "willo the wisp", one of these cartoons, but by no means the worst. this one about a train that delivered fruit seemed pretty bad.
here's their ranking of all cartoons: bbc's 100 greatest cartoons
there are some interesting choices
i also finished reading a book this weekend called "vernon god little". i was going to write how bad the ending was, but then i thought about it, and realized i had just missed the point. its actually a pretty clever ending. while the writing style got on my nerves every now and then there were many hilarious sayings in the book. here's one thats not so hilarious but rather a real good description of country music:
"I ended up keeping my ole Country albums. Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Paycheck - even my daddy's ole Hank Williams compilation. I kept them because those boys have seen some shit - hell, all they sing about is the shit they've seen; you just know they woke up plenty of times on a wooden floor somewhere, with ninety flavors of trouble riding on their ass. The slide-guitar understands your trouble. Then all you need is the beer."
i don't know how i can top that, so i'll stop this entry right here.
posted by nathan at 1:42 PM
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