Wicked Fun

The Spike and Mike's Sick & Twisted franchise gets some stiff competition from "General Chaos: Uncensored Animation," the adults-only anthology of shorts that sample every style of animation. It's no surprise that violence, sex, and scatology are the major concerns of these cutouts, puppets, computer-generated creatures, clay monsters, and cel drawings; they fight, fart, and fuck their way through every imaginable kind of dreamscape. What's less expected is the consistently high level of artistry here. Quest, for example, shows clear kinship to Beckett and Yves Tanguy in its grim tableau of a clay creature desperately searching for water. Oh Julie brilliantly skewers sexual mores by having its horny, saggy puppets attach fake lips, breasts, and glowing dildos for their night of passion. Some of the shorts are comically concise: Sunny Havens is just a minute or so of a toothless old geezer screaming "Meat!" at us. Equally thrilling and appalling is Junky, a wild puppet drama starring a scrawny cracker-addicted parrot who's abused (sexually and otherwise) by his evil human creator. Bill Plympton pulls the whole show together with clever blackout gags between each short. Over-21 viewers can heft a pint during screenings, held Friday through Thursday, May 22-28, at the Parkway ("Picture, Pub, and Pizza") Theater, 1834 Park (south of Lake Merritt), Oakland. Admission is $3; call (510) 814-2400 for show times.

-- Gary Morris