Not a Hard Cel

There’s a lot more to Mike Judge than the mind numbing, rude-boy antics of Beavis and Butt-Head led us to believe. The guy has brains, talent, and — hold on to your seat — taste. Sure, the mix of mind-twisting comic shorts he’s compiled for the fourth edition of "The Animation Show" includes a couple of brief odes to slapstick violence and adolescent grossness. But they’re trumped by an array of amazing art, from the exquisite noir stylings of Trevor Jimenez’ Key Lime Pie to the cinematic, drug-addled delirium of Stefan Mueller’s Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen & Mr. Horlocker (which screened at the S.F. International Film Festival mere weeks ago). Stop-motion devotees will devour PES’ Dada–esque Western Spaghetti, while Steve Dildarian’s Angry Unpaid Hooker (starring the shameless hero of his upcoming animated HBO series The Life and Times of Tim) delivers the goods for fans of character comedy. The most astonishing works, however, come from the Gobelins School of Animation in Paris, confirming that the French are still the sharpest pencils in the drawer (The Triplets of Belleville, anyone?). Dildarian and Dave Carter, the congenitally irreverent Aussie creator of Psychotown, appear at the screenings July 5, ready to attest to Mike Judge’s taste in burgundy and Brioni.
July 4-10, 2008