![\"Movie](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/panic.jpg\" "\\"panic\\"")
<\/a> Although this isn\u2019t stop-motion animation, it stopped. I thought I\u2019d experienced every form on motionless cartoon known to cinema. \u201cClutch Cargo,\u201d \u201cGumby,\u201d \u201cMr. Bill,\u201d \u201cSouth Park,\u201d you name it, I\u2019ve seen it and in each aforementioned case the animation on display is \u201cFantasia\u201d compared to \u201cA Town Called Panic.\u201d<\/p>\nThe stars of the film are three cheap plastic figurines (Coboy, Indien, and draft horse Mouton), similar to those found atop a 9-year-old boy\u2019s birthday cake. The squeaky-voiced trio and their pals act out a series of silly antics cast against an equally inanimate Colorforms background.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the point,\u201d fans of the movie argue when asked to defend the purposefully bad animation. Camp isn\u2019t made, it\u2019s born, and anyone who sets out to intentionally make a bad movie will find the goal an easy one to reach.<\/p>\n
This feature-length version is based on a Belgian TV series that wisely doled out the material in four-minute increments. If you have ever been involved in a serious car crash, you know the time-slowing sensation of living out every elongated second. At 75 minutes, \u201cA Town Called Panic\u201d is the longest animated pile-up on record.<\/p>\n
The San Diego Jewish Film Festival<\/p>\n
It seems like just yesterday the San Diego Jewish Film Festival (SDJFF) celebrated its Bar Mitzvah. Now entering its twentieth year, SDJFF is offering more films than ever before: 51 to be exact, ranging from shorts and documentaries to narrative features and, for the first time in festival history, an adult cartoon!<\/p>\n
The festival runs Feb. 10-21 with the majority of the screenings at SDJFF\u2019s flagship theater, the AMC La Jolla.<\/p>\n
Festival producer Sandra Kraus couldn\u2019t wait to talk about the stop-motion feature \u201cMary and Max.\u201d The animated tale details the 20-year pen pal relationship between a lonely 8-year-old Melbourne girl (voiced by Toni Collette) and a middle-aged, overweight New Yorker (Philip Seymour Hoffman). While it\u2019s not exactly \u201cFritz the Cat,\u201d Krause cautions that the film \u201cis not family friendly.\u201d The festival wanted to expand its horizons. \u201cI think we\u2019re trying to reach out to that next generation of filmgoers that are not just Jewish,\u201d Kraus said. \u201cI tried to do that this year by bringing in a film like \u2018Mary and Max\u2019 that I think will reach a different kind of audience for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is also one of the rare occasions that the festival is screening a film that already played San Diego. \u201cWilliam Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe\u201d played a week at the Ken, but Kraus was so impressed by the film that she had to include it in this year\u2019s lineup.<\/p>\n
William Kunstler is a name synonymous with defending just about every radical social movement in the late \u201960s and early \u201970s. The documentary, directed by the famed lawyer\u2019s daughters, Emily and Sara, documents Kunstler\u2019s fight for civil rights alongside Martin Luther King Jr., the infamous Chicago Ten trial, and his defense of prisoners at Attica and Native Americans at Wounded Knee.<\/p>\n
It seldom occurs to people the effect a controversial criminal trial could have on the families of the counselors. Both women take turns narrating their father\u2019s story and one soon senses a hint of anger and betrayal. Emily\u2019s nightmare realization came when the thought crossed her 10-year-old mind that that her father \u201cwas defending bad people. People accused of rape, terrorism, organized crime and cop-shooting.\u201d This film is as much a story of Kunstler\u2019s life as it is his children\u2019s discovery as to just what type of man their father was.<\/p>\n
The Joyce Forum showcases exceptional Jewish-themed shorts, documentaries and features \u201cby student and early-career filmmakers.\u201d One of the outstanding selections in this year\u2019s Forum, named in honor of SDJFF founder Joyce Axelrod, is Nicole Opper\u2019s \u201cOff and Running.\u201d For her second documentary feature Opper turns her attention to an adopted African American teenager being raised as a Jew by lesbian parents. The title\u2019s double meaning is a take on the young girl\u2019s exceptional track and field skills, as well as a harbinger of her eventual liberation after that family becomes divided.<\/p>\n
So why should an Uptown resident make the schlep all the way to the La Jolla to watch films at SDJFF? Ms. Kraus responds, \u201cSimple. It\u2019s worth the trek to La Jolla because in many cases this is the only chance you\u2019re going to get to see some of these films with an audience and on the big screen.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a complete list of films, venues and show times visit: sdcjc.lfjcc.org\/<\/p>\n
[Ken, once you decide which one you want to use I can write a real cutline.]<\/p>\n
Photo credits: A scene from “From Paris with Love.” (Credit: Lionsgate)<\/p>\n
A stagnant scene from “A Town Called Panic.” (Credit: Zeitgeist Films)<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cA Town Called Panic\u201d Written and Directed by St\u00e9phane Aubier & Vincent Patar Starring: A bunch of mold injected toys Rating: 0 Whatever you do, don\u2019t \u201cPanic.\u201d Although this isn\u2019t stop-motion animation, it stopped. I thought I\u2019d experienced every form on motionless cartoon known to cinema. \u201cClutch Cargo,\u201d \u201cGumby,\u201d \u201cMr. Bill,\u201d \u201cSouth Park,\u201d you name […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":243177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Movie Review: \u201cA Town Called Panic\u201d","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}