http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=director&director=Condie,%20Richard&id=15310 I have to save the best for last – The Big Snit. This has been my favourite NFB short for years, and few can rival it for sheer absurdity and off-the-wall marginalia. Take, for instance, an older couple with the strangest hobbies imaginable, add a dash of impending nuclear holocaust, and top with the […]
Tag Archives: freebies
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http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?film=&_onfplr_sel=plr&sort=director&director=Cohen,%20Sheldon&id=13316 Here’s the famous short I mentioned last week, The Hockey Sweater – an absolute classic and an integral piece of Canadiana. The Canadiens/Leafs rivalry is a New World parallel to Glasgow’s Auld Firm, but on a national scale, and with a far reaching political aspect thrown in. Imagine, then, the horror of a boy […]
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http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=director&director=Hinton,%20Christopher&id=25968 One of my all-time favourite NFB shorts, and the second-catchiest tune of the bunch (#1 is The Log Driver’s Waltz, which – criminally – is not among the films offered here!) See how long it takes to shake the lyric “with the little Abitibi and the survey crew” from your head!
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http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=director&director=Fedorenko,%20Eugene&id=12604 Every Child, a sound effects movie with a great mini-opera in the middle.
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http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=director&director=Barry,%20Martin&id=18042 From a quintessential Canadian cartoon to a quintessential Quebec short; The hallmarks are plenty of grotesqueries and in-your-face surrealism. Not my favourite-ever short, but always good for a larf.
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http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/film.php?sort=director&director=Barker,%20Cordell&id=17537 The Oscar-nominated The Cat Came Back, courtesy the NFB. An excellent primer to the Canadian sense of humour, which is not as intellectual as that of Britain, but slyer and darker than the American (who says we have no separate culture?) Standout moments: The rat’s exhale and the obstacle-prone railway tracks.
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http://www.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/films/index.php What a delight to Stumble upon a page filled with free National Film Board shorts! For those not in the know (i.e. anyone who hasn’t stayed up too late flipping through Canadian TV channels), the NFB has racked up a number of Oscars and critical accolades in its nearly 70 years, and the animated […]