Animation Express's Blu-ray version not only comes with the 26 animated shorts found on the DVD, but there are also an additional 13 films, and quite frankly I found some of these bonus shorts to be better than the ones included in the "regular" collection. Of course, the main 26 does include some profound works like "Madame Tutli-Putli," that is not only a visually powerful show, but it also bagged an Oscar nomination. Other great stop-action shorts included "Land of the Heads" and "Sainte Barbe." Both of these films heark back to Tim Burton's early stop-action works like The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, but these creators conveyed much more interesting stories in a far-shorter time slot. "Sainte Barbe" is a film about loss and moving on, while "Land of the Heads" is a darkly-humorous tale about trying to please a woman, and a village ending up beheaded in the process.
While not of the same claymation-style of "Madame Tutli-Putli," "Land of the Heads" and "Sainte Barbe," one of my favorite shorts from the collection is another stop-action film called "Paradise." In this short, we follow a man as he goes through his daily routine of getting up, eating breakfast with his wife, going to work and doing other people's jobs while they take the credit. As the monotony of the man's life becomes apparent, we also realize that his wife wants something more and needs to get away. So what's so special about this short? Well, it's all conveyed via tin toys on tracks that guide them through their daily, repetitious lives. It isn't until the main character's wife simply isn't on her gearing any more that he realizes how stuck in a rut he is.
Of course, there is a good collection of standard, hand-drawn or computer-assisted animation in Animation Express. These include shorts like "Uncle Bob's Hospital Visit," "Runaway" and "Sleeping Betty," all of which stand out in my mind. In "Uncle Bob's Hospital Visit," we see an elderly man who is used to his life as a widower, until he has a heart attack and is forced to re-evaluate everything. The worst part is, no one seems to be able to make him happy, well almost no one. "Runaway" is a fun and off the wall short where a train ends up out of control, but whose fast pace is quickly slowed down as the train attempts to crest a hill. In order to keep the little engine going just a bit more to rest atop the hill, everyone on the train starts throwing in everything they can, including the clothes off their backs, in order to burn the coal-fire just a little bit more. In "Sleeping Betty," we get treated to an oddly distorted version of the classic fairytale set in modern times, sort of. This particular short has a very distinct visual style and really stands out in my mind.
Then there are some of the more abstract pieces. "HA'AKi" starts off as rough sketches of a hockey game, but then turns into bursts of light that feel like they were inspired by a bit too many drugs, while "Retouches" is a stream-of-consciousness piece as a few scratches on the screen morph into ocean waves, a rainy car drive, a man on a stair, birds flying, people playing tennis and volleyball and so on.
Another personal favorite was "Ryan." This CG animated short is done as a backdrop of an interview that the director, Chris Landreth, had with one of the most influential Canadian animators in the past 30 years, the late Ryan Larkin. Not only does this short put the interview into a strange visual style involving CG characters that are broken versions of their real selves (apparently, Landreth was portraying the character's psychological state, rather than their physical one), but it also inserts several clips from Larkin's more influential works like "Walking" in 1968 and "Street Musique" from 1972.
I could spend a lot more time just talking about each and every one of these shorts, but quite frankly, these brief descriptions don't do the films justice. As you might imagine with animation (of any type), they simply need to be seen to be appreciated. Thankfully, pretty much every short in this collection benefits from the high-definition resolution of Blu-ray, so you will be able to appreciate it even more. Not only are the hand-drawn shorts more dazzling, but the computer-assisted ones are crisper, and the stop-action animations just look amazing (chief amongst these are "Land of the Heads" and "Sainte Barbe"). As for the sound-quality, the films in Animation Express used everything in their disposal to get their stories across. While a lot of them had dialogue and the voiceovers were clear (well, not "Pimp My Boat", but it had subtitles), the ones that merely used music to convey the story and mood sounded great all around.
An interesting note about Animation Express is that it can be watched both in English and French (it is Canadian after all), and the disc's menus allow for several viewing options including simply playing everything (with the bonus shorts mixed in with the normal ones), or playing only certain categories and topics. Overall, the Blu-ray version of Animation Express is the one to buy. Like I said above, I doubt anyone will love every single short in this collection, but with nearly 40 films to watch, you are all but guaranteed to find several that you enjoy.
