Craig Decker has seen his fair share of bad films.
That is because Decker, better known as Spike, co-founded in 1977 with his friend Mike Gribble a touring theatrical festival of animated short films. That event eventually evolved into “Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation,” an annual collection of cartoon shorts targeted toward adult audiences.
“We see a lot of bad films,” says Decker, noting that, between festivals and general submissions, he combs through about 1,000 animated shorts each year. “Just like with features, there's a finite amount of shorts that you get that are good. But in every film we've shown, we've tried to have some merit.”
As for this year's collection, Decker says that it features two of the “sickest” shorts ever to grace “Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation.” The first of which is Mike Geiger's “Cuddle Sticks,” a story about a boy and the curiousness of his favorite treat. The other is John Goras's “Chirpy,” the tale of little yellow bird who, while high on psychedelic mushrooms, mates with a horse.
Decker is also pleased that this year's festival features a few films by female animators – something that he, based on more than 30 years of experience, considers somewhat of a rarity. One of such shorts is Penelope Gazin's “Tiny Hats,” a musical mix of traditionally hand-drawn and stop-motion animation.
Over the years, Decker's festival has featured works from animators such as Craig McCracken (“The Powerpuff Girls”), Danny Antonucci (“Ed, Edd and Eddy”), John Kricfalusi (“The Ren and Stimpy Show”), Mike Judge (“Beavis and Butt-head”), Nick Park (“Wallace and Gromit”), Tim Burton (“The Nightmare Before Christmas”) and John Lasseter (“Toy Story”).
Decker adds that at first the festival's draw was its featured films' shock-value. But, as time went on, the films got more sophisticated and clever with better stories and more advanced animation. He says that the bottom line has always been humor, though.
“Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation” (NR – 85 minutes) opens Thursday, March 24 exclusively at FilmBar. Visit NCM.com for specific showtimes.
Listen to Joseph J. Airdo's “Movie Maverick” segment every Friday morning during “The Daily Blender with Jeffry O'Brien,” 6-9 a.m. weekdays on NBC 1260 AM and 96.1 FM.
Comments