Carter Amelia Davis
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Animations I like: April 2025
🕑 Added 2025-04-11 22:12:38 +0000 UTCHi all! I'm still workin away at my new short film, but in the meantime I figured it'd be fun to write about some animations I think are cool. Hope U enjoy :-)
Titanium Daydream created by Ben Crouse and Jacob Sluka, 2024-present
Titanium Daydream is an ongoing vertical video animated series about a man haunted by his past. It has a wonderful deadpan silliness and a really inspired visual style reminiscent of old Playstation games. Ben Crouse contributed the colorful squishy illustrations for Until You Continue to Behave, and I've always been a huge fan of the animation work he does with Jacob Sluka; seeing them tackle an ambitious project like this has been a great joy. The dialogue and voice acting is hilarious and dry, and I love its playful genre influences from stuff like Twin Peaks, Silent Hill, and the Matrix. It's evocative of many things I love but has a core je ne sais quoi that's all its own.
Where to Watch: Youtube, Instagram, or Tiktok
The Final Exit of the Disciples of Ascensia dir. by Jonni Peppers, 2019
My algorithmic filter bubble shapes my perspective on things such that I assume everyone who follows me is aware of Jonni Peppers's beautiful animations.. but in case that isn't true, I can't recommend this film highly enough. Ascensia is about a cult awaiting the rapture and the bond that forms between two of its disciples animated by mutual doubt and queer love. The film has a quiet oddball sense of humor but that never diminishes its depth of feeling. Peppers is a remarkable indie animation auteur and her painstaking hand-drawn paper animation style here is unreal in its expressiveness. She's so good at drawing characters under great emotional duress; her characters explode with feeling. This is one of those movies where I can't imagine how much pure effort must've gone into creating it. It's such an achingly heartfelt treasure and I'm so glad it exists. This film is a part of Jonni's The Blindfold series of films, and all of them are worth checking out.
Where to Watch: Jonni has the film up for sale for $5 on her Gumroad
Habfürdő (or Bubble Bath) dir. by György Kovásznai, 1979
Habfürdő is a Hungarian experimental animated musical with a beautifully anarchic aesthetic approach. Its visuals are constantly in flux, gleefully warping styles and perspectives in a way I find so delightful and expressive; characters are so frequently drawn off-model that they almost exist as signifiers rather than people with consistent forms and shapes. The actual movie itself is about a man with cold feet trying to flee getting married and the love triangle that springs up between him, a single female friend whose home he's hiding in, and his bride-to-be. It has some interesting feminist commentary to offer, but the main draw here is how wild and unique everything looks. The songs are pretty cool too if you like curious Hungarian funk music.
Where to Watch: Tubi has it for free
I Married A Strange Person! dir. by Bill Plympton, 1997
Bill Plympton has a super distinct drawing style that reminds me a lot of old comic books. His compositions are full of lively scratchy lines and move with remarkable fluidity. I love how lived-in and personal his movies feel. This one is a bizarre romantic comedy about a guy who gets zapped by a satellite and grows a lump on his neck that allows him to warp reality around him using his own imagination, much to his wife's chagrin. The film's sense of humor is absurd and slapstick, at times kinda reminiscent of Spongebob's most outrageous visual gags. It has a few charming musical numbers and a sort of mild sentimentality, but I mostly love it for its ridiculous cartoon logic; It's one of those comedies where the stakes are all but nonexistent and storytelling conventions are abandoned in the pursuit of joyful absurdist shenanigans.
Where to Watch: Tubi has it for free
Snooze Quest dir. by vewn, 2025
It feels kind of silly for me to recommend Victoria Vincent's work given that she's already got a pretty huge following online, but I'm a huge fan. She has a striking style that almost reminds me of a more modern take on the grungey cartoons from the 90s. Her work has always had an unusual intensity, but her recent work feels to me like an attempt to evoke the manic overwhelmingness of contemporary life. In basic terms, Snooze Quest follows an insomniac who gets wrapped up in a sniper revenge plot. More than that, though, it feels like a delirious, dreamy dystopian narrative about life in a deeply unwell overpoliced overmedicated capitalist shithole. I wouldn't say it's Vincent's most accessible work, but it's funny and outrageous and feels like one of the most fully realized creations from this era of her career. I've been thinking about it a lot!
Where to Watch: Youtube
Moonbird dir. by John Hubley
Moonbird was animated based on audio that John and Faith Hubley recorded of their sons Mark and Ray having an imaginary adventure in their bedroom when they were supposed to be asleep. The audio has so much real, lived-in character; the two young boys have such a good dynamic and it's delightful to hear their undisturbed play. The Hubleys are experimental animators that have a sort of minimalist, mildly psychedelic animation style, and they transform the audio into a kind of expressionist nocturnal dream. It makes me think about being a child and how far my imagination could take me. I think it's so cool that they did this kinda indirect collaboration with their kids and elevated this field recording of their imaginations at work with so much tender creativity.
Where to Watch: I found a great quality version on this weird website. I think it also might be on Criterion?
Comments
Cadmiyum
This is phenomenal. So much good stuff! Would love to see more of this sort of thing - just stuff you like on occasion
