Mutant Aliens

I just saw this feature length cartoon at the New York Underground Film Festival. The plot involves an astronaut who was trapped in orbit due to the nefarious scheming of the "Department of Space," and who returns to earth with a small army of mutant aliens to exact his revenge. This is mainly an excuse for a lot of spirited animation; the story itself is chaotic.

This film gave me about half a dozen belly laughs with its excessive sex & violence, humorous songs, and aliens shaped like giant noses, eyeballs, and fingers. The film begins to lag towards the end, as the astronaut offers a few retellings of what happened while he was trapped in space, but this is a tight eighty minutes of quality animation. Visually, the film's strength is not due to any technical precision or revolutionary style, but rather, the sense of immediacy that is only possible when an artist has complete control over his work.

I don't believe in number rankings, so I'll just say that "Mutant Aliens" wouldn't rank as high as a film like Ralph Bakshi's "Heavy Traffic." If you want to view some serious animation from an independent filmmaker, this is worth your time. If you're interested enough to look up this film, I believe the visuals and script will make you laugh.

This movie is the absolutely strangest thing I have ever seen. I mean, Bill Plympton is often strange but... I mean... this movie is so odd that I regretted quitting drugs.

There are some funny lines ("God peed" and "You can't drag race with Jesus") and some funny moments, but my friends and I found ourselves laughing simply because we were so damn uncomfortable.

There are also some really odd sexual sequences. Wait, did I say some? I meant a lot. A lot of really odd sex sequences. Again there was uncomfortable laughter.

This movie is like a train wreck: it isn't pretty, and not very fun, but you can't look away.

I too am a big fan of the anims already mentioned. This one is a fresh, I mean, fresh, approach to the genre. Really is hard to breakout with something new in such a well worn field but this one does it. I stumbled onto it on telly and only vaguely remembered the director's name from somewhere. Right from the beginning...hooked totally. Only thing I had to fight off was that creeping feeling you can get when a begin is so damn tight that the little voice sneaks in for a second with "Oh gosh I just hope this continues!". Not to worry. This delivers. So crafty and revolutionary. The knife goes in deeply and the film will live with you. Those little critters are just so so so sweet. Haven't rooted for anything like that in quite awhile. Adult fare at its best. By the way, The Incredibles was not too bad for commercial work. Neat music among other things. Tough to anime hair, esp wet hair. But it too worked. Theater setting helps. Saw Lola and Stitch in theater and was so mush grander than on telly. Which is roundabout way to say that Muts does so well on the tube! Still can't believe how moving black lines and background can be!

I've seen this movie on the Holland Animation Festival last Friday. It was introduced by Bill Plympton himself. He warned us that is was 'a pretty weird movie (chuckles)', and how right he was!

He did fail to mention that his movie was not only 'pretty weird', but also hilarious, absurd, violent and sexist.

The whole setting seemed to be some aggrevated, distorted version of reality in which politicians, corporations and the media played a bizarre role.

I think everyone in the audience loved it, including myself. I can only say to you: Go see it!

I saw this film over the weekend in the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema and it is perhaps Bill Plympton's most extreme animated feature, out-sexing and out-violencing even "I Married a Strange Person." (And, for those worried about whether Plympton's gone soft on religion, he's also included a little ditty entitled "Can't Drag Race with Jesus.") That said, this film is hilarious and holds together fairly well as a story.