The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

The short film form restricts the storyline of a film, making it very intense and preventing huge amounts of plot detail. To be effective the director Anthony Lucas has to be very creative, and The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello does this remarkably well. The silhouette style creates a perfect Gothic, industrial feel and is very effective in transporting you immediately to a distant but still familiar world of huge lumbering airships, cogs and smoke, and mysterious creatures. It is a fantasy that is also very real; it draws on the 'what-might-have-been' of steampunk, blending the genre's idea of advanced Victorian society with the dark imagery of Lucas' Shadowlands.

The extras on the DVD are also very good - included are other short films by the same director and his commentary about the making of the film (very interesting). Well worth it.

This flick has just the perfect blend of experimental ideas, an interesting story and meticulous animation work. The creators opted to use a 3D-flattened-to-silhouette animation technique, which is quite unique and hard to describe. Suffice to say that it works well to emphasize the mood of the story. Oh, and it also looks absolutely stunning...

Jasper Morello is a navigator on an airship, who gets a chance to help save his wife, as well as humanity from a plague, by venturing to unknown territory. His Verne-like trip takes him to strange lands and strange creatures...

I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say that you should go check it out (or at least the trailer at www.jaspermorello.com).

This is a wonderfully made film. Stunning effects, fantastic in nature but still believable stories and characters. This definitely should have won the academy award it was nominated for. Weird, wonderful and just a little bit creepy, this is a very funky film.

And to Alan Jacobs, you do not know what films are supposed to be. If you can't see what a good movie this is then you don't deserve to watch films at all. It's as if you'e seen a horror movie then complained that it was bad because it scared you.

Would you rather see the same old Hollywood drivel over and over or would you rather see quality, original and affecting film-making? Obviously for you it's the former. Have a nice day :).

As short horror films go, this is one of the best I've seen in recent years. The story is genuinely chilling and the cut-out animation style is a perfect fit for old-fashioned narrative. Capturing the creepy essence of classic writers like Blackwood, Lovecraft, and Poe, this film is a mini-masterpiece and well worth tracking down. Fans of animation may notice a slight stylistic resemblance to some of the works of the brilliant Karel Zeman, although Zeman's work was seldom as intense or scary. The only problem I have with the film is that the disk is PAL encoded and won't play on standard North American DVD players.

This is an immensely enjoyable film, with hints of Tim Burton's early animation work. The plot revolves around Jasper Morello, a navigator who has gained a reprieve after a past mistake and his explorations into unknown territory which lead to a twisted discovery, which while may prove to be his town's salvation, may come at the cost of his own soul.

A word of warning. This is not a children's animation film. The neo-Gothic animation as well as the minimal amount of colour except to emphasize blood ( reminding me of Sin City ) gave the film an effect that may scare young children.

The themes of the greater good and personal over objective feelings come through very well through the film and the ending is actually extremely well-handled under the circumstances. My only gripe, and it really isn't a gripe, is that this could have been lengthened into a longer film. However besides this small criticism there is nothing to complain about. The cast is great, with Edgerton fantastic as the beleaguered navigator Morello and the music is very good. I only wish that this movie got the publicity of Harvey Crumpet, because it certainly deserves it.