User reviews

B-r-u-t-a-l!!!

We see this story through the eyes of one man, who has a bad day.....to say the least. So many incredible things happen to him in a short period of time that your jaw will drop watching this.

Just to give you an idea: he begins by accidentally shaving off his nose. Later, his problems drastically escalate from a dog who won't let go of him, to a steamroller who flattens him to explosions and a few other things that are actually somewhat disgusting to watch! It's all done in cartoon's Bill Plympton's wild style of artwork.

The animated short runs only seven minutes but so many horrible things happen it seems like the story is longer, believe me!

This was included in the DVD titled, "Plymptoons: The Complete Early Works Of Bill Plympton."

A man wakes up, goes into the bathroom and starts to shave. He cuts off his nose. After that, his day goes downhill.

Bill Plympton uses a subjective camera for this one: everything is shown from the point of view of the protagonist; he only see his face -- with the nose sliding down it -- in the bathroom mirror; there's intensive perspective distortion due to the point of view.

We may not have all had days like the one this guy is going through, but it sure feels like we have.

This is one of many films in a sub-par collection of animated shorts entitled "Avoid Eye Contact: Volume One". Most of the shorts were poor and Plympton's great work almost got lost among the dregs. This is a real shame, as I usually love these sorts of compilations--having seen all three of The Animation Show DVDs, several Spike and Mike ones, collections of Canadian Film Board cartoons and many, many others.

The film is pure 1980s Plympton with the usual pencil drawings and shadings as well as the sick sensibilities. However, compared to later cartoons, the style is a bit rougher--with a deliberate jerkiness to the animation that took some getting used to.

The film is all about a very, very, very bad day indeed for the guy in the short--one that would have killed any non-cartoon character early on in the film! While shaving, the guy accidentally cuts off his nose! Later, he lights his hand on fire and the dang dog bites him--staying firmly clamped to his leg throughout the rest of the film. All this happens just in the first minute or so and things get a lot worse. You think to yourself "what could be worse?"--well, see this hilarious and sick film to find out for yourself. I'd rather not say more but this sadistic really made me laugh and things only got worse and worse!!