Get a Job

This "F I L M" if you can "C A L L" it one, is nothing short of "W A C K". I have never before felt that any ten minute period of my life was more of a waste; including a failed hysterectomy, and listening to Sarah Palin talk politics. (Dang Canadians). The animation was cringey, and there is some smack dab plain ole racism in it. 1 star out of 10.

This is sufficiently amusing overall I guess. Its colorful and rhythmic anyway. But it has one device in it that I want to point out. It makes it worth the couple minutes it will take.

Our poor sap needs a job, the situation being circumlocuted. One node in this is us watching our sap which he watches himself on TeeVee. Ted's law applies, in that what's on the tube is as remote from him as he is from us.

In this regard, at least we see that the animator is a lucid artist and worth paying attention to.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Funny Disney-like animated short film from the National Film Board of Canada. Bob the Dog is looking for a job. And in this short, that stressful quest is exaggerated. We go through the whole process: phone calls, resumes, interviews, waiting by the phone for THE call, etc. It might not be too profound, but this short actually contain some sort of commentary on the situation of the unemployed. And while looking for a job, you need to be confident. But don't over do it! Great Motown music makes this short even more enjoyable to watch. At just over 10 minutes long, you can't go wrong.

Seen at home, in Toronto, on January 1st, 2005.

88/100 (***½)

GET A JOB is a very, very strange film and it's hard to put into words exactly what I thought of it and why. It's just one of those films that you need to see to appreciate.

The film starts with a music video of sorts with hand-drawn animation that looks a lot like an underground film--but higher quality. Then, following the old song "Get a Job", you follow a poor sap's unproductive day of job searching. Again and again, he blows the interviews and it's very funny to watch this poor shmoe mess up or have insane prospective bosses interviewing him. In the end, there's an excellent zinger to tie it all together.

In many ways, GET A JOB reminds me of the wonderfully subversive Mighty Mouse series from the mid-1980s ("Mighty Mouse, the New Adventures")--with very fluid animation and a crazy spirit. This is quite a complement since this series was ground-breaking and seemed to help lead to a renaissance in animation.

Nothing very earthshaking or profound with this cartoon. It's just a cute, occasionally funny, often profoundly silly cartoon. When I see it, I remember being eight and watching cartoons. It runs periodically on O Canada on the Cartoon Network. Well worth seeing.