5 out of 5

Director: Various

Not only does this stuff hold up like fifteen years later – attesting to the intelligence of not only each bits’ creator but also those in charge of compiling and collecting shorts for Liquid TV – but as a collection of short, this shows how it’s done – there’s no time to pause for hit or miss thoughts because it’s rapid fire, credits at the end, no real breath between clips…  A lot of that has to do with the context in which it aired – late 90s, late-night MTV, which still actually carried a healthy and moderately legit “fuck you” attitude, so not being ADD wasn’t just the rage in editing at the time, it was how things were slapped together in the vaults for disgruntled youth, by disgruntled creators.  Maybe.  Whatever.  I’m just saying: this is a product of its age, and it benefits from that.

What we have here are the two out-of-print Liquid TV Best Of VHSs combined on one (for now..?) out-of-print Liquid TV DVD.  There’s no blu-ray quality, and there’s a layer of fuzz on this stuff, but that’s part of the appeal – this was when this stuff was made by hand.  Is animation still made by hand?  Sometimes, by some people.  But there wasn’t as much of a choice back then – some shorts are computer-tweaked or, yeah, rendered, but this appears to be more of a creative decision and not just because it’s easier and quicker.  But this isn’t meant to be an argument for or against technology, for in as many ways as you could say it limits art, it surely also allows for just as much art.  I’m just reiterating, underlining, that this exact collection could not be produced now – not with the same feeling, not with the same look – and so this DVD functions not only as showing some peaks of the short-animated form, but also as a sort of time capsule of the era.

Womp?

Reviewing each bit would bore even me.  One thing I really like about how this is broken up (versus, say, Spike & Mike collections) is that “like” pieces – all the Aeon Flux bits, for example – aren’t shown in sequence.  They’re broken up over the collection.  This is a cue most compilations seem to miss, because not only does it sort of force you to watch other shorts (unless you fast-forward or skip ahead chapter by chapter but… eh… we’re lazy, yes?), which is good for exposure, but if you are going to watch from start to finish, like me, it shakes things up, forbidding the look from settling down for more than a few minutes.  Constant visual shake-ups are helpful for staying awake when a plot won’t last for longer than a few minutes.  There’s also a surprising amount of ingenuity in the styles – many basement mash-ups of puppets, live action, drawing, whatever.  And maybe these were all “award winning” somewhere else, but going along with that cynical MTV attitude, these don’t feel like bids for anything except your interest.  They feel honest.

It’s 90 minutes, it’s like 50 shorts, and none of them – none – are stinkers.  Most of them are great, a select few are okay.  None are bad.  It makes you wish for a time of sitting in your basement and watching these things while grumbling about authority figures.  Except not really.  But it’s as close to nostalgic as I’ll probably get.