SXSW 2011 -- Jez Jerzy

Jez Jerzy (George the Hedgehog)
Dir. Wojciech Wawszczyk, Jakub Tarkowski, and Tomek Lasniak
31/300

Synopsis: Jez Jerzy is a skateboarding hedgehog who likes to drink beer and fondle breasts.  He finds it hard to pursue his passions, however, while being tormented by neo-nazi skinheads, mad scientists and a drooling, flatulent clone of himself.  (This was the International Premier, but I was not at the premier showing).

The animation style of this was similar to Ahh! Real Monsters and similar in humor to Squidbillies.  Neither of which I really like.  I don't fall into their target demographic, and can't seem to stand demented/gross cartoon characters.  I believe this was the only film at SXSW that I saw that didn't get any applause at the end either.  So, I'd say I wasn't alone.  I actually noticed several audience members sleeping in their seats.  I'd say the first 15 minutes or so were fairly humerous, and most people reacted well to that, but maybe the subtitles with a cartoon didn't help it too much.

I'd say what I learned from this experience was that a) not everything at a film festival is going to knock you off your feet, and b) making a cartoon in it's short form and not a feature sometimes doesn't just mean that the creators couldn't come up with the cash an animation team would need for such a project, or a matter of time to invest in such a big project, but that maybe it's a conscious decision that having a quirky cartoon character on screen can really only be funny for so long before you loose your audience.  Keep it short and sweet.

Run Time 89 minutes + 3213 = 3302