FEBRUARY 22, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 3

At fourteen, I wish that I could have snuck onto Ernest Hemingway’s private beach, and receive the one all, be all interview of a lifetime. Afterward, I would brag, boast, and blabber on and on how Papa Hem and I were like him and Fidel. Then nearly thirty years later I might animate the experience, capture vividly what he said about minimalism, realism, and The Old Man and The Sea. He would tell me about being an ambulance driver, and I would draw it. Then I would put my animation on the Internet, and people would give me more props. I Met The Walrus should have been just an YouTube video, and that’s it.

Literally, the short animation I Met The Walrus, by John Levitan, is one fan boy’s recorded interview he had with John Lennon in 1969. The film’s trailer outlines the whole animation perfectly. Jerry snuck into John’s hotel in Toronto, had an unauthorized interview, and John was cool enough to talk to the fourteen year-old kid. Josh Raskin, the director, wanted specifically to draw the interview. This is exactly how the animation goes: a character drawing of the kid asks a question, and John answers. Then, in the point of view of the child, John’s words become a flow of images. So when John says bomb, there is a bomb on the screen, and the explosion feeds into the next image. And this same pattern keeps repeating itself for five minutes. Kid asks a question, the Beatle has the same response for every interview he gave in 1969. Free love, peace, and I’m getting back in the USA.

This animation says nothing new. John Lennon gave hundreds of these same speeches, the interview took place eleven years before his death, and the animation wasn’t even nearly as artistic as John. The animation’s quality was equal to that of the Target commercial that came on before the Academy Award Nominated Shorts, which I saw in the theater. Yes, the film is neat in regards to the fact that John is talking so frankly to this kid. He tells the boy about smoking dope, and why his parents are squares. But this isn’t enough to justify an Oscar nod. I am more interested in how the kid snuck into the hotel, convinced John to give him an interview, and then why this damn recording hasn’t been shared with the public until now, but all of this is left out. There is no reason for this animation to be made now. So what, we are in a war right now: we need peace, we need love. This is hogwash; the only reason this is up for an Oscar is because it has John Lennon’s voice in it. This country gets star struck every time any schmuck mentions the Beatles. Oscars are supposed to be a reward for the highest achievement in film making, and this film proves that YouTube quality is good enough.