It was a sunny day when I entered a theater to watch a series of animated films nominated for Oscars. This long and boring retro-sci-fi was the second movie, and it was grim and death-obsessed. The creator is talented at drawing, but has no ability to draw you into a story. He is a maker of moods, not a teller of tales. A captain, a navigator, and a scientist go on a voyage, and discover a creature that can, when cooked, cure a disease that is plaguing the land. Before they can carry the creature home, it eats everyone. It's a gloomy cartoon that seems never to end, and once it ends, it leaves you feeling empty.It was fashioned like a Jules Verne tale--it takes place in a 19th century milieu, but is filled with gadgets and contraptions that suggest a vision of the future past. Heavy machines laden with gears and dripping oil transport the travelers through the air. Everyplace they go floats in the air, like islands in the ocean. This would be nice if it were pretty, but it's all done in dark shadows, in an atmosphere filled with grime and dark clouds.

"The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello" is a wonderful cross between the animation of Hayao Miyazaki and the science fiction of Jules Verne.Beautiful animation sets off the stark, futuristic, macabre story by Mark Shirrefs that has historic resonance from the Black Plague to AIDS to "On the Beach," and recalling tales of mad scientists from "Frankenstein" to "The Island of Dr. Moreau" to the cloning scandal in today's South Korea yet creates a completely original and very suspenseful film.Not only is a whole other worldly environment and civilization created, but the silhouetted people (with their all too human foibles) and their complicated vehicles travel through breathtakingly beautiful weather and dangers. This is a very fresh take on the human role in nature vs. technology in the guise of an old tale of obsession as if told by Herman Melville or Edgar Allen Poe.Joel Edgerton's gentlemanly journal narration as the titular navigator marvelously captures the Victorian formality of the storytelling, like an Australian Sherlock Holmes or Robinson Crusoe.This film was viewed as part of a commercial screening of Oscar nominated shorts.

This flick has just the perfect blend of experimental ideas, an interesting story and meticulous animation work. The creators opted to use a 3D-flattened-to-silhouette animation technique, which is quite unique and hard to describe. Suffice to say that it works well to emphasize the mood of the story. Oh, and it also looks absolutely stunning...Jasper Morello is a navigator on an airship, who gets a chance to help save his wife, as well as humanity from a plague, by venturing to unknown territory. His Verne-like trip takes him to strange lands and strange creatures...I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say that you should go check it out (or at least the trailer at www.jaspermorello.com).

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is absolutely amazing, and deserves a huge audience.The film is set in a world that resembles Victorian England, but different, in that giant mechanical airships are the main mode of transport. Jasper Morello is a navigator who undertakes a dangerous expedition into uncharted territory in order to escape from his plague-addled city. The film has a Jules Verne-like sense of wonder and imagination that is irresistibly appealing.The distinctive look of 'Jasper Morello' deserves the many accolades which will definitely follow in due course. The characters are rendered in layers of silhouettes, a look which must be seen to be fully appreciated. The design of the airships and of the world in which they float in is masterful.The combination of Victorian-era story and cutting-edge animation makes for an extremely enjoyable film, one that should be seen by both children and adults.