Hair High

(Bill Plympton, US 2004, 76 min., 35mm)

High school gothic myth kind of film. For the first time in animation and internet history, the public was able to watch, from beginning to end, the creation of Bill Plympton’s new work through a camera looking over his shoulder. Featuring voices of David and Keith Carradine, Sarah Silverman, Justin Long, Dermot Mulroney, and music by Maureen McElheron and Hank Bones.

“This movie does seem determined to evoke everything from anime and Nagisa Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth to Grease and the Frankie-and-Annette beach romps. The last act approaches the grim gags of a Tim Burton phantasmagoria. But if Plympton is making pastiche, he’s also having a laugh at a universal experience that for a lot of people was probably pretty crummy. Apparently, it was a little crummier for him.” – Boston Globe