REJECTED

DON HERTZELDT
http://www.bitterfilms.com/

# "...instant gratification... of all the films in the 2001 lineup, it's the least Oscar friendly. It was nominated anyway... Rejected pits its excruciatingly minimalist form against a double-decker concept. Sarcasm graduates to reflexive insanity as Hertzfeldt's frustration with [the channel's] dissing his admittedly unacceptable submissions turns to fury... the human resonances, psychological meandering and social asides enhance the art, as opposed to the look outstripping the ideas. The form skips merrily behind the content. This is what separates the animated statements from the cartoons."
Wesley Morris, San Francisco Chronicle

# "...brilliant... runs in the exact opposite direction from slick Pixar, deploying black and white stick figures in deadpan-voice episodes (with scenes of blood shooting from an anus and jetting out of eye sockets) and ending in a fantastic self-referential apocalypse."
David Cole, Time Out New York

# "Born from the same twisted mind that brought us the deliciously cruel animated short Billy's Balloon, ...Rejected continues Don Hertzfeldt's marriage of simple animated line drawings with the unexpectedly disgusting plot turn. We learn from the written narration that Hertzfeldt was commissioned by the Family Learning Channel to come up with a series of promotional segments. His submissions are so weird and existential, they're promptly rejected, which causes the cartoons themselves to implode on one another. I laughed till it hurt."
Warren Epstein, Gazette (Colorado)