DVD The Kitten Factory and Other Stories

Kitten factory and Other Stories features a unique blend between several unrelated animated short films and bits of dialogue between creators Henry Budd and Rob Levesque. For the most part, the animations are entertaining with a quirky and crude sense of humour that gives insight into the minds of the film's creators.

What immediately struck me with the film was the level of depth and complexity within the actual animations themselves. The human characters are all given their own individual, distinctive features and placed in detailed backgrounds and environments that give the film life and character. The animations are very fluid, and there's definitely a lot of creativity and ingenuity that went into animating both the characters and the world they live in. Furthermore, each short has a different theme and I found that while some shorts are better than others, each has its own unique character that is really emphasized by the detail put into each frame. Some of the animations feature a very bright and wide array of colours and shades, while others are done in a simply black and white style. The only thing you can predict with this movie is that you have no idea what's coming next.

While the animations are generally entertaining and fun to watch, I have to say there were points where the movie really lulled. For the most part, the actual short films were pretty fun and each one was unique, but the sheer amount of filler induced with the dialogues between Rob and Henry detracted from the film. I like how they actually give a sense of how difficult it is to put together a feature length animated movie by making a running joke about it throughout the film explicitly saying how they will finish their film by putting a bunch of filler into it. It was funny initially, but it got pretty old by the time I was half way into the movie, and I would have appreciated them having more of their animated shorts instead of filler involving them doing completely random stuff like firing guns for five minutes at a time.

Kitten Factory and Other Stories obviously tries to convey a sense of humour to the audience. Many of short animations themselves are quite funny on their own, but they are given a different dimension within the context of Henry and Rob's struggle to actually create the film. The humour in the film is comparable to a TV show like Family Guy where the joke often stems from the idea of "how does this make any sense at all?" The movie is lighthearted and if you want to just laugh at something that is completely nonsensical and different from anything else you'll see, this movie is for you.

On the whole, Kitten Factory and Other Stories will give you a few laughs and a sense of appreciation for how difficult it is to break into the film industry. There are definitely moments where the film deliberately wastes your time with filler that has nothing to do with anything else in the film, but the hilarity and complexity behind many of the animations makes the film worth the 80 minutes spent watching it.