Click here to view a Quicktime from Turbulance. (636k)

Oh, what fun the animators of the last decade and a half are having! Those who are creating with computers are taking us on journeys into the center of our minds' eyes and, the best of them at least, are stirring the emotional pot that simmers within all humans.

Call me naive, but some of the artwork still amazes me. As entire computer-animated feature films come hurtling into view, I guess I should be a little more world-weary about the results. But I cannot wrap my head around the fact that a mouse, keyboard and silicone chips are the capable tools of such mastery as offered in some of Odyssey's collection. Odyssey Video has recently released through Sony Music Video four new titles: Computer Animation Classics, Computer Animation Showcase, Cyberscape and Turbulence.

Grab Your Popcorn
Some of these techno Van Gogh's manipulate the tools of their burgeoning trade with true glee. As witnessed in Computer Animation Classics, the pioneers of computer animation set the standard in the '80s with imagination and heart.

If it's your idea of a good time to sit down with popcorn in front of computer animation, the Computer Animation Showcase and Classics videos offer up morsels of entertainment in three-dimensionality that can give the Road Runner a run for his money. Not in silliness necessarily, but certainly in satisfaction. A mix of funny and touching, both videos are great rides through the world of brilliant animation.

Artistry and Skill Not Necessarily Synonymous
Sadly, not all videos are created equal. Where artistry and skill alone part ways is annoyingly evident in the offering of award-winning Beny Tchaicovsky's Cyberscape.

Tchaicovsky is unarguably a terrific technician. He may even occasion a point of view or two, albeit in a deafeningly repetitious manner. But he certainly doesn't deliver the "surreal history of the evolution of human life and thought" that the Odyssey marketers would have us believe. If indeed, there is cerebral candy to be eaten here, it's two-cent licorice, not fine chocolate.

Tchaicovsky's lack of emotional commitment to the work is tiring. One can only witness so many robotic men marching to the tune of the same drummer. True, their heads may change ... we have apple heads, block heads, globe heads, cow heads; none-the-less, they all march with similar purpose and an excrutiating lack of humanity. Not to mention imagination.