Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Coyote Falls" is an American 3-minute cartoon from 2010 made by Matthew O'Callaghan and Tom Sheppard and both of them are fairly experienced in animation filmmaking, so maybe I should not be surprised that this very brief movie turned out nicely. No filler material, just one joke following the next as Coyote still has it for Road Runner. I must even say that I am not the very biggest fan of the old cartoons starring these two as gadget based animation is not exactly my favorite kind of comedy, but this new one here worked out pretty well. The scenes with the truck were about as funny as the bungee rope not being long enough and the ending is a nice tribute to the old days. It may not ooze greatness, but I thought this was quite a funny watch and the whimpering sound by Coyote near the end was almost heartbreaking. I always liked him more than Road Runner. No surprise at all this one got nominated for two prestigious awards (Annies, Visual Effects Society). It deserves the attention. Go see it and hopefully you will like it as much as I did.

TheLittleSongbird While much of the Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote series was so enjoyable, the best of them some of the best and funniest Chuck Jones and Looney Tunes ever made once deadlines became tighter and budgets smaller there was a significant nosedive in quality which made the 1965-1968 output largely disappointing.More were made after, but while better than the 1965-1968 cartoons the glory days for the two characters were sadly long gone. 'Coyote Falls' is along with 'Chariots of Fur' and 'Little Bo Beep' one of the better "modern" Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, and while it's nowhere near classic Chuck Jones level it is closer to that than to Rudy Larriva dud territory.There is not much wrong here with 'Coyote Falls'. It's not quite wild or looney enough perhaps, and at a meagre 3 minutes it's far too short when the cartoons in the series on average is between 6 and 7 minutes. It is proof though that the latter Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons shouldn't be completely dismissed, and yes it is infinitely superior to the feature film that succeeds it (didn't completely hate 'Cats and Dogs 2' but really cannot lie and say it was good either).In 'Coyote Falls', the CGI animation comes off surprisingly well and looks great. There was the worry as to whether the CGI would have depth and whether because of the different animation style that the cartoon will once again feel too different to the series' classic era. The animation however is vibrant and colourful, with very richly detailed backgrounds and nothing looking cheap or stiff (even the character designs). Refreshingly, the music is closer in spirit and in how it fits with the action to the lively and lusciously characterful work of Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn than the cheap canned, repetitive and discordant sounds of Bill Lava, really appreciated that it adhered to a more classical cartoon style rather than infuse it with modern popular music which can be repetitive and generic and would have made the feel far too different.'Coyote Falls' could have been more wild and looney, but it is still a highly entertaining cartoon and executes its humour very well. The gags and traps are not the most original or visually imaginative, but they are beautifully timed and very funny, plus they look good in the animation. Nothing tired or repetitive here. The story has its charm and moves quickly without feeling too rushed, it's formulaic (as was most of the series) but not painfully so. Roadrunner thankfully is closer to the amusing and reasonably cute character of the Jones cartoons rather than the badly drawn and incredibly annoying one seen in the Rudy Larriva shorts. Coyote, as has been said many times already, is the funnier and more interesting of the two, and he remains cunning, incredibly funny yet sympathetic for the audience which is what has always made him so appealing as a character.All in all, for a late/modern/contemporary Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon 'Coyote Falls' was surprisingly really good. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . at least could be counted upon to last six minutes, be constructed by fewer than ten credited people, and feature Mel Blanc's two cents worth. COYOTE FALLS is copyrighted 2010. It's shorter than three minutes, but has three slides listing hundreds of mostly indecipherable (even on freeze-frame and zoom) names with corresponding job titles, and there's not a peep out of Mr. Blanc. (It's as if the animators of a Golden Age Looney Tunes decided to tack on a credits list of every person EACH ONE OF THEM had met in their lives, on the theory that if any of that horde had rubbed out an animator, the cartoon may have gone unfinished.) COYOTE FALLS begins with a slide listing the number "345180." Is this supposed to be its "Vitaphone Listing?" If so, who has the time to watch hundreds of thousands of shorts, even IF half of them are as brief as COYOTE FALLS?! There's little to note of the substance of these 179 seconds. It's said that some films, such as light bulb inventor Thomas Alva Edison's ELECTROCUTING AN ELEPHANT (1904, available at the U.S. Library of Congress web site) are "short but sweet." COYOTE FALLS can be best described as "short but sour."

Neil Welch It may be arguable that a 3 minute film does not merit a review: Coyote Falls puts the lie to this.The Road Runner cartoons are misnamed - the Road Runner itself is merely a maguffin, because the cartoons are about the Coyote, and his indefatigable pursuit of an unachievable goal, and his unshakable resolution never to give up in the sure and certain knowledge that, even if he came up with the perfect plan, his personal universe would change reality so as to foil him. This was the very highest of high concept and, coupled with Chuck Jones' sublime visual sensibilities, created a series of traditional hand-drawn animation single reelers which offered a seemingly endless series of sight gags, without dialogue, all of which were variations on a theme. When Jones packed them in, Warner Bros turned out a few more in widescreen and with a drastically different design sense and approach to music. They didn't work. And so things remained.Now we have this new 3 minute Road Runner / Coyote short, in which Jones' design models have been translated into 3D CGI. The film is essentially a number of variations on, and consequences of, a single "plan" by the coyote, lovingly rendered into a beautiful CGI version of Jones' Road Runner universe, and delivered with the Jones panache accompanied by musical cues in the Carl Stalling style.And it makes full use of cinematic 3D.Now, if only it wasn't just 3 minutes! Somewhere in heaven, Chuck Jones is smiling.