Jamie Caliri

        i was reliving the 90's via youtube the other day, when i found myself watching Marcy Playground's Sex and Candy music video for the first time. i was sucked in by the moody color palette, giant Louise Bourgeois-esq spider, and general weirdness of it. i of course immediately went to find out who had directed it, and found Jamie Caliri.
        while Caliri has directed live-action music videos for a couple other music groups, what i find most exciting is his stop-motion animations using paper cutouts. i usually find myself annoyed with this sort of stop-motion (probably because when i see it all i can think of is scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) even when its used by some of my favorite directors. something about Caliri's i love though! if you've seen The United States of Tara, you've surely noticed how cool the opening credits are, which were done by Caliri. he also did the end credits for Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate events, and oh my GOD. they should have entrusted him with the whole film. i am an enormous fan of the book series, and was so horrified with the film adaptation that i left before the credits even started, and i love them! they are in so much better keeping with the feel of the books. what a loss. anyway, you should absolutely watch that, and also his short film "The Sun and the Seed", which is really beautiful and strange.

you can find a list of all the videos he's directed on Caliri's website
and here are a few of his animated videos on youtube:
The Sun and the Seed
A Series of Unfortunate Events end credits
United States of Tara main titles



images: screen grabs from A Series of Unfortunate Events end credits