Home Security and Other Videos of Mass Distraction

Compiling five animated National Film Board of Canada titles, this collection leads off with the titular (and best of show) 2004 short "Home Security" from the wacky John Weldon (Special Delivery), in which an everyday couch potato exposed to a steady diet of televised violence and color-coded security alerts decides to turn his house into the equivalent of Fort Knox--a move that he comes to regret after his new mechanical attack dog goes haywire and he's unable to open the gazillion locks on his front door or break out through his (now-barred) windows. Next best is the final entry, Pavel Koutsky's 1997 live-action/animated short "Duel," a powerful parable in which individuals on an assembly line are force-fed the "official version" of politics and culture from infancy to adulthood…until one young man rebels against the system. Less effective are Christopher Hinton's "Watching TV" (1994), a purposefully repetitive montage of graphic cartoon violence on TV, and Bretislav Pojar's "Balablok" (1972), a metaphorical battle between geometric shapes (balls and blocks), but Pojar's "E" (1981), a comical and sad illustration of how the state's idea of reality becomes the people's truth under a repressive regime, still hits a responsive chord. A solid and timely collection overall, that is sure to spur discussion, Home Security and Other Videos of Mass Distraction is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)