Beavis and Butt-head rule! by MATTHEW HAYS J.J. Sedelmaier may not sound like a household name, but you'd be surprised at how many shorts the American animation guru has put his stamp on. As well as creating commercials for products like beer, running shoes, cars, call waiting, live theatre, TV networks (MTV and NBC) and toilet tissue, Sedelmaier has worked on advertising spoofs and wacky shorts for Saturday Night Live and the debut season of Beavis and Butt-head. The current animation renaissance (see King of the Hill and South Park) owes a great deal to Beavis and Butt-head, says Sedelmaier, on the line from his New York animation studio. "The series propelled animation into an adult realm and gave it an acceptance and validity it just didn't have before." Sedelmaier also cites Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (as annoying as that bunny was) and The Simpsons as high-tide marks for the rejuvenation of the form. Sedelmaier will be in town this week to introduce an anthology of his finest work at the Cinémathèque (Friday, Nov. 7, 6:45 p.m.), where his considerable range will be on display (a standout: his '60s comic-book cartoon sendup The Ambiguously Gay Duo, first seen on SNL). "Animators can get away with political or social commentary that live-action filmmakers can't," opines Sedelmaier, exactly because the form itself is antirealistic. "It's fantasy, it suspends reality. Animation can go to new lengths for the very reason that it's a different language." (The Sedelmaier retrospective will repeat on Saturday, Nov. 22 at 8:45 p.m. at the Cinémathèque). About town: Look for Michael Ironside, who plays the badass commander in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (opening this Friday, Nov. 7), on Montreal streets shooting the low-budget thriller Captive. Also, Mia Kirshner, the locally-based actress who lit up Atom Egoyan's Exotica, is in town this weekend to promote Costa-Gavras' latest film, Mad City (opening this Friday as well), in which she plays a social-climbing cub TV reporter. Recommended this week is Joe Balass's hilarious and bizarre doc Nana, George & Me, the director's meditation on being an out gay Iraqi Jew. Sound complicated? It is. The film runs Monday, Nov. 10 until Friday Nov. 14 at the NFB downtown in both French and English (see repertory listings for showtimes.) 1997 Cannes-Award-winning Commercials, always a crowd-pleaser, play this Monday, Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. at the Impérial (get there early). Also, there's the continued Ernst Lubitsch retrospective, sponsored by the Goethe Institute and playing at the Cinémathèque. "The Lubitsch Touch," as it has come to be known, is laced with a bitter irony and satire and not to be missed. In Thru the Out Door, the highly hyped queer sketch comedy program developed by Just For Laughs head honcho Andy Nulman and to air on CBC and Showtime, will be taped before a live audience right here in Montreal. The talent lined up so far is impressive, including Elvira Kurt, Maggie Cassella, Lea DeLaria and local girlfriend Craig Francis. Those interested in being part of queer TV history should contact publicist Puelo Deir at 285-4574 (filming takes place Nov. 16-17, 20-21). Finally, the Montreal International Festival of New Cinema and New Media, after five years of screening its stuff in mid-summer, is reverting back to its former time slot of October. Denying rumours the fest was suffering from waning audience numbers, ringmaster Claude Chamberlan says the move back came after careful consultation with filmmakers, distributors and audiences alike, all of who said most people would rather sit in a cinema in the cool fall than the hot summer.