Animation festivals are, by nature, hit-or-miss, though that grab-bag quality is part of their appeal. But while Spike & Mike's Classic Festival Of Animation 1998 gathers the usual stop-motion, pencil-drawn, and computer-animated suspects, there's not much of interest. It's nice to see more than the usual "sick and twisted" sex and violence, but most of the shorts are pretty bland. An early highlight is "Shock," a fine animator-versus-cartoon duel in the style of "Duck Amuck," and "Stage Fright" is a macabre Nick Park-esque bit of claymation. But nothing really catches the eye until the ultra-stylish travelogue "Transit," which offers tastes of a battered suitcase's globetrotting history through brief scenes animated in the mold of old New Yorker cartoons. Spike & Mike's Classic Festival Of Animation 1998 also provides another opportunity to catch Pixar's Oscar-winning short "Geri's Game," in which a lonely old man plays chess against himself.