Fog of War

Depending on which way you lean on the current state of our union this is a worthwhile flick. The saying "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" came to mind during the second half.

Dollface

A subtle or not so subtle piece on the results of trying to attain the perfect images we see on tv.

A big "Bowl of Robinsons"

Disney's "Meet the Robinson's" super bowl ad. I really want this one to be good. Chicken Little had some really good moments in it but , story wise , wasn't much more than fluff.

Walling in da house.....

My buddy Mike Walling has a new version of his sight up and running. Pop on over and take a looksy wontcha? If you know Mike then you know he'll be good at keeping fresh stuff posted in his blog section as well as having some fun work of his own up. And be careful or you just might learn a thing or two...stay in school, don't do drugs.

Ratatouille Test......back again

Not sure how long this will be up. Fun little bit of test animation. I'm looking forward to Pixar characters with arms and legs again. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Yup, it got yanked. Didn't think it would last long but it was more than enough to wet my appetite to see it when it hits theaters. So, in it's stead the Ratatouille Trailer.....in German!

Auf Wiedersehen!!!

UPDATED UPDATE: yeah, it's back....enjoy.

Weird news of the day....

I'm now an ordained minister with all the rights and obligations that that entails. Now Andrew and I are going to start our own ass kicking, evil fighting, gang of clergy and maybe start our own church...but definetly the evil fighting part for sure.

Chairman of the Board

I love this piece the same way I loved the old sand animations they would show on Sesame Street.

The Thunder from down Under!!!

It sucks when you have to leave a studio you've been at for a while. And not because of the studio itself, but the people. We all know that the people you work with can make or break a job. So when you get the opportunity to work with some of those folks again at another place...well, it's just freakin' awesome!!! My pal Hamish McKenzie started at Valve yesterday! For those of you who don't know of the mighty McKenzie, he is the tool master of macaronikazoo fame. He's also on my cool people list even though he got me to eat vegemite....I don't know how many cat owners there are out there but, there' a product for cats called "petromalt". You give it to your cat to prevent hairball issues.......in Australia they package it and sell it as a cracker spread and call it vegemite. Anyway, he and his wonderful family are here...now if I can only get him to try mountain oysters.

Fairy nice to meet you....

Please, somebody stop me before I pun again. Anyway, here's the first trailer for Disney's direct to DVD Tinkerbell release.

Hellz yeah, yo...

Surprisingly, there are blogs not devoted to animation-n-such. Dooce.com is one of them. If you have kids (or just hear the voices in your head...it's pretty much the same either way) then give her stuff a read. Sarcastic, irreverent and my new addiction (hey, Burke watches "America's Next Top Model...I've got Dooce.com, so back off.)

Spiders on Drugs....

Spiders on drugs....it's like snakes on a plane or a house that eats people....just watch the damn video.

"Noel" time like the present...

I had the good fortune of watching "The Very First Noel". Some friends from the DNA days worked on it. All I can say is Wow! I won't ramble like I did with Monster House. Plain and simple, this thing is ten kinds of awesome. Unlike "Teletubbies Hanukka Sleepover" "The Very First Noel" really is an instant classic.

Monster House....

I've tried a few times to get through Polar Express. Beyond the creepiness of the zombie eyed, children of the damned expressions on all the kids, which was freaky enough on it's own ( as has been stated by a ba-jillion folks by now) I just couldn't get into the story. Bored me to tears. Anyway, that "burn me once, shame on you" mentality is why I've avoided "Monster House" since it opened last summer.

After some positive words from some of the folks at work ( I don't trust critics by nature, not because they suck or anything...they just creep me out is all, getting paid to sit in the dark, all alone doin' god knows what...just gives me the heebie-jeebies, the same way that I'm creeped out by clowns and mullets)....I digress. So I finally get up the nerve to put my eyes through what I was sure was going to be a visual beating of "Turkish Starwars" proportions and instead I'm greated by a damn good movie.

I would say that Monster House is better than it should be but that would just be a knee jerk reaction to the fact that I loath "performance crapture". I've heard folks compare it to films like Ghoonies (from back in my day....god, I feel old) and they're right. This wasn't a promotional tie in heavy, pop culture reference laden, furry forest critters taking on global warming/hunters/extinction/chlamydia extravaganza with bugs and a side of fries (no offense to anyone, I love fries.) It was three kids, the crazy old man across the street and a house that eats people....a freakin' house that eats people. I shouldn't have to say anything after that...it's like saying "it's snakes....on a plane", that should be all you need.

It's a house....THAT EATS PEOPLE!!!

Happy New year...blah, blah, blah...

As usual I'm a couple steps behind the rest of you fine folks. The new year was good...all my girls, the wonderful Karen Prell, a damn fine dinner and last but not least...hand puppets. What more could you ask for? I hope you and yours enjoyed the holidays (which ever ones you celebrate) and that you're ready for 2007.

Peace

Blown Away...almost

Sweet mother of all that's holy. So far Seattle has shown us it can hang with the big boys when it comes to weather. Since we got here we've seen Seattle's "record heat" (kinda unimpressive, but hey), "record rain" (ok, if Seattle calls it record rain, you better freakin' believe it), "unusually early snow" (almost had a white turkey day) and last but not least, the "record wind storm"...you best believe that one. It hit Thursday night with sustained winds in some areas close to 130 mph...crap!!! We were lucky, we only lost power for two days (even though I didn't get my internet back up till today...but who's complaining?) I did get to utilize my primitive hunter/gatherer skills and found coffee...mighty hunter next found donuts, mmmmm mmmm. Anyway, things are back to "normal"...which kinda sucks, I was gonna bring back karaboo next (or whatever I could take down with my Honda.)

"Ant" Misbehavin'

So the AntBully DVD came out on Tuesday. I wish I could say I was more excited about it but I look at AntBully like a strange bookend along side the Jimmy Neutron feature. Jimmy was fun and exciting and signified all the potential that would be this little upstart animation studio in Dallas. AntBully felt like the complete opposite of that. It's like this story I heard about a guy who has appendicitis while he's eating at a McDonald's. From that point on he can't stand the smell of McDonalds food, not because the food caused the appendicitis but the association of the smell of the food with the tramatic event. There were some great things that happend during the production of AntBully but ultimately I will look at it as the time when my cynicism towards the industry first reared it's ugly head.

Now that we've gotten past my public therapy session we can talk about the DVD itself. AntBully is a solid movie that you can enjoy watching with your kids. The transfer is great, it sounds good...hell, it even has a really cool lenticular cover on the DVD packaging and there are some fun extras, like the interstitial shorts we did for Cartoon Network. It does has the obligitory "ooh, ahh...this is how we make cg animated movies" featurette. And to my surprise it did have some of the animated sequences that were cut from the film due to rewrites and test audience reaction....this is where I put on my cranky hat. The deleted scenes showed some of the potential of what I thought the film could have been.Don't get me wrong, there's definetly some crap in there that you watch and go "damn, I can see why they cut that." On the flip side there are a couple sequences that were just pulled for all the worng reasons. A prime example being one that involved Zoc's back story. It shows him as a young pupa watching his entire colony being wiped out by the exterminator. There is more emotion in that one sequence then I feel ended up in the entire finished movie. And it was cut for a really poor reason...tempo. Warner Bros wanted the film to keep hop, hop, hopping along like a kid on too many pixie stix. I understand that movies, like music have a rythem...but to affect the story so that the film has a "beat you can dance to" feels like the wrong reason to slice and dice if the story suffers for it. all the great backstory and character development that was originally in the film was all stripped away so that "we could get to the good stuff quicker and ride that roller coaster all the way to the credits." Too bad it wasn't enough to motivate more people to come along for that ride.

S-Wii-T!!!

So the Wii came out today. I haven't been all that excited about it but it's been a blast listening to Andrew get all "school girl" excited as this magical day arrived. Since I'm not strong enough to admit my own addiction (remember, knowing is half the battle...GO JOE!!!) I decided to live vicariously through Andrew and document the momentus occasion for all to enjoy.

Tha adventure starts at an undisclosed GameStop location....at midnight, damn.

Here we see Andrew striking the classic "pose". See how excited he is...sad, isn't it?

VICTORIOUS!!!

Mmmmm, tastes like awesome

So close.....

My Kung-Fu is strong!!!!

I haven't decided yet who the bigger nerd is, Andrew for braving the geek horde or me for documenting it. Anyway, to say the Wii is kickass cool and fun to play would be an understatement. It rocked! Wii sports was da bomb yo, Call of Duty 3 looked like it would require a serious effort to master the controller but had potential. Once again I hate Andrew for adding one more thing to my "must have" list...Darn you Burke, darn you to heck!!!

Put on your poker face....

I, like a lot of folks, like to play poker. I, like a lot of folks, am not very good at playing poker. But there's something about sitting around a table with a group of friends, drinking beer (or Arbor Mist, for you Mr Halifax), smoking cigars and looking at eachother all "steely eyed"...seeing who can win that high dollar pot of $15.25 and somebody's last "Chuck-E-Cheese" token. My bestest bud Keith Craker, on the other hand, is very good at playing poker...Texas Hold'em to be exact. So good that he's using his wonderful talents to produce his own line of poker related apparell. Feel free to cruise on over and take a look around...at least you can look like you know what the hell you're doin' when you sit down at the table.

It must have been the fact that I'm one of, if not the only person at Valve who hasn't played Portal yet...which made me perfect for playtesting one of Valve's next big "thangs". Wow, I have never felt so smart and so dumb all at the same time. It was like watching "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" at the same time. This game is definetly going to turn some heads and gaming thumbs it's way. I won't say how long I played (God I love my job) but the time flew...FLEW by. I'm not a monster gamer but I can honestly say that this will introduce some gaming experiences that just haven't been avaiable before...ways to figure out puzzles that will just blow your mind. And how this is all going to tie in to the HL2 universe...nice (that's for you Burke.)

Pot of Gold....

Youtube is like a grandparents attic. Lots of stuff packed in there, most of it isn't worth much monetarily...really fun to look at but not worth anything other than sentimentality. Then you find that chest in the corner that contains a treasure...Action Comics #1, a letter from George Washington, the head of Jimmy Hoffa. Well, over at youtube there is that chest over in the corner and in it is a lecture done by Glen Keane several years ago. The quality is "iffy" but the content is great. I'll post them in GRAB-BAG for your viewing pleasure. For those of us who make our living animating, finding something like this is awesome....and it's a hell of a lot better than finding Hoffa's head, that would be seriously nasty.