Purple and Brown....

I don't get to see Keith Lango get all soft inside about a lot of stuff so it was really fun reading his post about Ardman's "Purple and Brown " shorts. Stop by and read his post then hop on over to YouTube for all the fun. If you don't laugh at these then you're dead inside

Geri's Game Redux

Caught this over at Cartoon brew. Remember when they did a shot for shot remake of Psycho?...it took me a while to like a Vince Vaughn film again and, well, Gus Van Sant is dead to me. But this take on Geri's game feels like an homage to me and a definite labor of geek filled love.

News from the House of Mouse...

Got this, from of all places, Aint it cool news....

"Toy Story 3" is coming in 2009, but John Lasseter won't be the director.

In addition to confirming for the first time that a third "Toy Story" is in the works, most likely for 2009 release, Lasseter said Lee Unkrich will helm it. Unkrich co-directed "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo" but has never before been sole helmer on a Pixar pic…

Michael Arndt, Oscar-nominated scribe of "Little Miss Sunshine," is penning the script.
Lasseter also revealed a behind-the-scenes shift at Walt Disney Feature Animation -- which is separate from Pixar but also under the control of Lasseter and Catmull -- by announcing that Chris Williams, a vet story artist at the Mouse, is now directing 2008 release "American Dog." Pic was developed and previously under the control of "Lilo & Stitch" helmer Chris Sanders, who recently left Disney.
Catmull denied speculation that Walt Disney Feature Animation may become a 2-D-only studio, with Pixar handling CGI, though he did confirm the Mouse will bring back hand-drawn pics.

"We're really excited about that and have brought back some great directors to work on that," he said, presumably referring to "The Frog Princess," a 2-D pic being developed by "Aladdin" and "Treasure Planet" helmers Ron Clements and John Musker, whom Lasseter brought back to Disney last year. That pic is believed to be on the fast track and may be the division's next release after "American Dog."

...I am excited about 2D coming back to the house of mouse (but most of us have known that for a bit) and I'm interested in seeing Lee Unkrich on his own but I'm not sure about "An American Dog" without Chris Sanders. And, honestly, TS2's ending...well, I wasn't a huge fan of the ending but it felt like a pretty good period at the end of that story. No one wanted to see it done by Disney sans Pixar and I'm really not sure I want to see it done by Pixar at this point. Wasn't it just a couple years ago that Jobs said they had more than enough original content, what's the point of doing sequels?....well Mr Lasseter, what's the point?

In the coolest places...

Ok, so Ernesto Bottger is the coolest of cool. We worked together at DNA and now he's at ReelFX. Back in 2005 Ernesto's short film "Help" was selected to be in the Nicktoons Animation Festival. Well, last night I'm making my way through content on the old x-box live when what to my wandering eyes should appear but the Nicktoons filmfestival and Ernesto's short. If you're on x-box live just go to Video Marketplace/TV Shows/Networks/Nicktoons/2005-Nicktoons Animation Festival: Episode 5...man, that was a mouth full. If you don't have an x-box or x-box live you can still see the short here...but you won't be as cool, your friends will laugh at you and the terrorists will win.

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.