Animation, Art, and Other Shiny Things
An innovatingly simple stop-motion animation by Tomas Mankovsky.
Part two, Panspermia, is based on a 5th century BC Greek idea that life exists throughout the universe and is spread by meteors, comets, asteroids, and the like. (not to be confused with exogenesis which says life on earth was transferred from somewhere else and could care less whether there’s life elsewhere. geocentric snobbery.)
Cirkus is stop-motion animation from Denmark and has, as one might expect, danish dialogue. Fortunately it’s sub-titled in english for those of us unfamiliar. The sets are great, the animation smooth, and the story is sweetly engaging.
Naive clown with a fabulous act and a heart of gold wants to join the circus. But this is no ordinary circus via
Directed by Thomas Pors
Beyond the Mind’s Eye is the 1992 follow up to The Mind’s Eye and, true to Moore’s Law, the animation has improved in step with the increase in computing power. The music is done by Jan Hammer (yes, he did miami vice too, but don’t hold it against him) and tracks better than parts of the first series.
So, let’s start at the beginning with Virtual Reality…
Well, I spent the week lovingly working on a post only to realize it shouldn’t be posted. So… no ‘long post’ this cycle. Have a few in the works so hopefully I’ll have something next week.
So as not to leave you hanging, however, I offer up a documentary on Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody. I was a teenager when A Night At The Opera was released but can probably still lip sync many of the parts of BR… Incredible album and incredible band.
Very simple animation by Eleanor Stewart to go with an excellent tune.
Hoedown from the Rodeo ballet by Aaron Copeland (1942)
The Emerson, Lake, and Palmer version is the one I grew up with, however..
The Temple is the final installment in The Mind’s Eye and it’s the part of the tape I would wear out every time. Between the bleeding-edge animation (for 1990) and the (well-synchronized and most excellent) soundtrack, this track marks when I believed that 3D computer animation had finally matured past a nerdly diversion and into a mainstream entertainment medium.
You may recognize the surroundings and birds from the second installment, Civilization Rising, (or 03 per the video itself) as the animation between about the 50 second mark to a minute-twenty looks to be from just before this video.
I’ve collected the links to the videos from Beyond the Mind’s Eye and will begin posting them next week.
Holiday traditions are as common a part of families as the odd Uncle. Everyone has one or more, and they’re all different.
We added a new tradition this year in the form of an additional turkey.
Around the abode, we’ve always had a soft spot (whether in our heart or head is in dispute) for so-called bad movies. Wolfman Mac’s Chiller Drive-In and Off-Beat Cinema are Saturday night staples and we have a decent personal stash of some of the better of the so-bad-it’s-good, low-budget, and cult cinema. (dark star and rocky horror are particular favorites…and we have wedding reception photos to prove it)
The additional turkey added to our Thanksgiving tradition menu was the first annual holiday viewing of the 2009 cheese reel Thankskilling.
Timely to the holiday, this very low budget teen slasher brings to the screen one of the more nefarious (and quotable) killers put to celluloid in recent times; a cursed (and cursing), immortal, homicidal turkey that kills with a ceremonial gold-headed ax. Oh, and he talks, and he can drive, and shoot a shotgun, and he can… uh… well… Let’s just say that an extra-small gravy-flavored condom wrapper was found at the scene of a killing and leave it at that. All that on a budget of 3,500 bucks.
Sheriff Dad and Turkie (in disguise) having tea. This doesn't end well...
The movie opens in 1621 following a puritan lass (in a most un-puritanical outfit) running from an ax wielding turkey. Considering the state of dress, and the …amplitude… of the lass’ heaving chest (which is attached to adult film star Wanda Lust) I worried that the flick could devolve into the interminable, but when Turkie commented on said chesticles my fears calmed considerably.
Jump to the present. (or hereabouts – the math doesn’t work real well in this movie) The jock, the goody-two-shoes, the fat hick, the slut, and the super-dweeb all pile into the Jock’s Jeep to travel home from college for Thanksgiving break.
No, that's not the Sheriff, even though that is his distinctive moustache. Turkie is a master of disguise.
Unknown to them, a crazy hermit’s dog pees on the wrong tiny totem pole (in the woods) that wakes up a 505 year-old cursed turkey which, understandably pissed at the way he’s been awoken, promptly goes on a killing spree that somehow involves the five college kids.
As the kids begin getting picked off, they search a big box of books in Sheriff Dad’s garage and find the book that explains how to remove turkey curses except (gasp!) most of it’s in code! Grisly impersonations, nuclear waste, bad jokes, and over-the-top quotability will easily make this movie an extra Thanksgiving turkey tradition in our household.
(there’s even tell of a sequel in space! yeah, yeah. kinda a spoiler, but you didn’t think a cursed turkey was gonna go down easy, did you?)
Incredible 3D computer animation.
ROSA is an epic sci-fi short film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where all natural life has disappeared. From the destruction awakes Rosa, a cyborg deployed from the Kernel project, mankind’s last attempt to restore the earth’s ecosystem. Rosa will soon learn that she is not the only entity that has awakened and must fight for her survival.
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The Ruffled Crow 