Adrift on the Miyazaki sea

Ponyo, Miyazaki's latest feature-length film based on Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, is set to open in the US today. Here is a glowing review.

I will see it soon. Official Disney website with trailer here.

Sandimation

This is one of the greatest displays of artistry and animation I've ever seen. It's Ukrainian artist Kseniya Simonova. Her art and skill are incredible and her sand animations are animated images, both in creation and application. I won't spend any more time gushing about her. Just watch and enjoy.

I'd link her but she doesn't seem to have a website. Well, she'll have one soon, cuz the word is out. More on youtube.

Back to the Future.

In my admittedly biased opinion, the best prime-time animated American television show Futurama is set to return with the original cast in 2010. The story from Variety is really badly written, but you can scratch your head at it here. ("Set to bow"???)
Seems the cast was holding out for $70k an episode. The show is great, but no wonder all of television is sprinting as fast as possible towards the reality TV finished line. Jeez.
I seem to remember when Groening was all about the blue collar. Regardless of the payout (which they could have possibly avoided had they never canceled it), I'm happy it will be back.

Conan and Andy do Anime

Of course Conan isn't going to tell you he's old-hat at cartoons being the voice of Mentok the Mindtaker on Adult Swim's Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
And Andy isn't going to tell you he's old-hat at cartoons being the voice of Mort on Madagascar 1 & 2 and the Nickelodeon show Penguins of Madagascar.

But what they do do is make merciless fun at anime. Ghost in the Shell, too, which is the good kind of anime.


via: The Duty

So go ahead and act like you don't watch or understand anime, Conan and Andy. I know better by the friends you keep.

RobOpera Sauvage

Robots AND animation. Better than sex? Not quite, but it will suffice at the moment. The style kind-of reminds me of the French movie (animated in Czechoslovakia) La Planète sauvage. which blew my mind when I saw it. The dance-techno in this is meh, but the animation rocks.

BIRDY NAM NAM - THE PARACHUTE ENDING from Steve Scott on Vimeo.

Bad Anime

Wow, I have watched a lot of bad anime lately. Really bad. One was called "Claymore" which was the standard (way overused) super-hot girls fighting demons with swords and martial-art super-powers fare, in which the hot girls are part demon themselves. Claymore suffered from what I call "DBZ Syndrome" which is a severe case of chronic over-exposition. They would explain a technique, the technique used was so fast all they had to animate was a blur, and then the dying demon would ask what technique it was so they would explain in in more painful detail again. Then they would discuss the technique. All of this while standing perfectly still, just moving their mouths, no matter how dire the fight going on was supposed to be. It's a tired way of filling up time cheaply.
The second serial anime was I have no idea. I still don't know the name and I really don't care. It was the standard corporate super-soldier girls that are part demon which totally betray their corporate handlers (duh), escape and all move in together with one teenage guy despite their murderous hatred of each other. (DUH!) I was kind of encouraged at the opening title sequence which was a slow-pan over co-opted artwork of Gustav Klimpt with the main character in the kiss-pose and nicely-arranged orchestral music instead of an insipid Japanese knockoff pop song. My hopes were dashed quickly as the first few scenes featured an office girl who's schtick was always dropping the coffee she fetched for her man-boss. The animation wasn't even very good. Eviscerations and buckets of blood do not a good anime make.
With satisfaction, I did get my hands on a copy of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, which I haven't seen in a long time. Billy Crudup plays the lead while Billy Bob Thornton does a great job playing the Monk, which is a rich role. Minnie Driver adds her sweet accent to the Lady Iboshi, which is a stronger female role than 99% of American movies ever made. (The only American female lead I can think to rival her strength is Vivien Leigh's Scarlet O'Hara.) Sure it's got teenagers fighting demons, but it's got such a good screenplay and it's filled with full frame-by-frame action with no skimp on the detail. While it's not my favorite Miyazaki movie, it is fantastic, and did well as a filling main course compared to the tastless and weak aperitif.

Sound Wave eMotion Gun

The guys from Daft Punk commissioned Interstella 5555 from animator Leiji Matsumoto, the man behind the legendary Space Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers) and Captain Harlock, cuz like all awesome nerds, they loved his stuff as kids.
I was going to post each individual vid separately, as only a few months ago I could only find them that way.
But I've found it's all there in one glorious click for over a year and 400k views. I re-post it here. It's got everything you like. A willowy blue girl, space ninja and a flying V spaceship. An hour well spent in animationmusiccloudland.
Feel free to full-screen that baby... or go buy it and watch it with me.

He really is magic

My one HP post. If Harry's glasses are so magic they don't need lenses, can't he just lose the glasses all together?
Or are the frames a construct to hold the magic that allows them lenslessness perfect-vision? Magic is confusing.

and... is that a beard?

Gratuitous

Turn it WAY up.
The Dead Weather

Robots don't wear t-shirts

Not yet anyway, but if you're looking for a gift for me, any of these will do... except any transformers themed shirts. I wouldn't even burn a transformers shirt as it's a waste of perfectly good fire.

Check it out.
101 Robot T-shirts!

Ah. Max's VF-1D Valkyrie Veritech in full armor. Guardian mode would have been preferable, but superawesome.

Posterization

I have a new favorite poster designer. His name is Martijn Van Dam and his style is something I'm going to be homage-ing very soon. You better believe there's robots.

Champion Sound - Spacecraft Illustration from Super Silo on Vimeo.