Back From Holiday Break

I'm back at work from a much needed restful holiday break. The best part of my break was spending two uninterrupted weeks with my daughter. I took her to Disneyland for the first time. She's only a year and a half so we weren't able to do much, but I think she enjoyed it. The best part was watching her fact when we took her to the Tiki room. To see her amazement at the singing birds as really fun. It kind of blew all my criticism of the ride away.

DVDs I got for Christmas:
Walt Disney Treasures - Disney Rarities - Celebrated Shorts, 1920s - 1960s
I asked for this because of these shorts:
Lambert the Sheepish Lion
Ferdinand the Bull
Pigs Is Pigs
Noah's Ark

The Glass Bottom Boat
Because it has the short:
The Dot and the Line

Movies I able to catch:
King Kong: Excellent, I really enjoyed this film. Sure it had it's corny bits that I could have done without (Vines, Ice) But over all I liked watching it and I would watch it again. I also thought that they did an Excellent job on the FX. Good animation.

Harry Potter 4: This was easily the weakest book in the series, and as stories go, pretty weak as a film. It's main flaw, that is both int he book and the film is that Harry is always rescued and doesn't appear capable of doing anything himself. That said I really enjoyed the film and thought it was pretty well made. I really enjoyed the dragon on the rooftop sequence, that was a classic.

Narnia: I really hated to see this beat King Kong in the Box Office because I feel like it's a really weak film. Kong and Potter were both really good at describing what it was like to: A. be with a giant ape and B. fight a dragon. For me film making is all in the details not the facts. Details are interesting, facts are boring. I really like it in a film when the film maker describes the details of what something feels like. Other examples, in Poltergeist, I like how they describe what it would feel like to rip off your own face, Shining: what it feels like to have a family member go insane. It's all about how the film maker describes the thing. I felt like Narnia was all facts, and the story is just to weak to hold up the film (sorry CS Lewis, but it is). They failed to describe what it feels like to discover another world, they just report it as fact. What it feels like to fight a wolf, or what it feels like to ride a Lion. Or how about what it feels like to be turned into stone. This is all the stuff that I felt was sorely missed in this film.

Brokeback Mountain: Easily best film I saw over the break. Yha, the details I just described above are in this film *insert joke here* (no pun intended).

Web Stuff:

Animation Mentor just started it's new semester with a new web update. I have to say I thought it was good before, but it just got a whole lot better.

If you like stop motion you should really check out this website: http://www.darkstrider.net/main.html
Just the Video Clip section is impressive.

I added a new blog to my growing list: http://www.jeffpidgeon.com/ check it out. He's a cool guy, but I sure wish he'd turn on his feed:)

I also added some amazon book recommendations to this site. They're ones I like and think are related to this place. Sorry for the spam, buy one if you like it.

I was happy to see the Butcher give Open Season a good review, so far:
http://www.animationmeat.com/rantsnraves/rantsnraves.html#unique-entry-id-330

You've probibly alredy read a lot about this. There's so many animated films coming out in 2006, it's kinda weird I'd like to say it's a new golden age for animation but that doesn't feel quite right. I hope that most of these films do well. Animation has grown so big and so quickly that I want them to do well to sustain the growth, at the same time a lot of these films seem to be "pissing in the well water". I don't know if our little profession can handle all that piss. But still, I try not to worry about it and try and do the best job on the work that is in front of me, mostly I'm just happy that I have good work to do in front of me. So for me, this boom has worked out pretty good.

It looks like Pixar was unable to get their dream contract. So now it looks like the're going to merge with Disney. I think Disney will still get the better end of the bargen.

I think Cars is going to be great and will get near Nemo box office. But so far my predictions have been way off, >shurg<.

Is there anything else...I'm sure there is. I just can't think of anything.