Starting to look like a Turnaround…

I have decried the quality of programming on Cartoon Network here in the past, but it appears that they’re getting it together over there, thanks to their new series coordinator, who’s bringing in shows like ‘Chowder‘, and THIS.  This looks AWESOME, I just want to say.  And judging from the creator, it will likely be as good as it looks.  I really can’t wait to see this one.

More Deep Thinking

Go and read this right now.  I would like to point out that this idea was briefly touched upon in ‘Future Shock‘, in 1970.

Thanks to Warren Ellis for the link.

Worst. Cartoon. EVER.

Okay, I want to be perfectly clear on this:

Cartoon Brew has a series, called ‘Cartoon Dump‘, where they showcase bad cartoons, yeah? I’ve watched the whole series, and those cartoons are AWFUL. But they all pale to insignificance in the face of “Animal Soccer World” from the Netherlands’ Phoenix Films.

Imagine a cartoon that blatantly stole some well-known characters from an equally well-known animation company, and animated them (extremely badly) on top of existing footage from some OTHER cartoon. Then replace that other cartoon’s soundtrack with a loop found on the internet somewhere, keeping one of the songs, but having the lyrics re-sung by that weird guy who’s always standing at the bus stop with open cans of cat food and a spork. Top the whole thing off with ALL the voices done by the same hapless guy, who is apparently translating the script into English on the fly. Okay? Now, imagine all of that, only worse. You’re ALMOST there.

Here is part one. Watch it, if you dare.

IF you manage to make it though that, and like me, you want to be able to stand at the next furry con and say you sat through the whole brutal experience with nothing but half a bottle of Cointreau to keep your hands from gouging your eyeballs out, then here’s part two, part three, and part four.

Man, not even DRUGS would make me sit through that again…

This Week In Dada, #4

What the hell is THAT???

Oh, I am SO with this…..

Apparently, on the morning of thursday 20th December, the Lakota Indigenous Nation withdrew from all treaties signed with the United States over the past 150 years.  ‘Bout time, if’n ya ask me.  They’ve been getting the shit end of the stick since they first clapped eyes on Europeans, and I hope they succeed.  I also hope someone gets Russell Means a copy of ‘Ecotopia‘.

Because Warren Ellis Loves Us All

…and he wants to remind us every so often that ‘Transmetropolitan‘ was not really about the future…

Oh:  Don’t look.  This is your only warning.

This Week In Dada, #3

This week, a little cognitive dissonance for all you boppers out there…

On The New ‘Beowulf’ Movie

     There’s an interesting discussion taking place here about the new ‘Beowulf’ flick, and whether or not it qualifies as ‘animation’.  Apparently, director Robert Zemeckis did a lot of motion capture, and then had all the actors CGI’ed to look exactly like themselves, which makes no sense whatever to me, except that it meant Zemeckis didn’t actually have to DIRECT anyone after they recorded their lines.

The general consensus over at Cartoon Brew seems to be that what was done on ‘Beowulf’ isn’t animation, and I agree.  It’s not; there’s far too much CGI for it to be “mere” animation.  I think they’ll have to come up with a new category for these things.

Also: I’ve seen the story of ‘Beowulf’, as filmed.  The comicbook adaptation is already being sold in bookstores.  Making a movie of the oldest written story in English (not the oldest written story, and maybe not even the oldest novel) means there’s no pesky copyright, and no pesky screenwriter to drag your name and sex/drug habits into the streets when you make a change to his/her prose.  Those who have read the original know that after what we would see as the denouement, the story keeps going for a while and then just kinda peters out.  This version adds a neat, but somewhat Hollywood twist to the end that will at least make it interesting to watch.

Normally, this would be the point at which I’d wish for a similarly-made film with furries in it, but considering how much of what comes from Hollywood these days is crap, that wish is hereby rescinded.  I would wish now for some independent folks with access to googobs of computing power to whip up something worth looking at, not just because it’s full of ZOMGCGISFX00RZ!!, and not just because it has furries in it, but because it’s actually a GOOD MOVIE.

Aaaah, I can dream, can’t I?

In The Uncanny Valley #1

     After several discussions here and there, I decided to start a new category, which is just rants about furry stuff.  The title (for the novice) comes from a net.paradigm which visualises things in terms of their familiarity to the viewer.  Normal things are on the same side as the viewer, and things that are so bizarre that they have no analogue in the viewer’s experience are on the other side.  Things that are sorta normal, but too weird for the viewer to be comfortable with, are in the valley.  The idea was originally inspired by people’s reaction to humanoid robots,  but I understand that for most people, furry fandom is in the valley.  Whatever.

My first rambling mishegas was going to be about liking foxes and being careful what one wishes for, but I came across this documentary-in-progress on BoingBoingTV and I had to mention it.

Of course, the director focuses on the fursuiters and mostly ignores the rest of us, but really, do we expect any different these days?  That the clip shown was as even-handed as it WAS I found something of a minor miracle.  It remains to be seen what the end result will look like, but I imagine it will ignore the rest of us, as well.

Furries Ahoy (Ahem)

Not that it looks all that great or anything, but I thought I’d share.  This movie, ‘El Arca’ (trailer here), will be shown in America exactly once, on 17th November, in Los Angeles.  Anyway, it has furries in it, despite being about what it’s about, but as you might expect, only the anthropomprphic monkeys got out alive…