Cartoons & Animation

Avatar and the Uncanny Valley

January 5, 2010 by John 21 Comments

We saw Avatar the other day, and did the whole 3D, IMAX nine yards. It complicated things a little — there are many more showings of the plain-old 2D version, and for that matter of the 3D in non-IMAX theaters. But after all we’d heard about the experience, it seemed the only way to go.

My original intention with this post was just to provide a thumbnail review, along these lines:

James Cameron, damn him, has done exactly what he said he’d do: delivered a kickin’-good movie with mind-blowing special effects and cinematography. He may not be king of the world — any more than Orson Welles was in 1940 — but…

Etc., etc.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was interested mostly in one thing: one facet in which the film didn’t disappoint, exactly, but also didn’t (probably couldn’t) quite succeed. Before getting into that, though, let me say:

The 3D effects in Avatar — at least, as viewed in an IMAX theater — go way beyond the lame, unimaginative poke-the-audience-with-a-sword precursors. When little flies and moths beset the characters in the jungle, you may have to fight the impulse to try swatting the bugs away. Or, like me, you may find yourself looking over your shoulder to draw the projectionist’s attention to the need for an exterminator.
Motion-capture technology, likewise, has leapt ahead since even the (justly) celebrated tools which Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis employed to bring Gollum to life in The Lord of the Rings — particularly in capturing facial expressions.
Technology aside, you’ll recognize Avatar‘s plot and love story from numerous “civilized man goes native” films that came before (Dances with Wolves, anyone?)…
Yet, you may still find yourself welling up from time to time.
I thoroughly enjoyed every second of the film. Thoroughly. (At some moments, indeed, I felt that I may have been undercharged despite the almost $14-a-pop admission price.)

So what didn’t succeed?

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A Quirky Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist (2009 ed.)

December 23, 2009 by John 3 Comments

Taking off from the first edition… All I’m going to do for the music portion here is just add ten songs (and pray that, over time, I won’t blow the little WordPress audio-player thingie out of the water).

As before, these artists and numbers appear, back-to-back, in the playlist:

Peter Robbins et al.: dialogue from A Charlie Brown Christmas
Anonymous 4: Hodie Christus Natus Est
Waverly Consort: Three Spanish Villancicos – Dadme Albcrecias
Perry Como: Home for the Holidays
Mannheim Steamroller: Joy to the World
George Winston: The Holly and the Ivy
Celtic Woman: O Holy Night
John Denver and the Muppets: The Twelve Days of Christmas
Al Hirt: Nutty Jingle Bells
The Roches: Deck the Halls
— 2009: —
Charlotte Church: Mary’s Boy Child
Madeleine Peyroux/k.d. lang: River
George Winston: Variations on the Kanon
Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops: The Toy Trumpet
Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby
Mannheim Steamroller: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Celtic Woman: The Wexford Carol
The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Jingle Bells
Jimmy Boyd: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
Cumberland Gap Reunion: Silent Night

(Note: The playlist goes automatically from start to finish, once you click the little Play button. To fast-forward to the next number, once a song is playing you’ll find a little fast-forward button to the right of its progress meter. And a fast-rewind to the left, for that matter.)

[audio:00_dialoguefromacharliebrownchristmas.mp3, 01_hodiechristusnatusest_anonymous4.mp3, 02_threespanishvillancicos_dadme_albricias_waverlyconsort.mp3, 03_homefortheholidays_perrycomo.mp3, 04_joytotheworld_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 05_thehollyandtheivy_georgewinston.mp3, 06_oholynight_celticwoman.mp3, 07_12daysofchristmas_denvermuppets.mp3, 08_nuttyjinglebells_alhirt.mp3, 09_deckthehalls_theroches.mp3, 11_marysboychild_charlottechurch.mp3, 12_river_peyrouxlang.mp3, 13_variationsonthekanonbypachelbel_georgewinston.mp3, 14_thetoytrumpet_fiedler.mp3, 15_santababy_earthakitt.mp3,
16_rudolphtherednosedreindeer_mannheimsteamroller.mp3, 17_thewexfordcarol_celticwoman.mp3, 18_jinglebells_briansetzerorchestra.mp3, 19_isawmommykissingsantaclaus_jimmyboyd.mp3, 20_silentnight_cumberlandgapreunion.mp3|titles=’A Quirky/Eclectic Christmas Music Playlist’|artists=Various Artists]

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So Your Book Just Sits There, Inert?

November 23, 2009 by John 11 Comments

(hat tip to Janet Reid)

Things Which Seem Otherwise

November 13, 2009 by John 11 Comments

From whiskey river:

Let me make this perfectly clear.
I have never written anything because it is a Poem.
This is a mistake you always make about me,
A dangerous mistake. I promise you
I am not writing this because it is a Poem.

You suspect this is a posture or an act
I am sorry to tell you it is not an act.

You actually think I care if this
Poem gets off the ground or not. Well
I don’t care if this poem gets off the ground or not
And neither should you.
All I have ever cared about
And all you should ever care about
Is what happens when you lift your eyes from this page.

Do not think for one minute it is the Poem that matters.
It is not the Poem that matters.
You can shove the Poem.
What matters is what is out there in the large dark
and in the long light,
Breathing.

(Gwendolyn MacEwen, “Let Me Make This Perfectly Clear,” Afterworlds)

…and:

Then there is the BIG PROBLEM — who are you? There is an endemic human tendency for self-deception. We all think we’re one kind of person when we’re somewhat different (especially viewed by others) than we imagine we are. You — the reader — no doubt feel you’re an exception.

(Alan Fletcher)

…and:

Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? It is that we have only known the back of the world. We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal. That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. Can’t you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? If we could only get round in front—

(G.K. Chesterton, from The Man Who Was Thursday [source])

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Do Not Distract the Artist

August 26, 2009 by John 7 Comments

Single-minded in pursuit of your ideals, are you? Think you’re putting a lot of time into your writing, your painting, your kids, your life? You call yourself dedicated?

Ha!

Or so I thought when I saw the video below. The maker claims to have spent 1500 hours on this not-quite-four-minute project, an estimate which I see no reason to doubt. But think about that 1500 hours… all those minutes and hours of mapping out every frame, shifting the (many) Lego bricks a little in one direction or another, shooting a frame or two per position… over… and over… (Let alone the time spent at the outset, encasing the human being in Legos.)

Granted, this rymdreglage person may not have a steady job, or kids, or… or… or… Still: sheesh.

I think the video can probably be appreciated even by people who don’t know anything about the eight-bit console games (original Nintendo Entertainment System, etc.) to which this an homage. Some advice before playing it back, though: turn the volume down a bit, and bump it upwards only if you really want. The music stops just short of inducing seizures in small children and animals.

[Hat tip to Lifting Fog (slogan: “visibility is improving”), which I’d read even if I weren’t related to one of its co-authors.]

Art Forms

July 24, 2009 by John 4 Comments

[Above, the trailer for the short film Lost and Found, an adaptation of the children’s book of the same name by Oliver Jeffers. For stills from the movie, visit the Cartoon Brew link above, and STUDIO aka.]

From whiskey river:

Recipe for an Ocean in the Absence of the Sea

You have the ingredients on hand,
Get to the edge of something,
yourself best of all, and take
yourself in hand. Take, I mean, your hand,
trace out the blue menaces
released and lapsing there,
watch closely around the wrist: they will
remind you what you must do,
They are what you must do. Be
them, until there is nothing but them,
then you are ready. Now take
time, all there is in the house —
it does not have to be yours. Take time
and never for a moment
losing track of what changes
back into yourself, bitter enough
so that you will need almost
no salt, mix well and then leap
over the edge. Wait there. When you can
wait no longer, it is done.
Serve at once. It does not keep.

(Richard Howard [source])

…and:

The world of the arts is by no means always comfortable, but neither is it likely ever to be boring. It is full of surprises, humor, traps for the unwary, and challenges to smugness. It is a world of moods as well as of revelation, of beliefs and fears, of unpleasant truth as well as of delicious fantasy. Perhaps it is arrogant to say that anyone who does not venture into this world is only half-interested in life. I say it, nonetheless.

(Russell Lynes, The Fine Edge of Awareness)

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Stories in the Trees

July 10, 2009 by John 8 Comments

[The artwork above comes from a fantastic — fantastically rich, but also just literally fantastic — Web site called The Hermitage, from the mind and imagination of artist Rima Staines. She and her companion Tui seem to have a life straight out of fiction, as you can see from her blog. Check out their “wandering house,” which is to a motor home as a cottage is to an office, and her handmade clocks (!).]

From whiskey river:

Generations

Our stories lie down in the orchard,
their time is not now, but something is
coming, something is going away. They

rise to the stars, and wait to be told.
There are listeners who know how little
we know, how much we are feeling.

We had to go our own way, a little off course,
always, no matter how specific the directions
seemed at the time. In this universe if we’re lucky,

we will live in our children’s stories,
their tales that will turn us to legend,
some absurd truth that has nothing to do

with our plans, our meticulous records.
No matter what stories we discard or keep,
they will give us a life we cannot imagine.

(Jeanne Lohmann, from The Light of Invisible Bodies [source])

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There Are Some Cures for Pre-Summertime Blues

June 3, 2009 by John 5 Comments

Wanted to draw your attention to a couple of recent donations to the “life is complex and frustrating, so let’s go have some fun!” cause.

First, you can generally look to the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog for a pick-me-up. (And before breakfast, say researchers, is when 99% of the populace most needs picking up. (The other 1% need it most while they’re sitting on barstools and fantasizing about Mr. or Ms. Right, as the case may be.))

But today’s post, “Some Cartoons for You,” just made me grin from ear to ear. (It might even have made the grin wrap around to the back of my neck — an alarming sight, no doubt, for the people behind me in the elevator this morning.) As is usually the case at 7-Imp, the focus is on children’s books and illustrators — specifically, in this case, illustrators who favor a cartoon-like style of art.

It’s pretty darned hard for me to look at this without smiling, and it’s not even the whole image (from “Mr.” [Tom] Warburton’s 1000 Times No — see a reproduction of the entire page at the 7-Imp site):

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Airborne

May 22, 2009 by John 5 Comments

From whiskey river:

As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think.

(Native American Indian saying)

Not from whiskey river:

Don Juan and don Genaro stood up and stretched their arms and arched their backs, as if sitting had made their bodies stiff. My heart began to pound fast. They made Pablito and me stand up.

“The twilight is the crack between the worlds,” don Juan said. “It is the door to the unknown.”

He pointed with a sweeping movement of his hand to the mesa where we were standing.

“This is the plateau in front of that door.”

He pointed then to the northern edge of the mesa.

“There is the door. Beyond, there is an abyss and beyond that abyss is the unknown.”

Don Juan and don Genaro then turned to Pablito and said good-by to him. Pablito’s eyes were dilated and fixed; tears were rolling down his cheeks.

I heard don Genaro’s voice saying good-by to me, but I did not hear don Juan’s.

Don Juan and don Genaro moved towards Pablito and whispered briefly in his ears. Then they came to me. But before they had whispered anything I already had that peculiar feeling of being split.

“We will now be like dust on the road,” don Genaro said. “Perhaps it will get in your eyes again, someday.”

Don Juan and don Genaro stepped back and seemed to merge with the darkness. Pablito held my forearm and we said good-by to each other. Then a strange urge, a force, made me run with him to the northern edge of the mesa. I felt his arm holding me as we jumped and then I was alone.

(Carlos Castaneda, Tales of Power — the last words of the book. I always thought Castaneda’s entire “Don Juan” series would have ended perfectly at this point, but no: he went on to write numerous further books, none of which attained the convincing — and impeccable — power of the early ones.)

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Have a Computer-Fascinated Cat?

March 29, 2009 by John 7 Comments

Like, one who insists on being in your lap as you work? Plays with the keys? The (ha ha) mouse?

Remind him or her who’s boss.

Instructions from aBowman’s site, where I found this (via the wide-ranging Froog):

This lively pet hamster will keep you company throughout the day. Watch him run on his wheel, drink water, and eat the food you feed him by clicking your mouse. Click the center of the wheel to make him get back on it.