Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006
dir. Paul Robertson

This Australian cat named Paul Robertson made this badass animation that looks and feels like a video-game crossed with a horror film.

Pirates, monsters, blood, guts, nudity, Big Lebowski references... it's 12 minutes of pixelated (not "pixilated") perfection.

BAD-MOTHA-FING-ASS!!!!

Download the film here:

http://www.selectparks.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=442

Check out Paul Robertson's artwork at Deviant Art:

http://probertson.deviantart.com/

and his Live Journal:

http://probertson.livejournal.com/

Robot Chicken
Season One

My friend Robyn Yannoukos is an intern at ShadowMachine Films working on Robot Chicken and after watching the first 6 episodes of Moral Orel, another stop-motion animated series on Adult Swim that's also produced by ShadowMachine, I decided to see what sort of work Robyn's been doing.

Robot Chicken is insanely hilarious as beloved childhood toys rape and murder each other in rapidfire one-liner visual gags and retro mashup parodies.

My favorite visual gag from Season One depicts two naked guys playing a backyard game of ring-toss with donuts:

[from Season 1, Episode 09 "S&M Present"]

And my favorite parody features a vengeful Jesus hellbent on killing the Easter Bunny:

[from Season 1, Episode 02 "Nutcracker Sweet"]

Cheers to Seth Green and Matthew Senreich for creating such a twisted show.

Chicken Little
dir. Mark Dindal
2005

[watched a free sneak with Sam and Matt Flynn at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood]

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
dir. Nick Park & Steve Box
2005

[watched at the AMC Century City with Matt Flynn]

Corpse Bride
dir. Tim Burton & Mike Johnson
2005

Corpse Bride is clearly the product of Tim Burton's twisted imagination, but many other equally talented artists made unmistakable contributions to this well written, beautifully animated and designed, musical/horror/comedy.

First and foremost, the credit for the film's genesis goes to the late great Joe Ranft. A master storyteller himself, Ranft initially introduced Burton to the original 19th Century Russian folktale about a man who unwittingly weds a corpse over 10 years ago.

Though Tim Burton is listed as a co-director, the man truly responsible for the eye-popping stop-motion animation is Mike Johnson, who created the award-winning stop-motion video for Les Claypool's cover of The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Long-time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman makes his usual (extraordinary) musical contribution and even lends his voice to the skeletal character Bonejangles.

Spanish artist Carlos Grangel took Tim Burton's rough sketches and turned them into stylized character designs.

It probably won't be quite the merchandise cash-cow like it's predecessor The Nightmare Before Christmas (a film often misattributed to Burton even though it was actually directed by Henry Selick ), but Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is destined to become a classic.

[watched with Sam, James, Ashley, Rob and Michelle]

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Current Mood:
Current Music: Yanqui U.X.O. by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

The Simpsons
Season Six

Season Six features some of my all time favorite episodes of the The Simpsons:

Bart of Darkness
Itchy And Scratchy Land
Tree House of Horror V
Homer the Great
Homie the Clown
Bart vs. Australia
Two Dozen and One Greyhounds
Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part 1)

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Current Mood: :]
Currently listening to: I Am The Messiah by MC Honky

Batman: The Animated Series
Volume One

I used to watch Batman: The Animated Series everyday after school while doing my 8th Grade Algebra homework. It became such a ritual that my brain now associates Math with Batman and vice versa. I can't even do simple math problems without Danny Elfman's Batman Theme getting stuck in my head.

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Current Mood:
Currently listening to: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes by TV on the Radio

Sealab 2021 is so poorly animated that, as an animator, I'm supposed to hate it. But it's so goddamn funny that I love it.

For me, good writing trumps bad production values everytime. The writing in Season Three isn't nearly as funny as the previous seasons, but it's still hilarious.

There's a great special feature on the DVD called "Stormy Waters: Pundit" where Sealab's resident retard breaks character and gives highly insightful commentary on American politics.

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Current Mood:
Currently listening to: Son by Jeff Hanson

Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story!
2005

You know what really grinds my gears? Being disappointed by something that I've been waiting for a long time... something that should be really freakin' sweet, but instead is really fucking lame.

The newest season of Family Guy has been awesome. Sure, each episode is just a series of raunchy jokes and random culture references strung along a ludicrous plotline, but they're 22 minutes of rapidfire gags that make me laugh so hard that I shoot milk out of my nose.

Sadly, the direct-to-video Family Guy movie, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story!, just lacks the breakneck pacing of the TV show to carry a full 90 minutes. Timing is everything, especially in comedy and in animation, and while the comedy is raunchier and the animation has slightly better production values, the timing of both are way off.

And the plot is just plain lame. It might've worked as a single TV episode, but it seems like Seth MacFarlane and his crew stretched one episode plot into three, and then slapped them together into a feature-length movie just so they could say "FUCK" with the being . I for one am a huge fan of profanity. I fucking love cussing. But hearing the Family Guy characters say "FUCK," especially Stewie, just doesn't seem justified in the context of the movie. One of the most groundbreaking aspects of the TV series is how blatantly they dance around the censors, but when they are uncensored, it just doesn't feel right.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the FG movie. Maybe my expectations were just too high. Maybe I'll enjoy it more when the DVD officially comes out in September, which I'll still prolly buy despite my disappointment.

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law
Volume 1

ing hilarious. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law is even better than Sealab 2021 (better animated and even funnier).

[watched with Evander Reeves while I fixed his laptop]