tagged w/ Animated Film
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Some supervillains can manipulate metal with their psychic powers, ripping gigantic bridges from their foundations and relocating them to a new spot. Others can hold entire cities hostage with their anarchic, psychotic behavior. And Others just want to pummel the living daylights out of their superhero enemies just for the hell of it. And then, there’s Gru.
Poor Gru. He wants to be a bad ass supervillain but he has yet to impress the authorities, his next door neighbors and even his mom. His accomplishments leave a lot to be desired. He pops children’s balloons and freezes everybody with his freezing gun at a coffee shop so he can cut in front of the line. His past misdeeds include stealing the Times Square Jumbotron and the Statue of Liberty…from a souvenir shop in Las Vegas. He is a good motivational speaker, though, sharing in grandiose terms his evil schemes with his minions: tiny yellow capsule-shaped one and two-eyed adorable creatures.
Gru now finds himself upstaged by Vector, a bratty supervillain who has stolen the Great Pyramid of Egypt. So, Gru concocts a bold, new plan: to steal the moon by shrinking it. To do so, he needs to secure a loan from the Bank Of Villains and in order to secure the loan he must steal a shrink gun being developed in China. Gru steals it to have it stolen from him by Vector. Could somebody please give Gru a break here?
With a title like “Despicable Me” you would expect Gru to be…well, quite despicable actually. But even the Uncle Fester-type design of the character gives away the fact that Gru is a villain with a heart of gold. So, it should not surprise anyone that, once he adopts a trio of girls to help him retrieve the gun from Vector’s highly secured lair, he will eventually succumb to their charms and his repressed fatherly instincts and give them the home and love they never knew.
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3 SHOTS
CAFE'S RATING SYSTEM:
FOUR SHOTS: The perfect brew
THREE SHOTS: A decent brew
TWO SHOTS: A weak brew
ONE SHOT: Tastes like tarSome supervillains can manipulate metal with their psychic powers, ripping gigantic... more
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“Western Spaghetti” is a classic, a tasty two-minute short film, with animation by PES and Javan Ivey. The film won awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the 2009 Annecy Animation Festival and was named #2 Viral Video of the Year by Time Magazine. Everyday objects become delicious ingredients as we learn how to cook spaghetti through stop-motion photography. It’s funny how truly mouth watering this film is, you can almost smell the fabric!
Includes color photographs and the acclaimed stop-motion animated short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/heres-another-helping-of-delicious-western-spaghetti/“Western Spaghetti” is a classic, a tasty two-minute short film, with... more
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“Yours Truly” is a truly amazing stop-motion animated eight-minute short film by the British animation genius, Osbert Parker. The film was nominated for Best Short Animated Film by BAFTA in 2008 and won the Best Short Film, British Animation Awards in 2008. Despite widespread critical acclaim, “Yours Truly” has not been available on DVD, nor accessible online until just now.
The film’s dark, hard-boiled plot builds upon both the atmosphere and characters of famous film-noir movies of the past. It’s a crazy combination of stop-motion, cut-out animation and live action that creates a new and strangely re-imagined mean streets of 1940’s Los Angeles, where animated photos of people get out of model cars then turn into real life actors. The impact of “Yours Truly” is so powerful that you won’t be able to take your eyes away from this wonderful world of shadows, guns, femmes-fatales, and love mixed with betrayal and murder. Try imagining Casablanca mixed with Double Indemnity on peyote, then shut your eyes and you’ll get the idea.
I double-dare you to watch this movie while eating a juicy bacon cheeseburger!!
This piece includes a number of color photographs, as well as the acclaimed short film.
Please visit my website to view the photographs, and to watch this gripping, surreal animated short:
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/yours-truly-the-ultimate-kiss-off-letter/“Yours Truly” is a truly amazing stop-motion animated eight-minute short... more
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“Stereoscope” (1999) is an award-winning animated short film by the Australian artist William Kentridge, with music by South African composer Philip Miller. The film is about the position of the privileged white artist in the midst of a political system that he rejects, but of which he’s s also part. It’s about both the white bureaucrat who’s greedy and rich, and the creative artist as stand-ins for aspects of Kentridge himself. Apartheid, a system of detestable oppression, formed him, supported him, and made him a famous artist. He refers to it as a rock that he carries within himself.
In “Stereoscope,” one of Kentridge’s strongest films, the cold bureaucrat Soho sits at his desk looking at a framed photograph of his wife, who comes to life and couples with her lover, Felix Teitelbaum, a creative sensual personality. Crowds gather outside Eckstein House, Soho’s office building, which eventually disintegrates in a cloud of charcoal dust. At the end, Soho stands all alone in a room, his head bowed. He cries himself a bright blue river that rises to his knees.
The blue water is flowing everywhere, he’s dejected. The blue water is cleansing, but his world has disintegrated. He knows he’s guilty, but he can’t deal with it. His whole world was numbers, control, greed, money and paper pushing. The message fuses hope and despair: Nothing is stable, all that is done can be undone.
“Stereoscope” premiered at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in April 1999 and was shown at the Venice Biennale 1999, and earned the Carnegie Medal at the Carnegie International 1999/2000. It was also awarded a Silver Spire (Television/The Arts), at the 2000 Golden Gate Awards, San Francisco.
This piece includes a number of color drawings from the film, as well as the acclaimed animated short film, “Stereoscope.”
Please visit my website to view the pictures, and to watch this very moving, award-winning short film:
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/stereoscope-the-irrationality-of-evil/“Stereoscope” (1999) is an award-winning animated short film by the... more
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The Decemberists have announced details about their forthcoming special project which they have dubbed, “Here Come The Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized“. The live experience will take place October 19 at UCLA’s Royce Hall in Los Angeles and will feature animated films accompanied by live music from the band.The Decemberists have announced details about their forthcoming special project which... more
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Jorge Carreon blogs “No bah humbug” here. A seasonal Personalities in Brief spotlights Disney’s pulling out the stops to spotlight its new “Christmas Carol” with an elaborate world premiere in London that will be open to the public.Jorge Carreon blogs “No bah humbug” here. A seasonal Personalities in... more
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Jorge Carreon blogs an animated edition of his Personalities in Brief column with a unique announcement from the Walt Disney Studios. The Mouse House is throwing its doors open to the public to celebrate its newest animated musical, “The Princess and the Frog."Jorge Carreon blogs an animated edition of his Personalities in Brief column with a... more
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It's an animated film in appearance, but in reality it is a rigorous documentary by Israeli director Ari Folman on the 1982 Lebanon war, in which he was a soldier, and the terrible massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. The title Waltz with Bashir comes from one of the episodes narrated in the film, an Israeli soldier who begins to fire on snipers moving as in a waltz in front of the giant poster of murdered Lebanese president, Bashir Gemayel.It's an animated film in appearance, but in reality it is a rigorous documentary... more
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Previously, you've seen recuts that bend a movie's genre by changing the music and sequencing, but this collection spotlights a different subset -- videos that use the audio from a contemporary movie trailer and mash it up with the visuals of a classic animated film. (See more at Urlesque!)Previously, you've seen recuts that bend a movie's genre by changing the... more
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“Green to Blue” is an animated short, which was named to the Top-Ten Shortlist of Friends of the Earth’s 2008 one-minute film competition. “Green to Blue” is a stop-motion animation that was made to promote global warming awareness. Elizabeth Klein, the film’s creator, explained that, “I made this stop motion to promote global warming awareness. Sometimes the simplest messages are the most powerful, so I’ve tried to present a child-like view of a serious problem.”
This piece includes pictures from the film, as well as the animated short, “Green to Blue.”“Green to Blue” is an animated short, which was named to the Top-Ten... more
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When you look inside the real Mac versus PC rivalry, you’ll see that it’s not like they show on TV!! Nope, not at all. That’s for darn sure. This short visual effects piece shows you what really goes on inside your home computers. You’ve got actual Robots down inside there, running all of those laptops and desktops. And when the real Mac versus PC face-off goes down, those Mac and PC Robots wanna beat the f**k out of each other. It’s the Ultimate Computer Robot Showdown! It’s War!!
Includes great photographs and the exciting animated short, “Mac versus PC.”When you look inside the real Mac versus PC rivalry, you’ll see that it’s... more
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A national outcry of public outrage has forced the Obama administration to take action on the large bonuses that AIG has given to a group of its executives. The bonuses that AIG has distributed went to the very group of employees whose risky trades brought the company to the brink of collapse. The whole debacle of the greed displayed by AIG, as well as by some large banks that recently received large sums of bailout money from the government, is reminiscent of the simultaneous collapse of both the French trading arm and royal bank in the early 1700s. That collapse has been described as “John Law and the Mississippi Bubble.”
Richard Condie’s 1978 animated short film, “John Law and the Mississippi Bubble,” offers up a history lesson about that sensational get-rich-quick scheme, which took place in France over 200 years ago. The film won the Best Film Award at the 1980 International Short Film Festival in Tampere, Finland. With economist John Law at the helm, the plan was to open a national French bank and exchange bank notes for gold at wildly inflated share prices to mask the fact that the country’s gold had been depleted in the building of Louis XIV’s palace. In the film, when the inevitable rush to cash in the notes takes place, poor John Law is left broke and broken-hearted. It was one of the most sensational get-rich-quick schemes heard of in a long time, but it eventually burst over the head of its originator, John Law. This “rags to riches to rags” story, where Law's bank exchangeed banknotes (paper!) for gold at wildly inflated share prices, ends when John Law, having been cleaned out as a result of a rush to cash in the notes, is left broke and broken-hearted.
This article includes pictures from the film, and Condie's award-winning animated short, “John Law and the Mississippi Bubble.”A national outcry of public outrage has forced the Obama administration to take action... more
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“Lavatory Love” is a 2009 Academy Awards nominee for Best Animated Short Film. The film is a minimalist animated short about a lonely middle-aged public toilet attendant who sits in her little booth day after day, collecting coins from the lavatory users while she reads the newspaper and fantasizes about the romantic lives that other people enjoy.
Secretly, she yearns for a man in her own life, someone who would love and comfort her. Unexpectedly, one day a small bouquet of flowers mysteriously appears in her money-jar. She suspects that her dreams about intimacy actually might come true after all, especially when more flowers continue to appear in the little glass jar. As the film follows the woman’s attempts to discover the identity of her secret admirer, it reveals the angst and sadness of a very lonely woman, as well as her transformation into a happy and joyful human being.
Photographs and this very memorable animated short film are included.“Lavatory Love” is a 2009 Academy Awards nominee for Best Animated Short... more
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But peoples, look at how big the boiling black pot is (at least that one in the foreground ). And scope out the poor freaked-out guy back there in the time capsule kind of thingee. Can you just imagine what he looked like 4 days ago when some peoples must have put him in there. Very, very curious. Seems like he didn’t expect the boiling or could be that the egg is something new to him. Or might be the hissing blue flame or the 5 scorpions crawling on the oven door. But this sure doesn’t look like a cook’s palace. Oh gosh…maybe it’s a meth lab, yeah what about a meth lab? No, I don’t think so, no meth lab. But it could be the scorpion things. Yeah, for sure he’d really like to get that egg outta’ there. ABOUT 28 MINUTES AGO!!
But those black shiny poisonous beetle-like/crustacean looking things are clearly a threat, real or not they’re a palpable deterrent for this guy. Or then again, it might be a meth lab, but that seems so outlandish. Sure does look sordid enough though. Could be a junkie down there passed out on the floor, that would kind of freeze you on the john for sure. Or even worse, maybe it’s his dear, sweet little old grandma and that nasty junkie there, maybe it’s both of them down there on the floor together. His un-live grandma twisted like a piece of blood-red velvet and the junkie bent double like a pipe. No, that’s not it at all. But whatever it is, we all hope to avoid this horrible kind of scene. But sir, you better run out of there fast, even with your pants down!!
A really, really weird photograph and the hilariously strange short film are included!!But peoples, look at how big the boiling black pot is (at least that one in the... more
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Young children three and four years-old, and many older children (as well as some teenagers), report having imaginary companions. Imaginary friends can provide emotional stability, feelings of competence and a sense of enhanced social perception.
But what happens to one’s imaginary friends when childhood imaginary companions fade away, are rejected or dismissed when real-world opportunities for social interaction become more available and appealing to the child? Where do the poor little imaginary friends go when they die? Are they really gone or dead, or are they still sadly hanging around down here, watching as the real world goes around and passes them by? The animated short film "An Imaginary Life" addresses that very question. At first, this film seems to be light-hearted and humorous, but the issues with which it deals are universally serious ones, matters of rejection, life and death.
This article includes a number of photographs and images, as well as the wonderful animated short film, “An Imaginary Life."Young children three and four years-old, and many older children (as well as some... more
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Just how far would you ride your bike to visit your old girlfriend, who might or might not want to see you? "The Bike Ride" tells the seemingly simple tale of one guy's long 50-mile bike journey to pay a surprise visit to his girlfriend. And indeed, she's very much taken by surprise! It's a dreamlike, dizzying head trip, which very sadly ends in heartbreak.
This piece includes great images, as well as the humorously bittersweet animation, "The Bike Ride."Just how far would you ride your bike to visit your old girlfriend, who might or might... more
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Yes indeedy, them Wall Street stocks have stormed back up!! Yep, and now those Wall Street brokers are charging speedily back to work, just as fast as they can. Yup, it's a real rat-race!! I gots a number of stunning photographs of 'em too. Plus an amazing animated short film of those little guys and gals dashing to work. I surely do.
Yep...just take yurselfs a little gander at this money-grubbin' spectakular!!Yes indeedy, them Wall Street stocks have stormed back up!! Yep, and now those Wall... more
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"The Dead" is an eloquent poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins, penned in commemoration of 9/11. It's also part of Collins' acclaimed animated action-poetry series, which was produced for the Sundance Channel.
This piece presents Collins' poem and a number of stunning images from the animation. In addition, it includes the remarkable, thought-provoking animated short film, "The Dead.""The Dead" is an eloquent poem by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins,... more
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At first, "Metamorphosis" seems like a beautiful, polished short-animation about little butterflies. However, before long the film's “stylish graphic design” facade falls away, revealing the acclaimed producer's own underlying imaginary, bizarre world of “life unto victimized death.”
This detailed article includes a number of very intriguing, surreal photographs and the very weird, must-see short animation film, "Metamorphosis."At first, "Metamorphosis" seems like a beautiful, polished short-animation... more
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"Little Dinosaurs" is an elegantly simple, award-winning animated short-film. Within a time-frame of 60-seconds, the film addresses important contemporary social issues at both practical and global levels. First, it speaks to the issue of bullying, which is currently a major concern for schools and communities in many countries. Secondly, it invokes thoughts about children working together and achieving a sense of unity. Finally, "Little Dinosaurs’" narrative can be abstracted to a global level, in particular to thoughts about the daunting present-day struggles to confront terrorism and tyranny.
The film's message on the world-wide issue is a declaration that, “If we don’t unite against tyranny, we will all be slaves to fear.”
This composition includes several colorful high-resolution images from the film, as well as the acclaimed, beautifully animated 60-second film, "Little Dinosaurs.""Little Dinosaurs" is an elegantly simple, award-winning animated... more
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